Adam Yamey's Blog: YAMEY, page 132

Point of departure

TORWOOD STREET RUNS downhill to the harbour of Torquay in Devon. This usually busy street is currently (March 2022) closed to vehicular traffic because it is undergoing repairs including resurfacing. During WW2, the street was resurfaced with concrete sufficiently strong to bear the weight of tanks and other heavy military vehicles that were making their way downhill to the harbour. One of our friends in Torquay told me that the current roadworks was partly to replace the concrete surface that was laid down in the 1940s. This US military equipment was on its way to the beaches of Normandy, where the invasion of German occupied France took place: the D Day Landings in 1944.

When these heavy vehicles reached the water’s edge, they had to be loaded onto boats. Concrete embarkation ramps were constructed in May 1943. They were used to load the equipment onto seagoing vessels in June 1944 to carry out Operation Overlord, which involved landing the US forces onto the Normandy coast. The concrete slipways, which have been preserved, were called ‘Embarkation Hards’. According to information displayed on a memorial close to the ‘hards’, the landing craft used in Operation Overlord operated a shuttle service between Torquay and the Normandy beaches. Soldiers of the 4th US Infantry Division, who embarked at Torquay, were amongst the 23000 troops who were landed at Utah Beach in Normandy. Along with them, 1700 tanks, guns, and trucks also arrived on that beach.

The ‘hards’, point of departure for Normandy, are not particularly attractive to look at, but they are an impressive souvenir of what was an important military operation, which in no little way helped to bring about the downfall of Hitler and the Nazi regime.

Docked in Dartmouth

MOSES AND HIS followers crossed the Red Sea without difficulty. However, things were not so simple when a group of people were trying to cross the Atlantic to enjoy freedom to worship as they wished without persecution in North America in 1620 during the reign of England’s King James I. These travellers. the Pilgrim Fathers, were English Protestants, Puritans who had been living in the Low Countries in Leiden but felt that conditions there had become unfavourable for them. As they did not expect to live safely in England, they bravely set forth to sail to the New World.

Bayards Cove

The Pilgrim Fathers and their families left Holland in the “Speedwell” (60 tons) and after crossing the North Sea, their ship was joined by the larger “Mayflower” (180 tons), which was carrying Puritans fleeing from London. While heading west, the boats headed into trouble. On about the 23rd of August 1620, the two ships slipped furtively into Dartmouth in Devon and lay at anchor near to the town’s Bayards Cove, close to where today a small ferry carries vehicles and pedestrians across the River Dart between Dartmouth and Kingswear. The secrecy was necessary because as Puritans, the passengers risked punishment in England.  They remained moored there until about the 31st of August while leaks on the “Speedwell” were being repaired.

After leaving Dartmouth to continue their voyage westwards, the “Speedwell” began leaking again. About 300 miles west-south-west of Lands’ End, the “Speedwell” had become almost unseaworthy. The boats returned to England, docking at Plymouth in Devon. There, the “Speedwell” was abandoned, and the “Mayflower” set sail for America with 102 passengers. The boat reached the harbour of Cape Cod in Massachusetts on the 21st of November 1620.

Although Plymouth is the place from which the Puritans finally left England, the point in the port from which they set off would now be unrecognisable to the Pilgrim Fathers were they able to see it. In contrast, although some of the buildings near Bayards Cove in Dartmouth have been built since the Pilgrim Fathers stopped there briefly, there remain sights that have not changed significantly since 1620.

397 Spanish prisoners held in in Torquay

FOR PERSONAL REASONS King Henry VIII dissolved all the monasteries and similar establishments in England during the 16th century. Many of their buildings were destroyed or left to disintegrate. Their lands were sold or given to new owners. Some of them incorporated the remains of the monastic structures that they had acquired into new buildings. A good example of this can be seen in Devon’s Torquay. It is the remains of Torre Abbey.

The abbey was founded by members of the Premonstratensian Order in 1196. By the time of the Dissolution in 1536, Torre Abbey was the wealthiest of the houses of the Order in Britain. In 1539, the monastery was given over to one of King Henry VIII’s commissioners. After that, the first leaseholder of the former abbey and its lands was the lawyer Sir Hugh Pollard (?1498-?1576). What was left of the monastic buildings was incorporated into a large house built for Thomas Ridgeway. After several others had owned the property, it came into the hands of the Cary family in 1662. In 1740, the residential building was remodelled in the Georgian style, which is what can be seen today. This family retained ownership of the abbey remains, the house, and its lands, until 1930, when a member of the family sold them to Torquay Borough Council. Since then, the house has been used for municipal administrative purposes and during WW2, it was occupied by the RAF.

Near to the main house, there is a large, intact tithe barn. This was constructed in about 1300. In the summer of 1588, the Spanish sent a large fleet, the Armada, to invade England with the intention of restoring the Roman Catholic religion in what had become a Protestant country. The Spanish failed miserably, and many of them became prisoners of war. Francis Drake (c1540-1596) forced one of the Spanish vessels to surrender and as a result captured 397 Spanish prisoners. They were held in the tithe barn for 23 days before they were transferred to Exeter. As a result of this, the barn is now known as The Spanish Barn. during WW2, the RAF used it as a gymnasium. Now, the barn is hired out for weddings and other special occasions.

The remains of the abbey, the barn, and the house built within the abbey ruins, overlook a park, a small golf course, and a few yards away, the waves in Tor Bay. The abbey grounds are a short walk from the commercialised harbour area in the centre of Torquay, and provide a pleasant contrast to the latter.

A stitch in time

ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER, the author, should not be confused with Isaac Merritt Singer (1811-1875), the American born inventor of a successful version of the sewing machine. By 1862, he had fathered 18 children with several different women. In 1862, Isaac and his second wife, Isabella Eugénie (née Boyer), shifted from the USA to Europe because of his scandalous reputation in the States. They lived in Paris until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Then, they moved to England with their six children. For reasons connected with its mild climate, the family moved to the Torbay area in early 1872. By then, he had already purchased the Fernham Estate in Paignton, next to Torquay.

Oldway Mansion, (Paignton) Torquay

Singer and his family squeezed into Little Oldway, a villa on the estate, which had been built in about 1850. Next, he commissioned the architect George Soudon Bridgman (1839-1925) to help him design his ‘dream house’, the basis for the present grandiose Oldway Mansion, and the neighbouring circular building, the Rotunda. The latter was designed for stabling and as an exercise pavilion. The house was completed by the end of 1875.

What we see today is not what Isaac would have seen when the edifice was completed. Between 1904 and 1907, Paris Singer (1867-1932), one of Isaac and Isabella’s sons, who had bought the mansion from the Singer Trustees in 1893, made major changes to its appearance. He engaged two French men, the garden designer Achille Duchêne (1866 — 1947) and his father Henri, to design his new home, the present Oldway Mansion. His aim was to create an edifice inspired by the Palace of Versailles. The reconstructed (remodelled) mansion is a magnificent imitation of a French palace in the style of that which can be seen at Versailles. It incorporates decorative features copied from notable buildings in France. Its interior, which I was unable to see, is grandiose and includes fine paintings and a reproduction of the Hall of Mirrors.

In 1917, after having had an affair with the dancer Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) in 1917, Paris moved to the USA for tax reasons. After having been used for various purposes, Paignton Urban District Council bought the property from the Singer family. Currently, the building is mostly disused apart from a small, but pleasant café. Its formal gardens are well-maintained, but the mansion and the Rotunda are in need of maintenance. Oldway Mansion looks rather like an  abandoned  Russian aristocrat’s palace many years after the Revolution.

In Glastonbury Abbey

In this spot lay

King Arthur and his Guinevere

Still and peacefully

A post office and an abdication

BRADFORD-ON-AVON is a charming old-fashioned town in Wiltshire. It straddles the River Avon, which flows through Bath and Bristol. Its Town Bridge is not only old (construction includes some 14th century structure) but also it has a small building on it. This was originally a chapel but became used as a lock-up in the 17th century. Also of interest is the Roman Catholic church of St Thomas More, which is unusual in that it is housed on the first floor of what had once been the Town Hall (built 1854).

Despite the many old and attractive buildings in the town, what interested me most was the old post office. It stands in the picturesque Shambles, which used to be the part of the town dedicated to slaughtering animals and butchering. Compared to many of its neighbours, it is a relatively modern building; it was built in 1899 (www.bradfordonavonmuseum.co.uk/post). It was designed by William Henry Stanley. Then, in 1935 it was enlarged. By the time the new extension was complete, King Edward VIII had ascended to the Throne. What makes it most interesting and unusual is that it bears the monogram of King Edward VIII and the date 1936.

King Edward VIII, who succeeded King George V, reigned from the 20th of January 1936 until he abdicated on the 11th of December 1936. As is well-known, he gave up the throne to marry the American divorcée Mrs Wallis Simpson. What is less well-known is that few, only of a handful of, new post offices were opened in Edward’s brief reign (http://britishpostofficearchitects.weebly.com/bradford-on-avon.html), and Bradford-on-Avon’s extended branch was one of them.

I first spotted the Edward VIII monogram when we visited the town about 20 years ago. Then the post office in the Shambles was still in use. About 5 years ago, this special post office closed. It now operates from within a Co-Op supermarket in the town. However, the old office is now a protected building. The monogram remains but the building is now home to various shops.

Buried in Bath

THE WALLS OF Bath Abbey are lined with memorials to the dead, many of whom are buried within the church. A remarkably large percentage of the funerary memorials commemorate the lives of people who worked in Britain’s colonies. There are monuments to people who lived and worked in the Caribbean, North America, and Asia, especially for the East India Company, which ‘ran’ and exploited India until 1858.

For example, Francis Mure Esq worked for many years in the civil service of “the Honourable the East India Company on the Bengal Establishment”. He died in Bath in 1810 aged 53. Henry Lynch Esq MD “of the island of Barbadoes” died in Bath in 1823, aged 49. Also from this place in the Caribbean was Benjamin Alleyne Cox Esq who died in Bath in 1802 aged 74.   In 1812, 78-year-old Rawson Hart Boddam also died in Bath, after having served as the Governor of Bombay in 1784. Robert Brooke Esq, who had served in the Bengal Civil Service died in 1843 aged 72 is also interred in Bath Abbey. Peter Read Cazalet, “of the Honourable East India Madras Civil Service”, who died in 1859, aged 37, is yet another old ‘India hand’, who is buried in Bath. Also in the abbey are the remains of Major General Sir Henry White KCB, part of whose inscription reads chillingly like some of the news bulletins in the current Ukraine crisis: “The judicious Position taken by his Division in the Attack on Agra Which accelerated its fall And the Reduction of The Strong Hill Fort at Gwalior By Siege Are Proofs of Zeal and Military Skill…” He died in 1822.

What puzzled me was why did so many of these men from the colonies ended their lives in Bath. Was it because they were sick and had come to the place to take the curative spa waters, which failed to cure them? Or had they retired to Bath? Or, as someone suggested, Bath is close to Bristol, which was in many ways involved with colonial affairs.

The answers to these questions must remain uncertain at present. However, I wondered why the wealthy American Senator William Bingham died in Bath in 1804, aged 49. He was involved with the Barings Brothers bank in London, which might have been a reason for him being in England at the time of his death. He left for England in 1801, when his wife was taken ill. What he was doing in Bath remains unclear.

Amongst the many fascinating memorials in the Abbey are several commemorating people who died abroad. Some of these people had been in India when their lives ended. An interesting example of this, which illustrates the hazards of warfare and the difficulties in subduing people, who have no wish to be colonized, is the monument to 1st Lieutenant George Dobson Willoughby, of the Bengal Artillery and the Commisary of Ordnance at Delhi, who died in 1857. His inscription includes the following details: “As a brave and zealous soldier he stood firm in the defence of the post intrusted to him, and when resistance failed blew up the Delhi Magazine on 11: May 1857 to prevent it falling into the hands of the mutineers and rebels. Burnt and wounded he subsequently fell a prey to the insurgents …”

Maybe, this is a lesson from which the dutiful Russian soldiers in Ukraine should take heed.

Ship to shore: a church in Kensington

I HAVE PASSED IT innumerable times since I began living in the area (Kensington) almost 30 years ago. It has always intrigued me, but it has taken until now (March 2022) for me to decide to find out about it. I am referring to a small brick building located near Westbourne Grove on the south side of Chepstow Villas between Pembridge Place and Chepstow Place. Bearing a copper dome surmounted by a cross, it was built as a church. That much is obvious, but even its name has disappeared from its exterior.

A rapid search of the Internet has revealed that the building was constructed as The Kensington New Church. Although it looks much older, it was completed in 1925. It was affiliated to the General Conference of the New Church, which was founded in London in 1787 (https://kensingtonnewchurch.wordpress.com/). This branch of the Christian church is inspired by the theological concepts laid out by the Swedish scientist and philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). According to Wikipedia, in 1744, he had a divine revelation. It seems that he believed that Jesus Christ had given him the task of writing “The Heavenly Doctrine”, a work that was aimed at reforming Christianity. for more details, please refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg#Theology.

In about 2020, the Kensington New Church building ceased to belong to the General Conference. By September 2020, it had been purchased by a branch of the Greek Orthodox Church (http://pembridgeassociation.london/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PA-Newsletter-Sept-20.pdf). Currently, it looks disused and is locked up. This is a pity because when it was built its walls were lined with walnut wood panelling from an interesting source. It was salvaged from the Cunard liner RMS Mauretania, when it was dismantled in 1935 (for details, see: https://kensingtonnewchurch.wordpress.com/the-building/the-mauretania-wood/). So, it can be seen that the panelling was literally ‘from ship to shore’. I hope that whatever happens to the former church will include the preservation of this souvenir of a liner, which in 1907, made the eastbound crossing of the Atlantic at record speed on its maiden voyage, earning it the Blue Riband award for highest average speed.  

Brothers in art

RECENTLY, WE DROVE to Southend-on-Sea in Essex to see an exhibition, “Brothers in Art”, at the town’s superb Beecroft Art Gallery. There, we enjoyed visiting a temporary exhibition of the paintings of two artists, about whom we knew nothing: the brothers Walter (1908-1997) and Harold (1911-1971) Steggles. They were members of the East London Group of artists, East End workers who created and exhibited together between 1928 and 1936. Influenced by the artists John Albert Cooper (1894-43) and Walter Sickert (1860-1942), the group produced pictures that often-depicted everyday scenes and mundane sites in a joyful way.

The Steggles were born in Ilford (east London), sons of the manager of a high-class footwear store in London’s Strand. They were not born into a family that had any history of artistic talents. At an early age, the brothers began visiting art exhibitions, including, in 1925, one at the Bethnal Green Men’s Institute Art Club at the Bethnal Green Museum. This led them to join the art classes there. Walter was 17 and Harold was 14. Unhappy with the classes at Bethnal Green, they joined the art classes conducted by John Cooper at the Bromley & Bow Institute. He encouraged the brothers to paint scenes near the institute. Soon they became members of the East London Group.

In 1928, the Group held an exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The brothers exhibited several of their paintings at this prestigious public art venue. Many influential members of the art scene attended the show, one of them being the then director of the Tate Gallery. Several of the brothers’ paintings at the exhibition were acquired by the Tate.

The East End Group also held regular exhibitions at the Lefevre Gallery in London’s West End. The gallery, which existed from 1926 until 2002, represented leading artists including, to mention only a few, Seurat, Matisse, Degas, Picasso, Dali and Kandinski. The two brothers:

“… found themselves part of a cosmopolitan artistic milieu that included Ben Nicholson, Charles Ginner, Philip Wilson Steer, George Braque and Raoul Dufy … Before long they found themselves sought after by other galleries and Harold became a protégé of the flamboyant aesthete Eddie Marsh who lived near his office in Gray’s Inn as well as accepting a prestigious commission from Villiers David to paint the gentlemen’s clubs of St James.” (https://spitalfieldslife.com/2017/07/26/harold-walter-steggles-artists/).

Harold recalled that the first picture he sold was bought by the highly influential art dealer Sir Joseph Duveen (1869-1939) and was hung at the Tate Gallery in 1929. In 1936, Walter had one of his paintings exhibited in the Venice Biennale.

Walter and Harold sold their paintings and became prosperous enough to buy a car. This allowed them to make forays into East Anglia where they painted things they saw.  Some of these East Anglian scenes were on display at the exhibition in Southend alongside their paintings of sights in London; many of these places have disappeared since WW2.  Both Walter and Harold were commissioned by the Shell petrol company to create posters. These display places in England, beautifully depicted. Several of these were also on display.

Even though the brothers were successful as artists, they had to continue working in non-artistic jobs to gain a sufficient income. When Walter retired, he was able to concentrate fully on painting.

With the death of John Cooper in 1943, the East End Group declined and the works it had created faded from the artistic world’s limelight. What the group created was not as excitingly innovative as the art produced by the now better-known artists, some of which I mentioned above. However, the work of the Group and, in particular, of the Steggle brothers is of high quality and very pleasing aesthetically. It was well worth trekking out to Southend to see their paintings.

A gothic church for the poor next to a canal

SPIRAL RAMPS LEAD up to the Ha’penny Bridge, which allows pedestrians to cross the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, where it runs between Delamere Terrace on one bank and Blomfield Road on the opposite one. A few yards west of the bridge and south of the waterway, there is a Victorian gothic church with a tall tower decorated with layers of red brickwork separated by layers of white masonry and topped with a white spire. It is St Mary Magdalene’s church.

The church was designed by George Edmund Street (1824-1881) and completed in 1878. It was built in what was then an area with poor quality housing, where several hard-up families lived crowded together under one roof. The parish in which it is located began life as an offshoot of All Saints in Margaret Street (near Oxford Circus). Like All Saints, St Mary Magdalene’s was established as an Anglo-Catholic church. Its website, grandjunction.org.uk, revealed that Anglo-Catholicism:

“… emphasises the Catholic heritage and identity of the Church of England. In the mid-nineteenth century Anglo-Catholicism was very controversial and provoked riots. Anglo-Catholic churches were often built in very poor areas, and their clergy believed that their services, full of light, colour, music and ritual, were likely to appeal to the poor.”

Like All Saints Margaret Street, the interior of St Mary Magdalene’s is a masterpiece of Victorian gothic extravaganza, a riot of colour. The nave has a magnificent painted ceiling which includes faces of various saints. This was painted by Daniel Bell, a Victorian artist. Sculptures of saints carved by Thomas Earp (1823-1893) look down on the nave. The floor of the vast nave is decoratively tiled. Street did not believe in fixed pews such as are found in many other Victorian churches and were rented out to parishioners to raise money. He believed in ‘free seating’, especially in a church like St Mary Magdelene’s that was built to serve the poor. The apse is unusual in that it is polygonal, reminiscent of apses that the widely travelled Street had seen in French and Flemish churches.

An unusual feature of this out of the ordinary church is that although the nave is flanked by a south and a north aisle, the latter is barely wide enough to accommodate one person, whereas the south one is almost as wide as the nave. The reason for the narrow north aisle was related to building regulations in force when the church was being constructed.

If it is open, and it was when I visited the church, it is worth entering the undercroft. This area beneath the church is flanked on its south side by a chapel that was undergoing restoration in February 2022. This is the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre created to commemorate the church’s founder and first vicar Fr Richard Temple West (1827-1893). Containing much decorative artwork and resembling a mediaeval chantry chapel, it was created by the architect Ninian Comper (1864-1960).

Outside the church, there is a WW1 memorial, added by Martin Travers in 1929. It is a gold-coloured crucifixion with a stone base on which are inscribed the Latin words “Infinitum est”, which is neither classical nor biblical; it means ‘It is not finished’, which are ominous words on a war memorial and are most portentous on a memorial to the first of (so far) two world wars.

Added on to the west end of the church, there is a modern extension, which houses a pleasant refreshment outlet called the Grand Junction Café. This is a good place to rest for a while after the excitement of seeing inside the spectacular church.