Another Palazzo Building

In Cambrian Place, Swansea another example of the Palazzo style , called Pembroke Buildings. Again 3 storeys with 5 bays. However unlike the others in Aberdare and Cardiff this has a portico to the main entrance.

Designed by architect H C Portsmouth the building has Portland stone below and Bath stone above. Early twentieth century.

Windsor Place, Cardiff

Windsor Place Victorian terrace

 

According to Newman, the most complete C19 terraces to survive in Cardiff (p217). Although not built until the mid nineteenth century these buildings have a strong Georgian feel with their beautiful red brick façade. Period features include the prominent cornice below the plain parapet, tall ground and mid floor windows and string course between them. Perhaps less characteristic of the Georgian style are the raised mouldings around the windows.

Swansea University Campus

W front of Singleton Abbey

 

The campus of Swansea University contains an interesting array of buildings covering 200 years of architecture. The oldest structure, built-in 1784, is Singleton Abbey which was purchased in 1817 by John Vivian.  As owner of the copper smelting works at Hafod, his family provided Swansea with one of its main industries in the nineteenth century. Vivian altered the house in the 1820's so that it followed a Tudor neo classical style. Note the mullion and transom windows, the polygonal buttresses  and creatures scrabbling about on the gables.




Library 1937

In 1921 Singleton Abbey became the administrative centre of the then new University College. The first permanent university building was the library opened in 1937, made of brick with Portland stone. It has certain classical elements such as the cornice and frieze and the simple geometry of the windows. (It obviously lacks other classical features such as columns). 

 

Because of the war, work stopped on the campus and the next set of buildings were not constructed until the late 1950's. These include the Natural Science building, completed in 1961 and which is now  listed. Although moving further away from classicism it echoes the library in its shape and colours of the window surrounds and brickwork.

Designed by the same architectural firm of Percy Thomas the Fulton building is another grade II listed building. With large expanses of glazing it is built around a concrete frame and faced with brick.

 

Opened in 1984 the Taleisin  theatre and art gallery continues with the brick but the shape is polygonal and utilitarian. It was designed by Peter Moro who is famous for other theatres such as the Nottingham Playhouse.



Moro came to Britain from Germany and worked for 2 years under Berthold Lubetkin, a notable modernist architect. He went on to work on the Royal festival Hall and designed other theatres in Hull and Plymouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Midland (now HSBC) Bank, Aberdare

The grand Palazzo ex  Midland Bank with National School in foreground of about the same period

Following on from the previous post of the old NatWest bank in Cardiff, this is another bank built in the palazzo style, but this time in Aberdare. The proportions are similar with three stories and five sets of windows on each floor and was built in the same year, 1857. Unlike the Cardiff bank,  this building has a façade of imported stone with Bath stone ashlar and grey Newbridge stone.

This bank was designed by Bristol architect, William Gingell who co-incidentally worked with T R Lysaght, the architect who designed the Cardiff building.

Rock faced dressed stone on the façade of the old Midland Bank

Old Nat West Bank, St Mary's Street.Cardiff

 

 

 

Described by Newman (1995) as a five bay Palazzo front designed in 1857 by Thomas Lysaght. Probably influenced by the English architect Charles Barry who helped revive interest in  Italianate architecture during the early Victorian period. Palazzo basically means like a palace or grand residence typically found in Venice. The quoins (cornerstones) and arches of the windows are heavily vermiculated.

 

 

 

 

 





 

Vermiculation refers to the wavy patterns on the quoins and arches that appear to be like worm casts. The key stones for these arches are taken by occupied by dramatic bearded heads.

 

 

Newman, J. 1995 The Buildings of Glamorgan Yale

Iron Church

St Matthew, Abernant

                      




Corrugated iron first patented in 1829 soon became the material of choice for prefabricated buildings throughout Britain and the Empire. By the 1850's specialist companies produced catalogues advertising a wide range of buildings for use in farming, mining, railway and manufacturing  industries as well as residential cottages, village halls, boat houses, billiard rooms and churches and chapels.

Corrugated iron buildings provide us with a reminder of the  speed of the industrial revolution, with fluid labour markets willing to travel to find work, causing massive social change. As a result settlements near the new industrial centres needed buidlings that could be quickly and cheaply erected. Buildings like this church would have been delivered to the nearest railway station and erected using relatively unskilled labour.

This church, from 1888, was built around a timber frame and lined with timber tongue and groove boards for the walls and ceiling. It cost £254 to build. The only indicator from the outside that this is a religious building is the use of  arched lights in the upper part of the wooden windows on the side walls.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/making_history/making_history_20061205.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_tabernacle#Examples_in_Wales

Also Jones, A.V (2012) Churches of the Cynon Valley  Dinefwr Press

Original terraced house

Interior with fire place and solid stairs

Last year one of the last unmodernised south wales valley cottages was bought by Cadw. Situated in Cwmdare, the house has its original windows, slate roof and range. 


House front

Dating from 1854 the building has  a certain charm, you can clearly see the construction of local stone with large dressed corner stones and rubble infill. The well proportioned sash windows are topped by shallow arched brick lintels and the cills are made of slabs of stone. The front door is also very plain and honest in its construction. The roof is slate and the chimney stack survives.

Cadw has described what it is doing with the building below
Many people recognise the importance of listed buildings and conservation areas and understand that care must be taken to ensure that traditional materials are used in their repair and maintenance. However, many of buildings in the south Wales Valleys have suffered decades of alterations which mean the distinctiveness of our Valleys towns is at risk of being diluted or lost completely.

The Cadw building will also become a learning resource for those who work or live in traditional Valleys housing in Wales. The project aims to promote understanding of the importance of retaining the character and history of Valleys housing. It will also provide practical advice on technical issues such as thermal performance to demonstrate that keeping original features in good repair really does pay, environmentally and economically.

http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/about/news/6456503/?lang=en

Pontypridd Station

Egyptian revival

Described by Cadw as being built in the free Egyptian revival style of architecture, from 1907. Here the recently renovated station canopy with its cast iron supports provides a wonderful contrast to the patterned red brick and terracotta decoration of the building itself.

Terracotta and brick detailing
 

http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/34863/details/PONTYPRIDD+RAILWAY+STATION,+TAFF+VALE+RAILWAY,+HIGH+STREET,+PONTYPRIDD/

Signs of the times

Old street sign

Looking around Aberdare its actually quite hard to find older styles of lettering. Apart from words actually carved into buildings or tomb stones, street signs are one of the few remnants of what would have been at one time ubiquitous.

These appear to be cast signs and are still quite common apart from, ironically,  the conservation area of the town where they must have been removed some 20 years ago. The typography here is of varied line width and characterised by serifs with brackets. The gaps betwen the letters are not entirely regular.

Pressed steel sign

 

This sign still has something of the shape of the older ones with its indented corners and raised border. The letters are however all sans serif without any variation in line width or spacing.

Modern sign
 

This modern sign, I'm not sure what its made of, is free standing but has an interesting typeface with very fine angled serifs and subtle variation in line thickness.

Bench decoration in Commercial Street
 

The most modern lettering in the town (in that they were only put up a week ago) belongs to these benches which are each decorated with 2 letters, together spelling out the phrase, ABERDARE QUEEN    THE VALLEYS. (The bench with the OF is missing at present) The letters are all upper case and decorated top and bottom with wavy lines. They have bracketted serifs and appear very similar to Times New Roman, which you can probably find a version of on your computer.

A bit like this    E

Architectural Terracotta

YMCA Building, Merthyr

South Wales has a number of terracotta buildings, including the derelict YMCA building in Merthyr. This was voted by the Victorian Society as being in the top 10 of threatened old buildings in the UK in 2011. Meanwhile the nearby Town Hall, another terracotta gem, is being lovingly restored to create a new centre for arts and culture.

Terracotta was widely used by the Victorians and Edwardians to decorate buildings, perhaps the most recognisable building in Wales being the Pierhead Building in Cardiff Bay. Terracotta is made from high quality ground clay and sand which is cast in moulds and then heated at very high temperatures. William Morris apparently recognised architectural terracotta as a craft process, hence the term 'hand made buildings'.

Information about architectural terracotta can be found at http://ihbc.org.uk/context_archive/52/UNDERSTANDING_dir/UNDERSTANDING_s.htm

More about this building in particular is at http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/ymcabuilding.htm


 

Windows

This house was highlighted in the Aberdare townscape survey as having extravagant render detailing and being an example of the late nineteenth century trend towards middle class homes with bay windows. http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/docs/cadw/publications/urban_character_aberdare_EN.pdf
Unfortunately over zealous repairs to the bay window roof led to the collapse of the bay and its replacement with a plastic one.

This is a perfect example of the gradual loss of the small details that help make buildings and towns distinctive. Each change is small and relatively insignificant but the small changes add up so that soon it becomes impossible to find original features like doors and windows. Interestingly the  bays and other detailing on this terrace are actually made from cast stone. They were probably bought from a catalogue as there are identical bays in nearby Abernant.



 

The Welsh Cottage

'The Welsh Cottage, Building Traditions of the Rural Poor 1750-1900' Eurwyn William 2010. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales(NMW)

This book by Eurwyn William 
'..is about the homes of the rural poor in wales during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and in particular the materials and techniques used to build them.' (p8)

Nantwallter Cottage at St Fagan's Museum. A 'clom' house made with walls of earth, dated from the 1770s.

Much of the evidence used in the book is that of the buildings themselves, based on surveys undertaken in the 1970's. The introduction looks at other sources of evidence such as writings by contemporary commentators, other books and research, drawings, paintings and photographs.

Chapter 2 is concerned with the history of settlement patterns in Wales with an overview of where people lived, (mainly in the lowlands but higher up than now, in periods of climatic warmth), types of tenure, including inheritance traditions and the rise of estates, enclosures and squatters concluding with the relationship of the rural populations to that of the new industrial settlements.

Chapter 3 provides an introduction to vernacular architecture and the history of gentry and farm house designs. Then the term cottage is defined followed by a lengthy discussion of the 'ty unnos' or 'one night house'. This is followed by an account of the plan type and the gradual introduction in the C19th of larger buildings making use of the new readily available materials of brick, slate and sawn imported timber.

Chapter 4 is about walls and the types of materials used including stone, mortar, earth and turf, timber, bricks, doors and windows.

Chapter 5 is about roofs with an extensive introduction to thatch including the historical distribution of different thatch styles. This is followed by a look at underthatch techniques including heather, straw rope and gorse. Other materials such as stone and later quarried slates are discussed as are chimneys which were often made of wicker.

Chapter 6 is about interiors, namely the floors and fireplaces etc.

Chapter 7 looks at the builders themselves and the life styles of the cottage dwellers.

The final chapter starts by discussing why these  humble cottages have failed to attract listed status and why so few survive.  It challenges the assumption that because these buildings were made from inferior materials that they were badly made which is why they have all but disappeared. The author instead favours the argument that these buildings have suffered from the vagaries of fashion in that the cottagers wanted more space and better facilities such as water and sanitation, in the same way that present day farmers are abandoning older farmhouses to build new bungalows.

Then the discussion changes to look what has happened to the buildings

'What pleasanter sight is there than a bright green or heather-blue hillside dotted with little white cottages, sparkling in the sun? Alas, too many of them now have breeze-block extensions, flat-roofed garages and picture windows, making them appear no longer comfortable and natural but brash and in conflict with their environment.' p255   

And then to look at how the more primitive building techniques of the past can provide valuable lessons for the future.

'Today we reuse little, and dispose of much. This is in total contrast with the past....Few cottages required the use of fossil fuels to manufacture their components; hardly any required transport of materials over longg distances or by any means other than by human or animal labour....Nothing was utilised that might cause pollution; no toxic exterior paints, no plastics, no asbestos.' p257

'Sustainable living in rural ares today can only happen on a demonstrable scale, perhaps, when it again becomes fashionable to think that less is more, and that happiness is not bought by the possession of worldly goods.' p258

William recognises that these modern middle class concerns of low impact sustainable living are in effect being lived out by the present poorest of the worlds population who are still dependant on nature and live in ephemeral homes that are built and maintained through communal effort. However he maintains that climate change will force a return to more low impact and communal living, and says these approaches and traditions may return.

Houelt Cross

Inside Llantwit Major Church is this fine Celtic Cross with a disc head.
'The disc has a cross with square ends and a central square, with diagonal patterning, and a ring whose arcs have a twist decoration.'

Carved from one piece of stone this a very precise work of art. It is truly beautiful but lacks the charm of the cartwheel stones in Margam museum

Stones Museum, Margam

Cross of Cynfelin in background, cart wheel crosses on left

Set on two levels in an old school, the stones museum at Margam is a collection of inscribed and sculptured stones from the area between Port talbot and Bridgend. They range from a Roman milestone to a Tudor tomb-cover, but the highlight, seen here at the back, is the tenth century Cross of Cynfelin.
My favourites however were two of the wheel crosses called Ilci and Ilquici which for a time served as a footbridge over a stream.

Ilci and Ilquici

 Although its lovely to see all these stones together and admire the skill and ingenuity of their creators part of me(the romantic bit) would still like to 'discover' them forming part of another structure or perhaps just visible beneath a tangle of brambles, preferably covered in a layer of  lichen.

They are all truly beautiful objects because they are irregular and imperfect. This is demonstrated by this wonderful cart wheel cross originally from near the railway station in Port Talbot.

Cartwheel cross

  Its not exactly round so it wouldn't make a very good wheel but it is definitely a cart wheel and it fits the stone its on and its the best part of a thousand years old. What more could you want from any sculpture?

Ewenny Priory Church

Nave with pulpitum screen. Stained glass by Alexander Beleschenko 2006

I always forget how much I like the proportions used by the Normans until I come across a place like this.  The solidity of the round pillars and the curve of the arches combined with the simplicity of the decoration create a sublime aesthetic. It makes gothic look old and fussy while this feels (ironically) modern.

The Priory Church is well documented and there is an excellent guide book for sale by Philip Morris. Complete with plans, old and new photos, as well as the painting of the south transept by Turner this publication is a very well thought out and pleasing guide. Ewenny was a Benedictine Priory founded '..as a daughter house of St. Peter's Abbey, Gloucester (now Gloucester Cathedral)..'(Morris p5). The church would have served both the monks who used the presbytery and transepts while local parishioners worshipped in the nave. Following dissolution while the monastic parts of the Priory changed hands and were allowed to fall into disuse, the nave remained as the local parish church. 'The Priory passed by marriage in the 18th century to the Picton-Turbervill family, who still own the  monastic end, though in the guardianship of CADW,...The nave is in the possession of the Church in  Wales and is still used as the parish church of Ewenny. (Morris p8)

Tomb slab of Maurice de Londres

The south transept holds a collection of stone carvings including the 'Beautiful and well-preserved tomb-slab..' of Maurice de Londres 'Foliate cross in relief, stiff-leaf on the chamfered edge and the crisply incised inscription in French: Here lies Maurice de Londres, the founder.May God reward him for  his labour.''(Newman p346). Contrasting bravely with these ancient sculptures is the modern stained glass by Beleschenko, '..the highly - acclaimed Swansea- based international artist..' (Morris p13)

Welsh St. Donats

Welsh St Donats

An attractive small church with solid tower in a very large graveyard. The church is accessed through the village, and there is a farm and farmland adjacent. The tower is battered in the lower half and appears to widen towards the top half with its large corbelled battlements, so that it appears almost curved with a slight waist. The church was locked on my visit.

The church was restored in 1891 and interestingly this is the date stamped into the entrance gate. Other evidence of the restoration work is in the replacement windows such as this one on the south side of the nave.

1891 Three light window

Other more recent work includes re pointing work on the tower which has been done using lime mortar in its lower half. The older mortar above gives the tower a distinctive two tone appearance.

Recent pointing below string course

Pendoylan Church

View of church from SE, cottages of 1817 in background

Much restored in 1855 and tower rebuilt in 1893. The church is situated next to the main road in a large church yard with 2 large yews. Evidence of older church in chancel arch with '..characteristic late Perp imposts, alternating shafts and hollows under an embattled cap.' Newman,J. 1995, p500

Late perpendicular impost to chancel arch

1855 foliage corbel, each one is different

Contrast this with the corbel foliage carving of 1855.

Pendoylan information sheet

Llanblethian Church

Three staged tower with diagonal buttresses

On the southern outskirts of Cowbridge this church commands a fine position over the village of Llanblethian across the valley from Quentin's Castle. The tower dates from 1477 and is well proportioned and striking.

The church guide says 'The pulpit which was installed in 1896 as part of the church restoration is of an unusual design (and not to everybody's liking). It is made from Penarth alabaster, red Forest Of Dean stone and Quarella stone from Bridgend. The columns are of red Irish marble.'

Fowler designed pulpit

In contrast to this is a plain medieval tub shaped font, '..solidly carved in Sutton stone.'

Medieval tub font

As well as these there are anumber of other fine stone carvings including figures adorning the corbels of the tower entrance from the nave and a lovely cherub head on a monument in the porch.

Corbel sculpture

Corbel sculpture

Angel head in porch

 Also in the churchyard to the north a monument with 'Gill-like. Stylized trees...' Newman,J(1995)p372

Oak leaf pattern on head stone 1943

Llanfrynach Church(Near Cowbridge, Glamorgan)



General view of church with ascending large sycamores

This church is a hidden gem nestled in a hollow behind tall trees immediately to the west of Cowbridge. There are no other buildings nearby and can be accessed either by a sunken lane or public footpaths. There is only one recently planted yew and much of the churchyard is taken up by wet grassland with scrubby trees. Along the boundaries of the large grounds are some magnificent sycamores as well  as oak and ash.

The Pevsner guide says this gives 'an unusually good idea of an un- Victorianized medieval village church' (p382).  What drew my attention however was the stout tower, in contrast to the slender buttressed one at nearby Llanblethian, and the very fine slate roofing. The west side of the tower has particular charm with its worn, rounded stone and carved tablets of various dates. 

Stone tablets and window detail of West tower

Fine roof of graded small slates as well as detail of timber construction and hood moulding with spandrels

West tower showing put logs, belfry window mouldings, string mouldings and corbelled parapet

According to the information panel on site the church was originally twelth century and the chancel arch and continuous stone benches lining the nave are of this date. Apparently the original village that was here was wiped out by the black death and it served the village of Penllyn, more than a mile away.

Quote from Newman, John.1995,'Glamorgan. The Buildings of Wales. Pevsner Architectural Guides' Yale University Press