Monday 22 January 2018

Akerman's Hardware, Seaton, Devon



This is one of those amazingly old fashioned ironmonger shops that are rarely seen today, and should be treasured before they disappear altogether. A lovely, old mosaic doorstep, wooden floors and shelves heaving with everything needed for household repairs and maintenance. And in the best traditions of genuine hardware shops, it's the kind of place where you can buy screws, nails and other bits and bobs separately in any amount, instead of those little plastic moulded packets containing 6 when you only need 3 or 5.

I haven't been able to glean much history about the shop, but there is reference to the Akermans' eldest son being killed in action during the first World War, so the shop itself may have been started by Mr Akerman senior sometime in the late Victorian or Edwardian era...which would correspond with the style of the building.

EDIT: Since writing this post I've recently (in 2022) read a local newspaper article about the shop. It was opened in 1811, 211 years ago, so a lot older than I'd thought. Sadly, the news was also that the shop was about to close down due to the proprietor retiring. A bit more about that later.


Something I vaguely remember was a framed list in the Old George pub in Seaton. This was in 1977, before the pub was altered and refurbished (not to how it is today, as it has since been refurbished again and has been renamed The Malthouse). Anyway, I'm pretty sure that it was an old list from Akerman's Hardware shop. I honestly don't recall what it was for, but it did show amounts of various materials and prices, so it may have been a stock taking list or an order for goods.

  
It was a busy Saturday morning when I took the photos, but I managed to take one that shows the many cardboard boxes behind the counter containing the fixings that can be bought in any amount. I love this shop as it's not only somewhere to buy the the things that you can't find anywhere else, but the higgledy-piggledy displays are a real delight.


My photos were a bit hit and miss on this visit, so I've only added a few with some of the displays below.
 



The proprietor, David Rogers, had taken it over from his parents in the 1980s, who'd managed it since 1962. He'd tried to sell it on as a going concern. Unfortunately, there weren't any takers so the business is being closed down, which is a shame as so many people will miss it. I'd like to wish David and his wife Shirley all the very best in their retirement. :)


 


 



Knowle Cottage, Sidmouth, Devon



This one is a bit of a mystery. I was in a friend's car when we drove past it and she screeched to a halt at my exclamation of 'wow, look at that!' She's used to me by now!

I was a bit nonplussed about the name of Knowle Cottage, and initially thought it was just because it's near to Knowle, which is a large house currently used as the offices of East Devon District Council and sitting in its own extensive grounds. It also has its own lodge house to the East, called Balfour Cottage. However, there are a few clues to this cottage, plus a little gem of information gleaned from a lot of material whilst researching.



As I've mentioned in some other articles about Sidmouth architecture, many interesting buildings are missing from the British Listing. And this is one of them.

However, the attached wall curves around the corner to, and all along, Knowle Drive. There are lovely semi-circular entrances leading to the individual gardens belonging to houses on that side of Knowle Drive, and I did wonder if the wall was once part of the Knowle estate, possibly enclosing a soft fruit garden or something similar. This enclosure doesn't actually connect with the grounds of Knowle but may have been annexed due to sale of land on this North-West side, leaving this wall partition out on a limb.



The interesting bit of information that I came across is that Knowle had two lodge houses, the second one on the West side...where this cottage also is. So this may have been the second lodge. Please don't quote me on that though, as it's still guesswork at this stage until I can get it confirmed. It's obviously a lodge of some kind though, because of the way it's built into and is part of the wall, which also makes it fairly unusual.



It's such a delightful building in so many ways. Half-hidden by the imposing wall, until you're actually upon it, it's another lovely Cottage Orne, of which there are many in Sidmouth. Handsel and Gretel bargeboards on the gable ends of the steeply pitched roofs, split level wings, a gloriously fat and tall chimney stack and all encased in a lovely soft, weathered red brick.


This wall door, above, echoes the front door of the cottage; a plank door with metal hinge bars and painted in a lovely soft blue. Below can be seen the wall as it curves around into Knowle Drive, and below that you can just about see three or four of the semi-circular gateways with big wooden gates fitted inside them.


The gateways look like they might have belonged to stables, but it's a huge enclosure - even for a garden - so that's still a mystery to solve. As always, I will add more information as soon as I can discover it, and hopefully solve the mystery of the 'secret garden' walls.


 And lastly, a few more photos showing some more details.

 
 
 





Gothic Revival Houses, Seaton, Devon






I've been fascinated by these houses for as long as I can remember. All in the same style along this stretch of the road, they are nevertheless all slightly different...and wonderfully quirky.


Built in the local tradition with flint rubble walls and dressed with stone quoins, there's a lovely mix of Tudor-style window dressings, ornamental chimney stacks, gabled windows and a fab gothic turret on two of the houses. Decorative ridge tiles adorn the roofs and most of the windows contain diamond leaded glass.

I wasn't able to find any history of these particular houses to begin with, or who the architect was, not appearing to be in the British Listed Buildings. I did find them on the old OS Maps though, built sometime between the two maps dated 1891 & 1904 which puts them in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period. There are several revival styles with many variations from that period, and these have all the hallmarks of Gothic Revival.

However, with grateful thanks to Georgia, who gave me some information in her comment below, including that they were built in 1901 by an architect who worked for Clinton Estates. I've been able to ascertain that the architect was David Carr. He lived in Beer and designed several of the lovely buildings there as well as Upcott House in Seaton.


There's an organic quality to these buildings; gently sloping hipped roofs with overhangs & split levels and the soft window arches, interspersed with and contrasting nicely with the pointed gables. They bear a similarity to Grosvenor Mansions in Sidmouth, designed by the architect R.W. Sampson, both designs looking as if they'd sprouted from the ground rather than built by human means.



The semi-detached house in the above photo has been built to make a distinction between the two halves of the building: a split roof, with the right side lower than the left (to compensate for the downward slope of the road) and the windows following suit. Although most terraced and semi-detached housing have the same roofline, even while compensating for a hill, revivalist styles were sometimes built to emulate the evolution of a building, such as a mediaeval church which has been altered and added to over the centuries, and which may have been the reason for this quirky distinction.

Below, one of the two fabulous turreted bay windows.





The opposite corner across an intersecting road (below), mirrored by a turret on the other corner house.



Below, this semi-detached has the addition of what looks like an original porch, which I really like - and is often seen in Edwardian architecture - although this one consists of the same flint and rubble material instead of cast iron, which was more usually the case.
 



The very last of the houses, below, looking quite magical with several high gables and more split roofs.


And finally, two photos of the first house through the fence of another garden, with some delightful Sweet Peas, which caught my eye the following summer.







Thursday 18 January 2018

Chanter's House, Ottery St Mary, Devon



With most places that I visit I can usually find some historical or architectural information about them, but occasionally there's the odd one that I can find absolutely nothing at all and have to waffle a bit, either with anecdotes of my visit, some detective work from a basic knowledge of buildings and observation of various clues, or both. This isn't one of them! ;)
 


This is the other kind of odd one I come across that has so much history, reams and reams of it, that I don't know where to start. Both are equally difficult to write up, so what I usually do is just concentrate on the architecture for these kind, as that's my interest and one of the main purposes of Past Remains. Unfortunately, there isn't much about the architecture at all, not even on the Listed Buildings register! So I'll just have to do the best with what I've got and add some waffle where I haven't got any.


A Grade II* listed building, this gorgeous house was originally the chantry belonging to a group of church buildings comprising a close around the 14th century church of St Mary, and dates from the 1340s College. The largest of the buildings, the Chantry was the residence of the Chanter, Canter or Precentor; a senior canon who, being the first singer, was responsible for leading the chants during Divine Service. 



Very little of the original fabric remains however, apart from some of the walls and painted beams. It was largely rebuilt and became known as Heath's Court, with further extensions added around the 17th century core in the 1840s. Then later remodelled in 1876.


It was during its phase as Heath's Court that Sir Thomas Fairfax stayed here in 1645, when Parliamentary troops were stationed in the town. The dining room was used as the 'Great Convention Room', where Oliver Cromwell and General Fairfax met to plan the West Country campaign during the Civil War.


The entrance on the church side includes this unusual and imposing gate, which echoes the design of the portico on the courtyard door. This is the only part of the building that can be seen. I did have a whizz around on Street View once back home, but it's too far from the nearest public road on the other side to even be glimpsed, although on Google Earth it looks as though there's a lot more to the building than this. There is a gatehouse that side so there must be another -  possibly more formal - entrance, this one leading up to the inner courtyard.


And below, a totally enchanting door in the nearby wall.

The house was bought by James Coleridge, the elder brother of the romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in 1796. It was subsequently passed down to James's son, Sir John Taylor Coleridge, in 1838, and it was he, along with his son, who carried out the first extensions of a new service range, stables and coach house. The drawing room was also rebuilt and the grounds were extended and landscaped.



Rebuilt in the style of a Gothic Mansion in red brick with an asymmetrical composition, steep pitched roofs and gables, and the most delightful diaper design in contrasting brick. Seen through a gate, above, in a 'secret' lane now quite overgrown. And below, the view of the house across the churchyard of St Mary's.

 

And finally, two photos of the former gatehouse, which I took some years before I saw the house itself. I didn't know where the Chanter's House was at that time and it was only when I came across a photo on Flickr that I realised it was in plain view by the Church itself.

This was an article that I'd partially written and had in draft on my website before the host changed over to a different web builder. Unfortunately I lost that draft as it wasn't published, but I had saved it to document so I finally finished - and rewrote much of it - for the blog. 

Lots more to do; about 200 website articles plus more in draft and quite a few new ones too, lol, but hopefully I'll be able to catch up a bit more more regularly now that Christmas, New Year and my birthday this week are out of the way! :)