Looking at the variety of stringcourses in the neighbourhood

The beautiful Georgian terraces in Southernhay are enhanced by the lines of plasterwork that run along their front walls, making lines indicating the levels of the floors behind.  They also provide a discreet way of advertising the businesses and offices which occupy buildings which were intended as residential property.  

But you don’t need to go into the city to enjoy a rich variety of stringcourses.  The word describes any kind of horizontal feature on the wall of a house or commercial building.  Stringcourses, sometimes written as two words, and referred to by various other names as well (including, for some reason, the name “Belly band”) have been a feature of architecture since at least Roman times.  They are often used, as in Southernhay, to mark where the building’s floors occur.  But architects are not content with a rule which limits their creativity.  Stringcourses can run between the lintels of windows, or mark a centre line running through window frames, or … you name it, there is a stringcourse there!  In some cases, the design of the stringcourse has a practical purpose, to direct some rain away from the wall, making a sort of drip strip.  

As for their construction, architectural imagination runs riot.  They can be made of brick, plaster or stone.  They can be plain or decorated.  Some of the most highly decorated examples are really a frieze on the exterior.  They can be discreet so that you would hardly be aware of them.  Otherwise, they can be really “in your face”.  

This month I am not going to tell you where to look for local designs and styles of stringcourse.  Instead, here’s a challenge; can you find these sixteen designs of stringcourse in St Leonard’s?

• A stringcourse in the same colour as the rendering on the house.
• A stringcourse in a different colour from the rendering on the house.
• A brick stringcourse that is flush with the house wall.
• A brick stringcourse that is proud of the house wall.
• A brick stringcourse that uses a different colour brick from the house wall.
• A brick stringcourse that uses a different brick bond from that on the house wall.
• A moulded brick stringcourse.
• A moulded stone stringcourse.
• A stringcourse which marks the junction of brickwork and render.
• A stringcourse which is not at the level of a floor.
• A frieze.
• A building with two or more stringcourses.
• A building with a painted black stringcourse.
• A building with a painted white stringcourse.
• A stringcourse on terraced houses which is stepped following the slope of the road.
• A stringcourse on a façade, but not on the side of the building.

 Have fun! (Published in the May-June 2018 Neighbourhood News)

 

Keywords: St Leonards, Exeter, history, geography, beauty  

Super Saturday on June 27th 2015

Once again, Magdalen Road ("The Village") was closed to traffic to allow al fresco dining and for a variety of stalls to sell their wares.  Here are some pictures of the event - this time, some of my pictures were taken just as the stalls opened, which explains the lack of people shopping.

Yes, we can buy CORNISH pasties here!

Quiet as the stalls opened

Ice cream was popular

Pipers Farm staff were busy preparing hot food

Getting ready!

"I like work - I can watch it for hours"

Al fresco food

Stalls and chairs

Cafe society

Hungry as a hunter

The car parking bay offers space for stalls

Super Saturday on May 30th 2015

Magdalen Road was closed to traffic on Saturday to allow a street party with stalls.  Here are some reminders of the event.

Advertising banner - this was in St Leonard's Road at the junction with Wonford Road

A flag at the eastern end of Magdalen Road village

When was the last time you saw bales of hay in the village?  Pipers Farm provided these for their customers eating burgers and hot-dogs

Changing rooms were inside!

Cafe society, complete with table-cloths

Imaginative ways of holding the corners of the gazebo in place!

More cafe cociety

I can't think of any stories that start with a salad; can you?

More al fresco food

Stall selling fantasy pictures

Normally, you don't loiter on the pedestrian crossing here

The gazebo is specially clean, to judge by its location

The day wasn't complete without an ice-cream, made locally, of course!

Have you looked at glass, and other things?

Three years ago, I started to write this column for Neighbourhood News.  I expected to write six articles, enough for one year.  Three years later, this (eighteenth) article is about a selection of little things that didn’t fit into an individual article.  In some cases, there are more questions than answers!

 

We’ll start with glass and windows.  Every house has windows.  Most businesses do, although some of the warehouses on our industrial estates lack natural light.  Around St Leonard’s there are windows of various shapes. Some are square and some rectangular, others are circular and there are other curved outlines.  Within those shapes, the panes vary as well.  Apart from picture windows with no panes, most windows have their panes divided into rectangles.  But the fancier shapes demand fancier patterns for the panes, and in several of our local streets, there are ornate fanlights, divided by ironwork.  So, look out for the variety of shapes that can be seen around us.

We have a few local buildings with coloured glass.  The companies who supply glazed doors these days offer a range of standard coloured glass panels.  In earlier generations there was more variety.  During the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century, many houses were built with coloured glass above or around the front door, and there are plenty of examples around the neighbourhood.  Houses of that era sometimes have a fixed window with tinted glass, often with a rough surface making it translucent. 

Businesses – and a few homes – have patterns etched on the glass to make a decorative feature.  Look at the windows next time you walk through the village to see the variety of decorations and labels there are.

Most of the stained glass in St Leonard’s church dates from the time of its construction in the 1870s. 

Earlier in the series, I wrote about chimneys in the neighbourhood.  There is an ornate chimney pot on Trews Wear Court which I hadn’t noticed when I wrote earlier.  There are fireplaces in two of the first floor reception rooms of County Hall, but I wonder whether they have ever been used.  Does anyone know?  On the other hand, as I noted earlier, Bellair does not have any chimneys, because they were in the wings of the house which have been demolished.  (Incidentally, I have met people who did not realise that the grounds of County Hall were open to the public – do use this pleasant open space on our doorstep!)  There are a few local houses where the brickwork of the top of the chimney is turned through 45 degrees relative to the house walls; does this have any significance other than an architect’s whimsy?

After I wrote about balconies someone asked me whether there was a male counterpart for a Juliet Balcony; perhaps Romeo has a patio?  Sadly, there is no such item, but there is a town of Romeo in the United States, and there are suppliers of builders’ material in the town.  So, if anyone is travelling in that area, perhaps they could buy a ladder from the store, to help Juliet on her balcony?

I grew up in a country village, and many of the older timber-framed cottages had tie bars across them with the characteristic iron plates showing on the wall.  They are somewhat scarcer in cities, but there are two tie bar plates to be found in Lansdowne Terrace.  Two houses at the east end of Magdalen Road also have tie bars; for one, the plates are painted to match the wall.  There are others in various places.  But for a really good selection of tie-bar plates, look at the house in Southernhay East, visible from the northern entrance to the offices with a dozen plates.

I have had five questions about stone.  (1) Does anyone know what kind of stone was used for the house at Mount Radford?  The pub sign shows a stone-faced building, but what stone was used, and where did it come from.  (2) And what happened to the stone when it was demolished?  (3) The front garden walls of the terrace in Barnfield Road appear to be made of a hard limestone; does anyone know where the stone came from?  (Is it Beer stone?  Or Bath stone?  Also the facades are stone; are these houses of stone construction?)  In Colleton Hill, the paving slabs are made of a stone which is definitely not granite.  (4) Does anyone know where the stone came from?  Finally, there are a few gardens whose front paths are lined with large flinty rocks.  I suspect that this has come from East Devon.  (5) Did someone bring a load of these rocks to Exeter to decorate gardens?

From the Neighbourhood News, Nov-Dec 2012

Have you looked at … the battlements, turrets and towers in St Leonard’s?

Battlements and fortifications in St Leonard’s – surely not!  But it is true, there are buildings with crenellations at the top of their facades, and others with towers or with turrets on the roof.  Of course, these are purely for the sake of appearance, but their presence reflects a fascination with architectural features from earlier times.  Originally crenels referred to the gaps between merlons and merlons were the uprights at the top of fortified walls where the defenders took cover and crenels were gaps through which the defenders could shoot arrows or throw stones at the attackers.  Although I have not climbed up to see, I assume that the local walls we can see do not have walkways for archers.

In the early medieval period, people were supposed to obtain a licence from the king before they could build such defences.  It is on record that the Bishop of Exeter had two licences, in 1290 and 1322.  I don’t know how many archers the bishop employed at the time!

Locally, there are fine examples of crenellated walls on a house in Claremont Grove, visible from Matford Lane; the façade of The Maynard School has decoration which is influenced by crenellations.  Exeter School also has a low stone wall with crenellations in Victoria Park Road.  Just visible from Penleonard Close, there is a garden building with battlements which is associated with a house in Victoria Park Road.  Besides the school wall, there are several garden walls with such decoration in brick or stone.  There’s a concrete wall beside the Weirfield Path which has this design.  As a change from battlements, there are several houses with balustrades closing the top of the facades.  Painting the reverse of a roof-top balustrade is one of those domestic tasks that is essential but nobody will notice that it has been done.

The travel writer and TV presenter Bill Bryson wrote about the sight of some 19th century houses: “… with every embellishment known to the Victorian mind – cupolas, towers, domes, gables, turrets and front porches you could ride a bike around.”  Several of our local houses have towers on the corners, with turrets or cupolas on top.  I wonder what the owners do with the rooms in those towers.  Are they used as living space?  Or as storage space?  Do children play hide-and-seek in them?  With so many outside walls, heating them must be challenging.  There are examples of such corner towers in Spicer Road, Barnfield Hill and Matford Road, among others.  The bays of the main block of The Lodge in Spicer Road are topped with cupolas.  One of the local modern houses has a circular tower on the street façade.  (Reference books seem to indicate that the terms dome, turret and cupola overlap.  Cupola means “little dome”, so is probably more appropriate for domestic buildings – nobody would say that St Paul’s Cathedral had a cupola!)

On the top of the towers, the turrets are generally more substantial than their medieval equivalent.  The latter were generally wooden, lighter in weight than a stone or brick structure with tiles or slates.  Our local ones have finials of various kinds.  (Older residents will remember that flags were flown from the flagpole of the tower on Cornish’s store, at the corner of North Street and Fore Street.  There is a mechanism in the building which allows the flagpole to be lowered so it can be repainted.)  Exeter School’s main block has a four storey tower, and there is a square tower on the separate building beside Victoria Park Road.  That tall tower is remarkable for the chimney stacks on the east and west walls, and for the fine brickwork of the facades.  The Mormon Church in Wonford Road has a slender spire. 

Other buildings have turrets on the roof ridges.  Some of these are there to provide ventilation to the roof voids, as is the case in St Leonard’s Church and (just outside the neighbourhood) the Barnfield Theatre.  The builders of these chose to make a feature out of these vent covers.  The Maynard School has another example, visible through the surrounding trees.  The pavilion overlooking Exeter School’s playing field has a small ornamental turret.  In the adjacent grounds of Matford Lodge there is a coach house with a conical roof, topped with a large turret.  Round the corner, the modern building of Mardon House is one of several buildings which have large turrets covering clerestory windows which give natural light to the interior. St Leonard’s Church Hall has a turret with a small bell in it, as does the chapel at Wynards.  Maybe you want a turret for your roof?  There are online suppliers of small roof turrets if you want to add one to your home. 

An article about towers can’t overlook the spire of St Leonard’s Church, floodlit each night and a landmark for those travelling through the neighbourhood.

(The quotation from Bill Bryson comes from “The Lost Continent”) 

(July-August 2012)

Have you ever … thought about and looked at what keeps you and your neighbours dry?

Have you ever …
Thought about and looked at what keeps you and your neighbours dry?

Slates have contributed a great deal to the architecture of Britain, Around every town and city the Victorian developments had their roofs in slate, either from Wales or, in the south west, from Cornwall. Look at an aerial photograph of Exeter and see the lines of grey roofs. Slate is light in weight (compared with stone), reliable in keeping the rain out, durable. And it is not monochrome; to call one colour “slate grey” is to ignore the range of colours in slate. Compare a slate roof with one that uses modern substitutes, and the latter is lifeless and dull because every modern piece is the same colour and texture.

Slates these days are expensive. So we have tiled roofs on many houses built in the twentieth century. This is nothing new, since the Romans made tiles for their civic buildings in the city two thousand years ago. The excavations for the Princesshay development produced over a tonne of fragments of Roman tiles. More recently, bricks and tiles were made from clay excavated in Newtown and Polsloe, where there was a very large brick and tile works.

There are very few tile-hung house walls in St Leonard’s. It is not part of the architectural tradition of the city. Towns in the South Hams are, justly, noted for their buildings with tiles and slates on their facades. But look carefully, and you will find several examples. There are some in Denmark Road, flats in Old Abbey Court and a house in Wonford Road. (Those in Old Abbey Court are a shade of green.) One in Denmark Road is a testimony to the skill of the tiler, with rectangular and curved tiles forming a pattern on the house-front. There is another fine example in Topsham Road, on the house that was (I assume) the gatehouse for the house called Abbeville, before the construction of Abbeville Close. Elsewhere, tiles have been used on gables and attic conversions, where there is a vertical non-structural wall. You can find tiles on a house extension in St Leonard’s Road, a bow window in the village, garages in Matford Avenue. East and West Grove Roads have bays with tile-hung cladding. Some of the gables in Rivermead Road have tiles, while their neighbours do not. And Egham Avenue and Bagshot Avenue, seemingly similar, differ – one has tiles on the gables and one doesn’t. There are also a few houses with cladding of real slate on part of their facades. I have noticed two in Salmon Pool Lane.

Keeping dry is not confined to what is overhead. In an earlier article, I mentioned the boot-scrapers that are a feature of many of the terraced houses in St Leonard’s. Many have been lovingly cared for, painted and repainted over the years, despite not being used much these days. Like so many features of houses, they are varied. Have a walk down one of the terraces, and count the number of different designs that have been used.

And while you are looking at what was provided before you reached the threshold of the houses, notice the thresholds and doorsteps of the houses. Once again, an earlier generation of builders decided that uniformity would be uninteresting. There are concrete thresholds, granite and slate ones, and numerous patterns of tiles. The last are a reminder of the influence of the late Victorian Arts and Crafts movement. The Lodge in Spicer Road has mosaic patterns on its doorstep. I wonder if they were laid out at the same time as those in St Matthew’s Church (below). Did Exeter have a mosaic business at the end of the nineteenth century?

While we are looking at the facades of houses, stop and look at the decorated brickwork of the buildings in St Leonard’s. It doesn’t take much to make a façade or brick wall interesting. You can incorporate a few coloured bricks (cream, white, or dark) into the ubiquitous red clays. You can add a few decorated bricks to create panels. Or you can design stringwork (or dentil work) running along a row of houses.

So, here’s a circular walk for a summer evening, looking at these features. Start at the Mount Radford Inn, walk along St Leonard’s Road, and into St Leonard’s Place. Take the passageway to Cedars Road and on into Radford Road, passing the old boundary walls. Drop down Radford Road and turn right into Roberts Road, Temple Road and climb up Dean Street to return via Fairpark Road and the village and some refreshment.
(July-August 2011)

 Mosaics in the choir of St Matthew's Church

Mosaic floor of the porch of The Lodge in Spicer Road

Have you ever looked at features on walls, roofs and facades in St Leonard’s?

Scattered around the neighbourhood there are numerous little decorations which add sparkle to the fronts of the houses here. I am sure that most people who walk along Wonford Road will have seen the matching pair of eagles on the roof of a pair of houses (which are, according to an old map, Bellair Villas). Between them there is a rabbit. Close by there is a weather vane featuring a cat. Now, where are there other weather vanes around here? Exeter School cricket pavilion has one, the main building of The Maynard School has another. Private ones include a traditional cockerel in Victoria Park Road, and, close by, one showing a man.

To add to the menagerie there is a lion on a roof in Lyndhurst Road, and a squirrel on a wall in St Leonard’s Road. If you walk or cycle through Baring Crescent you may notice that there is a white nude in a niche of one of the houses, while Fairpark Road has a house with carved faces on the façade.
In Colleton Crescent, there are more carved faces above the doorways. These are made of Coade stone, like many of the decorations in Southernhay. Coade stone takes its name from Eleanor Coade, who was born in Exeter in 1733. She invented this form of stoneware which was widely used on the houses of the wealthy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was used by several famous architects of the time, including Robert Adam and John Nash. And there are several monuments to famous people made of Coade stone, including the statue of King George III at Weymouth.
While you are exploring in the area of Colleton Crescent, notice the iron linkholders in front of some of the houses, and then it is worth strolling into the west end of Lucky Lane and looking at the rear of the buildings in Colleton Crescent where there is one with a fine pair of pilasters. The linkholders date from the days when servants carried flaming links (torches) to light the way for their employers at night.

Many of the houses in Franklin Street and Roberts Road have carved stone lintels over the front doors. But look closely at those in Franklin Street. Two are a different shape. (Were these houses originally more expensive?) Although at first sight the terraced houses are identical, there are numerous variations in the brick facades. The builders knew that terraces do not have to be monotonous!

There are more examples of carved and decorated brickwork in other parts of the neighbourhood. Stop in Denmark Road and look at the decorations on the west side of Maynard School. You will need to stop, because you will have to peer through the trees. There’s more carved brickwork, more readily visible, opposite St Luke’s in Magdalen Road and on the Mount Radford Inn.

Have you noticed the carved flowers and plants on the first floor frieze of Gibson’s Plaice?

Finally, there are some modern features to be seen. What a variety of shapes and sizes there are for television and radio aerials! There are still a few VHF TV aerials which have never been removed since the days when television was in black and white and there was a choice of BBC or ITV. These aerials are shaped like an X or an H. Modern aerials have a series of bars on either side of a directional bar, pointing to one or other of the local TV transmitters. The essential design is known as a Yagi antenna (or Yagi-Uda to honour both its Japanese inventors). The detailed shape varies considerably. And then there are satellite dishes of many shapes and sizes, all carefully aligned for the communication satellites over the equator. A few houses also have external radio aerials to improve reception on VHF.

Detail of bow windows at The Lodge in Spicer Road