CLEEVE PRIOR: SUNFLOWERS
FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF
Mr. James Crofts Powell
The barns are of grand masonry. Some of the stones, next above the plinth—a feature that adds so much to the dignity of the building, and by its additional width, to its solidity—measure as much as four feet six inches in length by twenty inches in height. In every fifth course is a row of triangular holes for ventilation, such as every brick or stone-built barn must have. They are cleverly arranged as to the detail of the manner of their building, and though only intended for use have a distinctly ornamental value. Where the walls rise at the gable ends they are corbelled out at the eaves and carried up some two feet above the line of the rafters, finishing in a wrought stone capping, thus stopping the thatch. For the buildings are, and always have been, thatched with straw, the ground around being good corn-land, a rich calcareous loam.
There is a delightful sense of restfulness about these fine solid buildings, built for the plainest needs of the community of the material nearest to hand, in the simply right and therefore most beautiful way. With no intentional ornament, they have the beauty of sound, strong structure and unconsciously right proportion. There is also a satisfaction in the plain evidence of delight in good craftsmanship, and in the unsparing use of both labour and material.
CONDOVER
Condover Hall near Shrewsbury is a stately house of important size and aspect—one of the many great houses that were reared in the latter half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Its general character gives the impression of severity rather than suavity, though the straight groups of chimneys have handsome heads, and the severe character is mitigated on the southern front by an arcade in the middle space of the ground floor. The same stern treatment pervades the garden masonry. No mouldings soften the edges of the terrace steps; parapets and retaining walls, with the exception of the balustrade of the main terrace, are without ornament of light and shade; plainly weathered copings being their only finish. Only here and there, a pier that carries a large Italian flower-pot has a little more ornament of rather massive bracket form.
The garden spaces are large and largely treated, as befits the place and its environment of park-land amply furnished with grand masses of tree-growth. On the southern side of the house, where the ground falls away, are two green flats and slopes, leading to a lower walk parallel with their length and with the terrace above. The steps in the picture are the top flight of a succession leading to these lower levels. The lower and narrower grassy space has a row of clipped yews of a rounded cone-shape. The upper level has a design of the same, but of different patterns.