(no subject)

It's Friday, which means I can stop thinking about toilet blocks and acid tank farms for the duration of the weekend, at least.  I should be going into Glasgow tomorrow, but...  Elbow will be releasing their fourth album on Monday, so if I delay my trip another week, I'll be able to procure a copy of it at the same time.  And it won't be long until we get to see them in concert.  Yippee!!

I'm going to leave the glories of the natural world now, and return to my usual topic for a blog-post - old buildings.  My chosen subject for the next couple of days is going to be St Oswald's Church in Grasmere.  Now, I first visited this church during my first trip to Grasmere 10 years ago, and apart from the fact that it was a medieval church and therefore Very Worthy Indeed, it didn't really leave much of an impression on me.  Since we had a few hours to kill in Grasmere last Friday, I decided to pay a return visit to try and establish if five years or so of standing building survey work has actually increased my skills as a building detective.

The exterior view of this building doesn't really do much for overall impressions.  It's had a thick coat or render which obscures just about all of its masonry, and it looks pretty ordinary:-

 

But on closer inspection, it soon becomes apparent that this little church is actually quite complex in its structure, and that like many medieval churches, it has undergone many centuries of Heath Robinson-esque make do and mend.  Imagine my surprise why I skirted the east end and saw this:-

 

No, you're not imagining this.  The roofline is very wonky indeed. 

In future posts, I'll take you inside the church, and explain the underlying reasons for this wonkiness, and at the same time, introduce you to the surprisingly complex history of an ordinary little church stuck in a quiet little parish in an area which for centuries must have counted as the back of beyond.
 

(no subject)

It's Friday, which means I can stop thinking about toilet blocks and acid tank farms for the duration of the weekend, at least.  I should be going into Glasgow tomorrow, but...  Elbow will be releasing their fourth album on Monday, so if I delay my trip another week, I'll be able to procure a copy of it at the same time.  And it won't be long until we get to see them in concert.  Yippee!!

I'm going to leave the glories of the natural world now, and return to my usual topic for a blog-post - old buildings.  My chosen subject for the next couple of days is going to be St Oswald's Church in Grasmere.  Now, I first visited this church during my first trip to Grasmere 10 years ago, and apart from the fact that it was a medieval church and therefore Very Worthy Indeed, it didn't really leave much of an impression on me.  Since we had a few hours to kill in Grasmere last Friday, I decided to pay a return visit to try and establish if five years or so of standing building survey work has actually increased my skills as a building detective.

The exterior view of this building doesn't really do much for overall impressions.  It's had a thick coat or render which obscures just about all of its masonry, and it looks pretty ordinary:-

 

But on closer inspection, it soon becomes apparent that this little church is actually quite complex in its structure, and that like many medieval churches, it has undergone many centuries of Heath Robinson-esque make do and mend.  Imagine my surprise why I skirted the east end and saw this:-

 

No, you're not imagining this.  The roofline is very wonky indeed. 

In future posts, I'll take you inside the church, and explain the underlying reasons for this wonkiness, and at the same time, introduce you to the surprisingly complex history of an ordinary little church stuck in a quiet little parish in an area which for centuries must have counted as the back of beyond.