Walking with the past

How a chance discovery led me on a fresh track

How often do we look for beauties in the features of distant lands, and forget the little nooks and corners of our own happy country. Alas we often search for happiness and peace where they are never found. Search your own homes and hearts. If not there, they are nowhere. Rev Richard Cobbold, Rector of Wortham, 1860

Looking across the Ling -a mixed media piece using watercolour and Derwent Drawing Pencils

Viewed from an angle, the same group of cottages. Note the turf stack on the edge of the Ling for winter use.*

When I stepped out of my safe place, in my last post, declaring my project to record Wortham Ling over a year in drawings and paintings, I did so in part knowing that if I told you all what my intention was, then I was jolly well going to have to see it through!

In the months prior to this I had been stuck within the cosy confines of my sketchbook, where I turned a page if it went awry, and no one need see. Starting afresh after several years devoted to linoprints, a very different process and discipline, meant that my confidence was shakey about pursuing a course that in truth I had always wanted to do, but felt had a much more uncertain outcome. And so I procrastinated by drawing solely in my sketchbook and kept pushing my dream further down the road. But I was determined that with this project that would stop. Not only did I need to push myself to work on single sheets of paper or board, to create a collection of work, but in going to draw on the Ling most days it would be a very public endeavour.

Trying to do a “perfect” drawing is truly a forlorn hope: what really matters is to do it. David Gentleman

I confess I was nervous of sitting drawing in a very public place, with my materials spread about me, and therefore unable to make a swift exit if curious eyes came by. However, the warmth and kindness of the people I have met, has not only allowed me to feel comfortable working outdoors, but their encouragement has given a rubber stamp to its purpose. Rarely intrusive, people are just curious, and are always cautious not to disturb me and, when I tell them of my intention, are delighted to share their love of the place and their connection to it.

And with each day of drawing, I discover more about its history and about what makes it unique. Far from running out of ideas, each visit spawns more potential subjects and even in these few short weeks the seasonal shift enables me to see even the same spot afresh.

We have had a soft start to March, and each day the bright fuse of Spring grows stronger. On the day of the vernal equinox, I found a tiny wild apple tree, only recognisable by a sprig of blossom, that had opened overnight and a hedge of blackthorn had suddenly added a pink flush to the back of Mill Cottage and, of course, this became my subject of the day.

The back of Mill Cottage with the blackthorn hedge

Mill Cottage as painted by Cobbold in 1860 (front view)*

In huddles around the periphery of the Ling are cottages, many dating from the 17th century, and as the leaves begin to unfurl, I realised that they would soon be cloaked in green and would disappear from view. So this became my focus: to draw as many as I can while they can still be seen.

I also became curious about how such cottages might have changed in appearance, and while they are now much sought after, very picturesque residences, they once would been housed the very poorest of the community. I knew that a snapshot of the occupants’ lives had been documented by the Rev Richard Cobbold, who he had been rector in Wortham for over 50 years in the 19th century, but what I didn’t realise was that he had also painted portraits of 111 houses around his parish, in watercolour, and bound them in a volume called, “Features of Wortham”. He must have made at least one each day and all were painted “on the spot”. This small book, painted between May and July 1860, gives not only a snapshot of his parish, but also a remarkable insight to Victorian village life.

It seems that he had taken up the project following the suicide of his younger brother Edward, a few weeks before this endeavour began, and each page is edged in black, indicating that it is a work of mourning. Richard Cobbold was 63 when he created it and it seems likely that it was produced as a record of his happy years as rector. I suspect that it was also to preserve what mattered to him: his parishioners, their welfare and, of course, the place he loved. Cobbold was a much cherished rector and when he died, aged 77, the procession of mourners was over a mile long, including many of those poor labourers who lived in the cottages around the Ling.

This discovery felt very serendipitous and I began to seek out his depictions of the cottages I had been drawing in recent weeks. The changes were considerable, and many buildings were hard to locate as names had altered and extensions added, but it was also the activity he depicted surrounding these dwellings, captured quickly in these sketches, that is so fascinating. Geese roam in gardens behind picket fences, turf is stacked ready for winter use, sheep graze and children play on grass in front of the Union workhouse. In the landscape, English elms punctuate the skyline, the tangle of gorse, that now smothers much of the ground was much less sparse, as it would have been collected for kindling, as are the great oaks which also would have been pollarded for firewood. All are features that would then have been taken quite for granted but provide me with enticing glimpses into how it has changed.

I wish I could have met Rev Cobbold and walked around the Ling with him, but instead I will be following in his footsteps. While my project may have a slightly broader, and different perspective, I like to think he would approve of my venture and is casting an approving eye over the proceedings.

Coppings Cottage only recognisable now by the gabled roof*

Tiny sketches, in three Derwent Lightfast pencils, as reminders of views to return to

Lowestoft Villas on a cold March afternoon

How Lowestoft Villas looked in 1860 - the most surprising discovery!

* The images are taken from “Cobbold’s Wortham, The Portrait of a Victorian Village”, edited by Sue Heaser. Published by Farthings Publishing. All proceeds from the book go to the restoration of Wortham Church. It is available from Amazon and here.

Something to read

Fifteen Wild Decembers - Karen Powell

I discovered this book in the annual best books of the year and, as someone who has been a devotee of Emily Bronte’s work since my teens, I was unable to resist when it came out in paperback. It is an extraordinary and fresh retelling of the life of the Bronte sisters, told from Emily Bronte’s perspective. Karen Powell has somehow managed to breathe life into this elusive figure and she emerges, not as the eccentric and strange creature described by Mrs Gaskell, but robust, practical with a deep love of the landscape in which she lived. The result is a remarkable and moving novel. It is a book not to be missed.

Bird of the month - The Song Thrush

Each evening, and at dawn, a Song Thrush sings outside my window heralding Spring from the tip of an elder tree and I could not resist including another piece from John Clare. What I love is how he pays attention to the smallest, overlooked details in nature that other poets don’t think worthy of mention. Here he notes how her eggs are the colour of harebells, a comparison that is only borne from daily, quiet observation. Like Clare, I drink “the sound with joy”.

The Thrush’s Nest

Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush
That overhung a molehill large and round,
I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush
Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound
With joy; and often, an intruding guest,
I watched her secret toil from day to day -
How true she warped the moss to form a nest,
And modelled it within with wood and clay;
And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,
There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers,
Ink-spotted over shells of greeny blue;
And there I witnessed, in the sunny hours,
A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly,
Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky.

BBC Omnibus (1991) A Profile of John Clare - a fascinating, if rather dated, documentary about “poor John Clare”.

In Our Time - a brilliant edition with critic and biographer, Sir Jonathan Bate.

Thank you very much for reading and, if you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and supporting my work.

Next time my post will be a few days later, as I will be in the Bannau Brycheiniog, in Wales, drawing a very different landscape. I look forward to your company then.