Whippingham 2

The church at Whippingham, St. Mildred's, was not usually open on a Friday but a helpful volunteer gardener let us in the back anyway. A courtesy he might have regretted later as each successive visitor told the next to go around the back.

But we were glad to have been let in, to take another look at this curious church, all that Prince Albert's money could buy in the way of gothic revival. All done with great skill and with taste, but somehow curiously cold. Part of this was the result of the church having been build in one go, rather than having grown up over the centuries, but I do not think that that was the whole story.

To be fair, the church was not a complete rebuild. There was a fragment of Saxon carving from the first church built into a wall and there was rather more left of the church built in 1804 by John Nash, mostly dismantled to make way for the present church, Queen Victoria not thinking that the Nash effort was grand enough for her. She may also have had the thought, not liking to delegate real affairs of state to her husband, that building a new church would give him something useful to do. Get him out from under her feet for a while. A sort of royal allotment, as it were.

The stained glass, by Hardman of Handsworth, Pugin's son in law (see reference 1), was , despite its pedigree, rather mixed. Some was good, but some, particularly the all important east window, had lost most of its colour.

From the church, we thought we might as well do Osborne, included in the heritage subscription bought at about the time of the visit to Pugin.

Rather struck, on this occasion, by the coldness of the marble female nudity on show. Like the church, well enough executed, but it somehow seemed to lack life. Not in the same league as the old Italian masters at all. Continued to puzzle over the two large paintings of Victoria and Albert, maybe two feet wide by three feet high, described by both trusty and guidebook as enamel on Sèvres porcelain. I continue to think it unlikely that one would or could make such large sheets of porcelain, and that even if one could, they would not survive painting, firing and hanging. See the note about this at reference 2 and the post following. Email to the heritage people yet to be answered.

On the other hand we are now clear that the family groups were by a chap called Franz Xaver Winterhalter, alleged by wikipedia to have, in his mid-nineteenth century day, pretty much cornered the market for royal portraits in northern Europe. The prize for the worst painting goes to William Dyce for his large allegorical painting on a staircase wall - with its further large display of unattractive nudity.

Feeling mean for some reason, picnic'd outside rather than lunched inside, in the grand terrace room of the last visit, and followed that by a visit to the gardens, mainly the walled garden where we were able to see the royal rhubarb. There were also some Morello cherries grown as espaliers, something I had not thought possible, Morello cherries being large trees when I was small. Maybe they have bred some smaller root stocks since then. Apples and pears not in very good condition at all, with some of the trees badly infected with something or other unpleasant. And the fruit will not come to much unless someone thins it out a bit.

Pleased to see that the fashion for not mowing park grass has arrived at Osborne, with the weed-full uncut grass looking very well.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/ramsgate-5.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/roman-villa.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/osborne-revisited.html.