Category: Black & White.

Great Driffield All Saints church.

There was a church recorded on the site at the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, but was probably in a very neglected state.

This Norman church has almost certainly been here since the beginning of the 12th century: the church taking its present structural form around 1170-1200. Then between 1878 and 1880, extensive restoration was carried out.

The parish register includes baptism registers 1556-1980; marriage registers 1556-1993; burial registers 1556-1955.

Late night view – York No2.

Night time view of a York street, mid 1980’s From my negative files, T-Max 400
(old style TMY not TMY2).

Like the previous image, this was handheld using a newly acquired Nikon F401, I uprated the T-Max from 400 to 800 asa and used T-Max developer. If I was making this image now, I would have used a 2 bath developer for more control of the high lights (street lamps).

I mentioned in a previous post, that after my move back to UK I had misplaced my darkroom log book – found !! which was a relief. It has lots of useful and useless information about film and paper development. The useless comment relates to the fact that it has notes about paper and films that are sadly no longer available.

 

 

St William’s College – York.

My files of the late 1970’s: from an Ilford FP4 negative.

St William’s College, a Mediaeval building in York which was originally built to provide accommodation for priests attached to chantry chapels at nearby York Minster.

The college was founded in c.1465 by George Neville and the Earl of Warwick to house twenty-three priests and a provost. While the college was not a monastic establishment, it was affected by the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the college then passed into secular ownership.

The building was bought by the Province of York in 1912 for use by its convocation.

See this link for a full history of the building: York Civic trust St William’s college.

Part of Rievaulx Abbey ?

Another old negative: this one from 1987 or 88. I am reasonably sure it’s Rievaulx Abbey
North Yorkshire.

The file sheet said: Abbey – Nikon F4 with Tokina 35-70 f2.8 AIs AT-X / T-max 400. There are 22 negatives in the file sheet and all of the same place.
I remember visiting Rievaulx Abbey in the mid 1980’s and as T-max came on the market in 1986, these were probably made late 87 or 88. That’s the problem going through old negatives, I was not so careful making notes as I assumed I would remember.

Up date: found the receipt for my Nikon F4, so this dates these to no earlier than 1988. 

Rievaulx Abbey was a Cistercian monastery, founded in 1131 by Walter Espec in a secluded valley on the edge of the North York Moors.

The first structures at Rievaulx were temporary timber buildings, intended to serve only until proper permanent buildings could be erected in stone. The first stone structures were begun under the first abbot, William (1132-1145), sometime after 1135.
From these modest beginnings grew one of the wealthiest monasteries of medieval England and the first northern Cistercian monastery. Rievaulx enjoyed the protection of nearby Helmsley Castle, the owners of which provided much of the abbey’s land.

The plan for Rievaulx was to follow the same layout as that of the mother abbey of the order at Citeaux, in France. This consisted of a large church with a cloister range to the south. Abbot William’s church was taken down and rebuilt on a grand scale by the third abbot, Aelred (1147-1167).

The east end of the church was later torn down and enlarged by Abbot Roger II (1223-1239). One unusual feature at Rievaulx is the orientation of the church. Most churches in Britain, certainly established in the medieval period, are oriented loosely on an east/west line. At Rievaulx the layout of the site necessitated a different approach, and the abbey church is laid out on a north/south line.

The abbey was expanded in the period 1145-1165 and again in the late 12th century. Interestingly, though Rievaulx was reckoned the most important Cistercian house in England in the late 12th century, it reached the peak of its power around 1200, and from that point on life at Rievaulx became a struggle. Part of the struggle was the monk’s own fault; an ambitious programme of rebuilding and extending the abbey buildings in the 13th century led to heavy debts.

In the 13th century, a series of epidemics ravaged the abbey’s flocks of sheep, leaving them with far lower income than expected. They did engage in minor rebuilding during the 14th century, but by then the abbey had truly fallen upon hard times.

Parts of the abbey buildings were torn down in the 15th century and by the time of it’s suppression and confiscation by Henry VIII in 1538, it supported 22 monks and 100 lay people. Compare that to the 1160s when, under Abbot Aelred, it had a population of 140 monks and more than 500 lay brothers.
Above taken from: British History on line/ Catholic Encyclopædia & Encyclopædia Britannica.