Bowes Museum and Barnard Castle

Back into County Durham for a Parisian experience; the guide compared the Bowes Museum (the first in Britain to be built to metric measurements) to a château on the Loire. I could only think of the Musée Jacquemart-André – far more so than the Burrell Collection or the Lady Lever art gallery, which it resembled in being a vast collection with educational aims amassed by a wealthy couple. It was the abundance of Sèvres porcelain that really did it. (None of which I liked as well as a plain green and white Wedgwood plate I saw.) I had the impression that they bought in bulk: my initial and abiding impression on entering a room with two Canalettos and two Goyas was a heart-sinking “what a lot of paintings!”. I did however come across a handy cribsheet about different types of ceramics – although I doubt that I shall ever need to remember the difference between earthernware and stonewear.

It had interesting origins: founded by John Bowes (country gentleman immensely wealthy from the Durham coal mines) and his wife, Joséphine: French, actress, artist, collector. Her landscape paintings were on display and as good as any of the others. (Neither of them lived to see the opening of their museum.) The mechanical swan was out of order, sadly, but the film of its actions made it look quite magical.

And finally, Barnard Castle, by which time I was flagging and was no longer able to tell my Vanes from my Nevilles, but it did remind me of the Rising of the North by Catholic earls in 1569, hopeful of putting Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne. (The earls besieged Barnard Castle on their unsuccessful return to the north.) Richard III (when merely the Duke of Gloucester) owned it for a while and Warwick the Kingmaker (I can still see the cover of the Ladybird book) comes into it somewhere.

As I said, I was flagging.

Bishop Auckland

Bishop Auckland reminded me of Gotha: a castle with a town tacked onto it. The Bishop’s Palace – once a hunting lodge and then a castle – dominates. It was rebuilt by Bishop John Cosin after the Restoration and he made the great hall into the largest private chapel in Europe. (One wonders if the Roundheads may have had a point.) Bishop Shute Barrington remodelled it in the Gothick style in the late 18th century (the throne room – !). The building has recently been renovated and re-opened, and it’s very well curated, with each room offering a take on a different Bishop over the centuries. The paintings of Jacob and his 12 sons by Zubaran (painted in the 1640s) dominate the dining room (Bishop Richard Trevor’s 1756 offering), and it’s actually the sombre cleric, in black and white, who looks out of place amongst such exotic dress.

I’d had enough of grandeur for one day, so I headed to the Mining Art Gallery in the town. It concentrates on the work of the Spennymoor Settlement (opened 1931 by the Pilgrim Trust), where classes and theatre were open to all. From this came Tom McGuinness, Norman Cornish and George Bissell, who painted the life around them. Some of the paintings (which I couldn’t photograph because of copyright) were quite wonderful.

Durham Cathedral

The morning in Durham, learning and looking at stuff which I shall try to remember. So, St Cuthbert (ca 634-687) – not to be confused with St Aidan – slightly before – or St Oswald – ditto, but king of Northumbria who, like Constantine, is said to have adopted Christianity prior to a battle). Linked to the Borders, Northumbria, Hexham and Ripon before becoming Bishop of Lindisfarne. Ended his days as a hermit on Inner Farne Island. According to Bede, his body did not decay in its coffin (which I saw in Durham cathedral – the coffin, I mean) so ergo he was a saint. Danes arrived at Lindisfarne 875; monks fled with the coffin; after some years they stopped at Chester-le-Street; 995 – the Danes again – the monks fled with the coffin, this time to Durham, where it remains. Hence the significance of Durham as a place of pilgrimage. Bede and Oswald (or, at least, his head) are also there.

Bishops of Durham include Thomas Hatfield, the martial Anthony Bek and John Cosin, who went large after the Restoration restoring the cathedral after the damage inflicted on it by the Roundheads and their Scottish prisoners of war. (I was quite excited to see 1647 scratched on a tomb.) The last Prince Bishop was William Van Mildert, who founded the University in 1832. Anthony Salvin converted the castle keep into student accommodation. A useless piece of information, but it reminded me that I had come across him before in Cumbria.

So, basically, William the Conqueror and subsequent kings needed a strong man/men in the north to keep the Scots at bay and to rule on the monarch’s behalf. One way of doing that was by keeping the big landowners – the Nevilles and the Percys – onside and devolving powers to them, but they had a nasty habit of forming dynasties which could become a rival power base. Bishops had the advantage (at least before the Reformation) that they couldn’t do that.

And so to the cathedral. I had been here before and remembered my pleasure at the heavy, decorated Romanesque columns. This time we also went into the Galilee Chapel, where I admired the dogtooth arches and the traces of paint on the walls. (I’m really not sure if I would have liked cathedrals in their heyday; I’m far too used to their current austerity.) The nave is the first stone-vaulted roof. There was a Tom Denny window (poignant to see it, as it reminded me of the recent death of the person who had first introduced me to Denny) and a Pieta by Fenwick Lawson, whose work I had also seen in town (and later at St Paul’s in Jarrow). They were wooden sculptures where the grain and natural shape of the wood were still present. In that they reflected the crosses I saw in the cathedral museum, where the natural world was ever-present in the decoration.

I also saw the original of the sanctuary knocker, having seen a copy at Brougham Hall near Penrith a couple of months ago.

Durham

So, here I am. More tomorrow.