Oundle, Northamptonshire
Oundle is a gem of a little town. It has some remarkable streetscapes and divine vernacular buildings dating from the medieval and post medieval period.
It has the feel of a university town with the grand architectural additions to the boarding school which is prominent in the town. The school has been governed by the Worshipful Company of Grocers of the City of London since its foundation in 1556.
St. Peter's dominates the town with its spire and is principally C13th with later alterations.
Thursday is market day and there is plenty of parking off East Road beyond the Joan Strong Centre - good for camper vans.
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The Buildings and Streetscapes.
Late C17th facade with colonnade supporting a wooden lintel.
The streets are curved in Oundle - there's always a little intrigue as to what's around the corner.
The public school has contributed to the variety in the street.
The former White Lion pub was built in the early C17th. I love this period of architecture - stone facades, projecting gables, thick-set ornate finials and chamfered mouldings.
Snickets, ginnels, 'opes and entry ways are never to be passed without entering and exploring. Enter the carriage way through the C17th (with earlier core) Talbot Hotel and you walk into a world of Dickens with a delightfully random selection of timber framed former stables, barns and rooms to the rear.
Check out this link for an earlier photograph of the below.
Paine's Almshouses of the early C17th on West Street.
I do love an obelisk finial. They reveal a fascination with the pattern books of the late C16th and early C17th - many were produced in Europe. These finials look as though they were out of a pattern book by Jan Vredeman de Vries (1527-1604)
1000+ subscribers join me on my camper-van-camino through the British Isles. Each Friday I post out a digest recording my discoveries in my time-travelling camper van.
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St. Peter's, Oundle
Principally C13th with later alterations. Spire re-built in 1630's. The church sits within a curtilage that is buffered by C17th and C18th buildings to the west - this is the view that rewards.
Looks like a C17th lectern - of the same date as the former White Lion across the road. These lecterns, to me, have a cartoon like quality. Much more agreeable to the square faced, bald eagle type.
Evidence of vine scroll painting on the chancel arch.
Piscina and Sedilla.
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