William Stokes and the art of vaulting
I am delighted to present for your amusement some engravings by George Glover from William Stokes’s book ‘The vaulting master or the art of vaulting’ in the hope that they…
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Meeting up at the Martyrs’ Memorial
Not far from where I live stands the Martyrs’ Memorial, a tall spire like edifice crowned with a cross positioned at the northern gateway into the city centre.
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At the Cherwell Boathouse with Roger Forster and Bob Dowling
I’d arranged to meet Roger Forster and Bob Dowling, the double act who look after the boating side of things down here amongst the willows on the edge of the water, still high and fast flowing from the recent rainfall. They are preparing for the upcoming punt hire season and there is much work to be done. For their fleet of flat-bottomed boats, stored over winter in a large brick outbuilding need sanding down and varnishing, repairing, and repainting. And there are new punts to be finished, their workhorse shells made strong for a summer of bumps and battering. But then they are old hands at this kind of thing. Because they have both been at it a very long time.
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Grinling Gibbons in Oxford
For so detailed and realistic are the flowers, fruits and foliage carved around the border that they seem as if they are still sprouting and suffused with life, so rounded and realistic that you might feel inclined to reach out and pluck them for the table.
