weekending

The upside of driving to Bath from Cambridge and back on my own? Seven glorious, uninterrupted hours of the Beatles. Like a very extended EP version of the school-run soundtrack when the children were little. (And now I like Lovely Rita more than ever.)

I’m in Bath for the Persephone Festival and there is a party atmosphere. The kind where the ice-breaker questions are not have you come far or how was the M4/train from Cardiff/Paddington, but which is your favourite Whipple, how would you define ‘domestic’, and have you tried the lemon drizzle cake or the brownie in the Team Room?

[The Persephone Festival Tea Room in the Assembly Rooms, v good lemon drizzle having been eaten]

I’ll write more about the Festival next week, but for now I’m going to enjoy being immersed in the world of Persephone Books, one I came across not long after it was created in 1999. That’s many years of reading pleasure and discovery.

[‘The Market Place, Saffron Walden’ (1962), Edward Bawden]

While I’m on the subject of a town en fête, though, I went to Saffron Walden last Saturday and had all my thoughts about the importance of a market to the social and economic cohesion of a place confirmed.

[C16 fireplace in Saffron Walden Museum]

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny morning which helped of course, but it was like being in a small French town where everyone comes out on market day, bumps into friends and acquaintances, chats in groups, fills the cafes and bookshops and bakeries, and gains something from the experience. I made a bee-line for the lively veg stall, bought bread from Mini Miss and had a cup of tea looking out over the jumble of roofs in the cafe. (Other times we have been there, we’ve had exceptionally good cakes and tarts at Cafe CouCou, and I’d also recommend Chater’s for lunch or coffee.)

[saffron crocus in pargetting]

Saffron Walden is a lovely little place, once famous for cultivation of the eponymous saffron crocus, and untouched by the effects of the Industrial Revolution. It lost its handsome railway station in 1964 which is a huge shame, as it’s exactly the kind of town which needs a country branch line like those in books by Paul Atterbury, David St John Thomas, and Bill Pertwee - I know, I know, but I have quite a penchant railway nostalgia - for the nice views of the Essex countryside, if nothing else. It’s also known for its pargetting and the local museum, which costs all of £2.50 to get in and is worth every penny, displays tools and samples of this skilled decorative plasterwork.

[‘The Blue Plough, Saffron Walden’ (1962), Edward Bawden]

The main reason for going wasn’t actually to do a sociological study of the benefits of markets or a cafe-cake tour, they were incidental but important, but to visit the Fry Gallery which has limited opening hours but is totally and utterly free to visit and is absolutely worth doing so. It’s in a suitably picturesque location down a little path which runs between classic, old, brightly painted, wonky SW houses, and next to the Bridge End Garden (also free to visit).

[Richard Bawden, 2005-6, Fry Gallery]

In the Easter to October season when it’s open, there’s always a good exhibition, and I’ve often been there to see the work of the Great Bardfield artists, including Edward Bawden who lived here in Saffron Walden from 1970 until his death in 1989. It’s only a small gallery but is has an excellent collection of art and pottery (eg Ravilious’ Wedgwood) , and all the available wall space is covered - not at all like the acres of empty white wall in ultra-stylish, expensive new extensions to already large galleries where you begin to think that most of the collection must be in storage.

[‘Tea’ (1979), Sheila Robinson]

This time it was to see the mother/daughter Sheila Robinson/Chloë Cheese exhibition which touches on so many of my favourite themes: houses, rooms, domesticity, ordinary everyday objects, home studios, with deftness, lightness of touch, colour, and gentle humour. There are three full walls of their work, and I’d happily take the whole lot home with me for my own walls.

[‘Radishes and the Window Opposite, Dieppe (2006), Chloë Cheese]

Further reading:

The catalogue published by Random Spectacular is wonderful. I very much like this sort of book which hasn’t come from a big publishing house and via editors who know nothing about the subject but still decide what needs to be in it. So there’s a very good essay about Sheila Robinson by Chloë Cheese with all sorts of details only her artist- daughter could share. And the images are plentiful and lovely.

This is the book to read if you are interested in the Great Bardfield group and want to do a nice art-inspired Essex tour, and Tirzah Garwood’s book is indispensable for background stories and village gossip.

Happy Sunday!