National Gutters Day : Penarth

Today is National Gutters Day 2021, which has motivated me finally to write another post for this blog, to share these photos of some gutters in the Victorian seaside town of Penarth, in south Wales.

 Built originally between 1889 and 1891, then rebuilt in 1926 after a devastating fire, All Saints Church sits in a tree-filled green space in central Penarth. As you see from the photo above, its gutters are not dated so I’m not sure if they date from the late 19th century or from the more recent reconstruction.

 

Here’s another dating mystery. This gutter hopper adorns the Mortuary Chapel at Penarth Cemetery. The building itself does not appear to be listed, and a search of the Welsh newspaper archives failed to turn up any information on the building of the chapel, though I did discover that the first burial in the cemetery was in 1903. I’ve also not turned up any information on the Glaswegian foundry that made this item.
 

As you can see, this gutter on the old building at Stanwell School has not been well maintained so it’s difficult to make out its surface decoration. An article in the Weekly Mail of 23 January 1897 reported on the recent opening of Penarth Intermediate School which, though it has since changed its name and been much expanded, continues to serve the education needs of local community in the 21st century.
 

Headland School was originally the Penarth Hotel, built in 1868 by the Taff Vale Railway Company, when Penarth docks handled a lot of the exports of coal pouring down from the valley of the River Taff. The building was repurposed after World War One, when it was purchased by the widow of a war casualty, one Major J.A. Gibbs. In the Major’s memory, his wife gifted the building to the authorities who ran the National Children’s Homes, who used it from July 1921 as a nautical training school.

National Gutters Day : London

Happy National Gutters Day UK!

This is National Maintenance Week, an initiative of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) to remind building owners to give their property its annual ‘MoT’ before the onset of winter’s wild weather, rain and hail, sleet and snow, and those worrisome winds. And, one essential part of ensuring your building will cope with the potential problems of winter weather is ensuring your gutters and their hoppers are not full of rubbish and holes.

For me, on this blog, National Gutters Day is the very best excuse to highlight the often under-appreciated, yet truly wonderful designs that decorate many historic gutter hoppers. You can see a miscellany of fabulous guttering from a diverse range of buildings in England and north Wales on my first National Gutters Day blog in 2014, as well as some very nice gutter hoppers from buildings in and around Cardiff in my 2015 celebration blog here. More recently, I blogged about the hoppers I found in the historic East Sussex town of Lewes, and today my eye is focused on some of the hoppers I found during a recent visit to the city of London. Enjoy ... then get out and check those gutters, people!

These are just three of the many hoppers to be found on Westminster Abbey, a building that dates from the 13th century but has been much added to over the subsequent years. Such a large and important structure requires constant maintenance, even – or perhaps especially – to seemingly inconsequential items like the guttering and its hoppers. The few dates I noticed – 1700, 1723 and 1904 – indicate the frequent upkeep of the hoppers.

Southwark Cathedral is another important building with a long history of construction, damage, rebuilding, additions, restoration. It has some magnificent gargoyles, their mouths gaping over the downpipes that take damaging rain water away from the stonework. I also found one beautifully designed hopper, which must date from after 1905 as it shows the Southwark Diocese coat of arms (‘of the lozengy cross from the old Priory arms made up of eleven lozenges with a mitre in the first quarter’) granted in that year by the College of Arms. (The Cathedral’s coat of arms has since been altered.)

Though its various structures are much older, these hoppers on the Tower of London must date from some time during the reign of Queen Victoria, 1837 to 1901, as they have her royal cipher stamped upon them. I think the Tower authorities need to take heed of SPAB’s advice this week and instigate some urgent gutter maintenance.

Happy National Gutters Day!

On a disused Victorian toilet block

Today is the day to ensure sure your hopper heads are firmly attached to your downpipes and your gutters are clean and unclogged ready for the winter onslaught of rain, sleet and snow.

Guttering is, of course, a very practical invention – buildings do not survive long without the means to rapidly and effectively jettison rainwater – and it was the Romans who first brought the notion of good water management to Britain. They even had a goddess of the sewers, Cloacina (who, not surprisingly I suppose, also protected sexual intercourse in marriage!).

Following their successful invasion of England in 1066, the Normans instigated the construction of huge numbers of castles, manor houses, churches and more, throughout the land, and these buildings, with their stone roofs, towers and turrets, required gutters and gargoyles to throw the water clear of their walls. Though unverified, it is thought that the first downpipe was erected in Britain in 1240, to protect the newly whitewashed walls of the Tower of London. 

The destruction of church buildings that began in 1536 after Henry VIII’s decree for the Dissolution of the Monasteries was, amazingly, a good thing for gutters because large quantities of lead became available. This lead was repurposed and reshaped into hopper heads for use on England’s many great houses, and the hopper heads were decorated with designs and dates, a fashion that continued when the use of cast iron replaced lead in the late 1700s.

Fabulous gargoyle water-throwers on the tower at Llandaff Cathedral

Also at Llandaff Cathedral, hoppers and Kings of England and a jolly Green Man

Cast iron was cheaper and more plentiful than lead so gutters, downpipes and hopper heads became commonplace on smaller houses and the fact that the iron was cast meant it could also be patterned. During the Victorian period, hopper heads became rather ornate, their designs more detailed, and downpipes might have embossed motifs or barley-twist patterns.

Sadly, this fashion died out in the mid 20th century and the gutters of today are very uninspiring, mostly black and frequently plastic, usually plain and angular, with no ornamentation. Fortunately, there are still some craftsmen manufacturing replica guttering for the refurbishment and restoration of historical buildings, and they maintain the old tradition of adding ornamentation and dates to their work. 

This magnificent beast attends to the rain water at Cardiff Castle, as do those pictured below

National Gutters Day does, of course, have a more practical purpose than simply celebrating the gutters of the past. The day came into being in 2002 and was the brainchild of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB). It is the finale of National Maintenance Week, ‘an awareness campaign designed to encourage everyone who owns or looks after a building to take a few simple steps at the beginning of winter to ensure that their property is ready for anything that the season can throw at them, especially in these increasingly wet, windy and unpredictable days’.  

On the Cardiff Crown Court and City Hall buildings

On a repurposed church and on a private house (a well-used pigeon perch by the look of it)

It’s an eminently sensible cause. For me, though, today is about paying tribute to the craftsmen who created the wonderful designs to be found on the hopper heads of some of Cardiff’s glorious old buildings and about celebrating the ornate guttering of centuries past. Happy National Gutters Day!

The beautiful creatures above and below guard the gutters on Cardiff University's Trevithick Building

A selection from the King Edward VII Hospital buildings

An appropriate design for this hopper at St Margaret's Church in Roath

My favourite of Cardiff's gutters to date: this magnificent hopper can be found on Cardiff University's Glamorgan Building

Happy National Gutters Day!

Today is National Gutters Day here in the United Kingdom. Fascinating, right? Right?

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I frequently develop ‘fascinations’ about things – see, for example, my recent blogs on Weathervanes, wind vanes and weathercocks and Turret toppings, amongst others.

Exeter Cathedral

Well, during my holiday here in the UK last summer, my insatiable curiosity led me to photograph the many and various designs of guttering, downpipes and hopper heads (those funnel- or box-shaped receptacles at the top of the downpipes) I noticed on the numerous historic buildings I visited. Now I’ve discovered this annual celebration of gutters so what better day to regale you with the engrossing details of these incredibly necessary objects and to share the photos I’ve gathered.

One of the lovely buildings at Port Sunlight

Left: Lyme Park; centre: John Rylands Library, Manchester; right: Chirk Castle

Guttering is, of course, a very practical invention – buildings do not survive long without the means to rapidly and effectively jettison rainwater – and it was the Romans who first brought the notion of good water management to Britain. They even had a goddess of the sewers, Cloacina (who, not surprisingly I suppose, also protected sexual intercourse in marriage!).

Following their successful invasion of England in 1066, the Normans instigated the construction of huge numbers of castles, manor houses, churches and more, throughout the land, and these buildings, with their stone roofs, towers and turrets, required gutters and gargoyles to throw the water clear of their walls. Though unverified, it is thought that the first downpipe was erected in Britain in 1240, to protect the newly whitewashed walls of the Tower of London.

Left: Tower of London,; centre: Dunham Massey; right: Westminster Abbey

The destruction of church buildings that began in 1536 after Henry VIII’s decree for the Dissolution of the Monasteries was, amazingly, a good thing for gutters because large quantities of lead became available. This lead was repurposed and reshaped into hopper heads for use on England’s many great houses, and the hopper heads were decorated with designs and dates, a fashion that continued when the use of cast iron replaced lead in the late 1700s.

Cast iron was cheaper and more plentiful than lead so gutters, downpipes and hopper heads became commonplace on smaller houses and the fact that the iron was cast meant it could also be patterned. During the Victorian period, hopper heads became rather ornate, their designs more detailed, and downpipes might have embossed motifs or barley-twist patterns. 

Battle Abbey

All Hallows by the Tower Church, London

Sadly, this fashion died out in the mid 20th century when cheap plastic guttering began to replace cast iron, and guttering is now mostly plain and angular, with no ornamentation. Fortunately, there are still some craftsmen manufacturing replica guttering for the refurbishment and restoration of historic buildings, and they maintain the old tradition of adding ornamentation and dates to their work, as can be seen from the more recent dates in some of my photos.

National Gutters Day does, of course, have a more practical purpose than simply celebrating the gutters of the past. The day came into being in 2002 and was the brainchild of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB). It is the finale of National Maintenance Week, ‘an awareness campaign designed to encourage everyone who owns or looks after a building to take a few simple steps at the beginning of winter to ensure that their property is ready for anything that the season can throw at them, especially in these increasingly wet, windy and unpredictable days’.

Left: Hailsham Parish Church; centre: Church of St Peter and St Paul, Hellingly; right: Sidmouth Parish Church

All Hallows by the Tower Church, London

It’s an eminently sensible cause. For me, though, today is about paying tribute to the craftsmen who created all the wonderful designs to be found on the hopper heads of Britain’s glorious old buildings and celebrating the ornate guttering of centuries past. Happy National Gutters Day!

St Mary and All Saints Church, Great Budworth

St Margaret's Church, Westminster Abbey, London