Andy Marshall's Genius Loci Digest: 18 Oct 2024

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I'm an architectural photographer. I travel around Britain interacting with special places. I work from my camper van called Woody and I share my experiences via this digest.

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John Phillips lighting up the walls at Beverley Minster.

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
— W.B. Yeats

John, you’re not so good, so I’m travelling over to see you. It’s the most beautiful of autumnal days and - with a little time to spare - I make my way in the van, over the Pennines, along the M62 to our meeting.

I mean this journey to be a little toddy for you.

Before I get to you, I spot the magnificent tower at Howden from the slow moving hump-backed Ouse bridge and, like a magnet, it pulls me in.

I remember you telling me of the times you’ve been transfixed, mesmerised by a church or an earthwork in the landscape. I’m becoming you today - seeing things through your eyes.

The light here is a blessing, John - the magnificent and ruinous east end is rising above the rooftops.

The angels are waiting for their moment in the light..

as well as the angles that tell a story of waxing and waning..

and then I see the gate that I've photographed so many times - the presence of absence.

and the presence of microscopic worlds..

And, of course, it was how we first met (must be 20 years ago) - over the microscopic.

I walked into the nave at Beverley looking for the epic and the awesome and you showed me another world in the constellation of marks made upon the floors and walls and in the roof timbers.

Instead of the giddy heights of the clerestory, you took me to the muddy patina of a jaundiced rafter, and told me it was a sapling during the reign of King Æthelstan.

And it's with that kind of observation, through your eyes that I'm feeling Howden today.

But, force of habit draws me into the epic..

..until I remember the things that you told me - to look for layers of history in the most unlikely places...

...and never forget that places are all about people.

Inside Howden Minster the light is magnificent..

but, if you were here, you would be showing me the mice at play..

After taking more photographs...

I sit and have a coffee and sketch the unlikely place..

Then, I walk back to the van until I'm stopped by an Aurora Arborealis, slowly moving towards me. In the park at the Ashes, I see a tree— a tree of such fair and uniform making, caught in the light, that it takes my breath away. I see the grand floribunda of the tree in contre-jour - a universe in the particular.

I put ‘John’s lens’ on again and move into the detail, slowly this time, watching the nuance of diaphanous light moving between the leaves. And closer I go—into the intricate network of veins—and I can see the cells, translucent, shimmering.

I’m reminded when we drove out in Woody, and then walked out to Huggate Dykes, caught up in conversation, amidst the lumps and bumps of the chalky wolds.

It wasn’t until we put up the bird that we saw our part in all of this, in this vast landscape of time, where the bumps turned into lines that broke through the fields, like the veins on the leaves at the Ashes in Howden.

Nothing is as it seems - a sentiment captured by the astronomer Maria Mitchell: “we have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire,” and yet “we reach forth and strain every nerve, but we seize only a bit of the curtain that hides the infinite from us.”*

Back at the Ashes, whilst I photograph the tree, I listen to a mum and toddler talk about Harvest Festival, and then about the tree. She tells her that the leaves are dying—that their sugars are being absorbed back into the mother tree—but they’ll be back, resurrected in the spring.

Mum and toddler move on, curious about everything they come across, stopping on the path, intermittently until they turn into the park.

I put my camera away and take in the tree, then glance back at the Minster’s oolitic east end. The lines are there too.

I think of the vast landscape at Huggate, and then return to the tree and all that it contains. When I look at this tree, it’s difficult to see where the beginning is, or even the end. In fact, there is no beginning, and there is no end.

I get back into the van, a little anxious about our meeting. I don’t want to be late, or early, or somewhere in-between. As I drive into your town, lost in thought as usual, I pull the van over to gather myself. I reach for my bag with my sketchbooks, checking that your greeting card is still there, and place it in the folds of my sketchbook between the unlikely place and the chatty ladies at Badger and Bean.

I remove a jumper, clean the dash, and in that moment of mundanity, something shifts.

Beyond the dash, I glimpse a bird gliding effortlessly through the canal. For a second, it feels like the world has thinned—like I’m seeing into a place where time bends, where past and present mingle.

And as the bird moves with ease through the space between, I can’t help but think of you, John: of the leaves, the tree, the landscape, and everything that holds us.

*Thanks to The Marginalian

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Thirty Six Views of Beverley Minster.

From the archives and especially for John.

In the hope that they help others unburden and renew as much as they have for me it gives me the greatest pleasure to present - in the spirit of Hokusai - my Thirty Six Views of Beverley Minster.

I put my heart and soul into the Genius Loci Digest and it takes a day a week to produce. With your support, I’m able to keep this digest free and public facing. 📸🏛🚐

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John and Woody

Van Life Gallery

My van, Woody, is my time-travelling machine, taking me to some remarkable places that have altered my mind like wine through water.

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Of a Fair Uniforme Making by John Phillips – Beverley Minster

Of a Fair Uniforme Making: The Building History of Beverley Minster 1188-1736 Hardcover, illustrated 240mm x 180mm, 293 pages The book by John Phillips suggests a radical re-dating of the building of the present church after a fire which destroyed most of Beverley in 1188, taking the building back some 30 years earlier than previously thought. Using masons’ marks, and architectural comparisons with other buildings, such as Hedon church, and Fountains, Meaux and Jervaulx abbeys, the earliest eastern part of Beverley Minster has emerged as the only standing example of a number of churches designed by the same man, or group of men in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Long compared with Lincoln Cathedral, it is now clear that Beverley and the north of England had their own clearly defined style of architecture. The book also uses the masons’ marks to explain the development of the nave of the building which was interrupted by the black death in 1348, and explores the later restorations of the building in the 18th and 19th centuries. Profusely illustrated, (some of the illustrations such as the contemporary drawing of the tomb of the 5th Earl of Northumberland who died in 1527, are published for the first time,) and with detailed plans, the new book is a comprehensive history of one of the finest Gothic churches in Britain.

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Howden Minster | English Heritage

The elaborately decorated ruins of a 14th-century chancel and chapter house (viewable only from the outside), attached to the still operational cathedral-like minster church.

English Heritage

Beverley Minster – Beverley Minster

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John shows the ease of lifting the counter-weighted font cover at Beverley Minster.

John places the tower crossing boss back at Beverley Minster.

Light Sculpting at Beverley Minster

I work with patience and knowing. The years of failure have steadied my resolve and, as I weave through the gorse with my camera and tripod, my mind threads between the past and the present.

Members can see more interactive media of Howden and Beverley below:

Howden

Be there: Howden Minster in glorious VR

Howden is one of Yorkshire’s hidden gems with a tightly packed core of vernacular buildings and cobbled snickets. The minster still retains its nave and a fine interior with the original chancel and chapter house in ruins. More on Howden in a previous Genius Loci Digest here.

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Aerial Video: Howden Minster, Yorkshire.

The video gives a better idea as to the surviving plan of the minster. Essentially, the church today takes up the original nave of the minster.

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Beverley

⛫ The Cast Room: The Coade Stone Foord Bowes Monument, Beverley Minster.

Welcome to my virtual Cast Room. On my travels, I’ve been taking augmented reality casts of things that appeal to me. The Cast Room is inspired by the Cast Courts of the V&A which hold a vast selection of casts taken of great works of art all over the globe. Members Only.

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⛫ The Cast Room: The Medieval Minstrels at Beverley Minster.

Welcome to my virtual Cast Room. On my travels, I’ve been taking augmented reality casts of things that appeal to me. The Cast Room is inspired by the Cast Courts of the V&A which hold a vast selection of casts taken of great works of art all over the globe. Members Only.

Andy Marshall's Genius Loci DigestAndy Marshall

⛫ The Cast Room: Medieval Choir Stall Finial, Beverley Minster.

Welcome to my virtual Cast Room. On my travels, I’ve been taking augmented reality casts of things that appeal to me. The Cast Room is inspired by the Cast Courts of the V&A which hold a vast selection of casts taken of great works of art all over the globe. Members Only.

Andy Marshall's Genius Loci DigestAndy Marshall

Be there: Beverley Minster and Beverley town in glorious VR.

Beverley wears its materials on its sleeve - the glorous buff and ochre hues of the pantiles (which originated in the low countries).

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Members’ Area

Members only content

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Member Powered Photography Status Page

In essence I’m offering my professional services for free to historic locations in Britain.

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R. Moore Building Conservation is sponsoring 2 Piano Nobile Memberships to the Genius Loci Digest. 2 Memberships are Available. Applying for a sponsored membershipInformation for those that would like to become a member of the Genius Loci Digest via sponsorshipAndy Marshall’s Genius Loci DigestAndy Marshall CONTACT: RORY MOORE AT R.

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An Unique Opportunity to Own My Original Artwork: Saxon Odda's Chapel, Gloucestershire.

To raise more funds towards Member Powered Photography I'm selling the original leaf from my mixed media art work of Odda's Chapel, Gloucestershire.

More information here:

🛍️ Shop: An Opportunity to Own My Original Artwork: Saxon Odda’s Chapel, Gloucestershire

Own a Piece of History: Saxon Odda’s Chapel, Gloucestershire- media: ink/copic brush pen, watercolour

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Photographs and words by Andy Marshall (unless otherwise stated). Most photographs are taken with Iphone 14 Pro and DJI Mini 3 Pro.