Saturday, April 23, 2011
Hotel inspector
Hotel Inspector is one of the BH's favourite programmes so we decided that it was about time to try a bit of inspecting for ourselves. So off to the 'Mercure Exeter Southgate', a place which is mostly about 30 years old, in what used to be a car park below the city walls and above what used to be the RD&E hospital. New bits follow the finish of the old bits with red brick, sash windows and some stone bits. The builders had clearly been got at by the heritage people.
Inside we found a large new build wooden staircase, made out of pine but including a bannister with banister rails and a heavy wooden hand rail, properly shaped around the bends and which reminded me of those in the 1910 Treasury Chambers, although these last were of some more serious material. Not sure now whether it was mahogany or oak. Might have been both: mahogany for the ministers and oak for the servants. There was also some elementary carving. The whole thing presently a bit new looking, but it will look well once it tones down a bit. As far as I can recall, Wetherspoons are about the only other people who still go in for such things.
Room entirely decent, if not very large and overlooking the huts for the workmen engaged on a refurbishment programme. But we had completely forgotten about the bane of this sort of hotel room: noisy air conditioning, uncomfortably high temperature and a great thick duvet, this on an unusually hot April afternoon. Turn the air conditioning off, open the windows (someone having thoughtfully half removed the catch from the sash, which meant that one could lodge the thing in an open position. Which would not otherwise have been possible as the installer had not got the sash weights quite right. Can't get the staff, even in these far flung provinces) and remove the guts from the duvet. Quite a reasonable night's sleep.
Hotel customer computer in a cupboard like space and not working. Perhaps the heat got to it. Not like the flashy great free apple in the Novotel at Ipswich (see September 21st last). Luckily the cuts have not yet reached the Devon Library Service, so here we are.
But before that, to breakfast. Amongst other things I had bread and ham. The ham was quite good; not shiny in appearance, with a good texture and all the stuff on the plate looked as if it had all come from the same animal. Not the reconstituted stuff sold by Sainsbury's at all. But the bread rolls were poor. Not altogether clear where they came from. Small white affairs which looked a bit hand made but might well have actually come from some factory via a deep freeze. No where as good as the stuff knocked out these days by yours truly.
And then onto the cathedral, a place which I must have visited a dozen or more times but still managed to surprise me. An architectural treat, a lot of the interior detail of which has been tastefully restored. So, for example, I thought the vaulting of one of the ceilings was much improved by the compound ribs being picked out in dull red and green. Lots of tombs and memorials, ancient and modern: several for knights in armour and one for the inventer of what is now Ontario and who is responsible for the Wolford Chapel near Honiton which, having passed mapled-leafed signs for it often enough, I had assumed was the chapel for a war grave for Canadians. Quite wrong. We shall try and put the record straight by paying the place a visit on the way home. Not so impressed by some of the modern art although there was some very good embroidery. Outside one was amused by various gargoyles, some quite new and rather good. Someone in the deanery has a sense of humour. We were also amused by the north door, a rather grand affair which one might have thought was for the private use of the bishop, but which was labelled 'STAFF' in large black and white, which rubric does include the bishop but I am not sure if he would see it that way.
There was a fair of activity inside the church with people getting ready for the Easter services tomorrow. What with that and one thing and another, quite struck with the sense of a cathedral being a very live thing. Far too big and far too old for it to be a tidy integral whole. Much more a patchwork of all kinds of bits and pieces, certainly from the outside. Quite a lot of restored stone work mixed in the old. Quite a lot of change as new bishops left their marks on the efforts of their predecessors. So, for example, someone had punched a north transcept window through the pilaster work of the Norman north tower. So the idea of trying to restore the thing to some mythic past is clearly not going to work. It's not there.
Inside we found a large new build wooden staircase, made out of pine but including a bannister with banister rails and a heavy wooden hand rail, properly shaped around the bends and which reminded me of those in the 1910 Treasury Chambers, although these last were of some more serious material. Not sure now whether it was mahogany or oak. Might have been both: mahogany for the ministers and oak for the servants. There was also some elementary carving. The whole thing presently a bit new looking, but it will look well once it tones down a bit. As far as I can recall, Wetherspoons are about the only other people who still go in for such things.
Room entirely decent, if not very large and overlooking the huts for the workmen engaged on a refurbishment programme. But we had completely forgotten about the bane of this sort of hotel room: noisy air conditioning, uncomfortably high temperature and a great thick duvet, this on an unusually hot April afternoon. Turn the air conditioning off, open the windows (someone having thoughtfully half removed the catch from the sash, which meant that one could lodge the thing in an open position. Which would not otherwise have been possible as the installer had not got the sash weights quite right. Can't get the staff, even in these far flung provinces) and remove the guts from the duvet. Quite a reasonable night's sleep.
Hotel customer computer in a cupboard like space and not working. Perhaps the heat got to it. Not like the flashy great free apple in the Novotel at Ipswich (see September 21st last). Luckily the cuts have not yet reached the Devon Library Service, so here we are.
But before that, to breakfast. Amongst other things I had bread and ham. The ham was quite good; not shiny in appearance, with a good texture and all the stuff on the plate looked as if it had all come from the same animal. Not the reconstituted stuff sold by Sainsbury's at all. But the bread rolls were poor. Not altogether clear where they came from. Small white affairs which looked a bit hand made but might well have actually come from some factory via a deep freeze. No where as good as the stuff knocked out these days by yours truly.
And then onto the cathedral, a place which I must have visited a dozen or more times but still managed to surprise me. An architectural treat, a lot of the interior detail of which has been tastefully restored. So, for example, I thought the vaulting of one of the ceilings was much improved by the compound ribs being picked out in dull red and green. Lots of tombs and memorials, ancient and modern: several for knights in armour and one for the inventer of what is now Ontario and who is responsible for the Wolford Chapel near Honiton which, having passed mapled-leafed signs for it often enough, I had assumed was the chapel for a war grave for Canadians. Quite wrong. We shall try and put the record straight by paying the place a visit on the way home. Not so impressed by some of the modern art although there was some very good embroidery. Outside one was amused by various gargoyles, some quite new and rather good. Someone in the deanery has a sense of humour. We were also amused by the north door, a rather grand affair which one might have thought was for the private use of the bishop, but which was labelled 'STAFF' in large black and white, which rubric does include the bishop but I am not sure if he would see it that way.
There was a fair of activity inside the church with people getting ready for the Easter services tomorrow. What with that and one thing and another, quite struck with the sense of a cathedral being a very live thing. Far too big and far too old for it to be a tidy integral whole. Much more a patchwork of all kinds of bits and pieces, certainly from the outside. Quite a lot of restored stone work mixed in the old. Quite a lot of change as new bishops left their marks on the efforts of their predecessors. So, for example, someone had punched a north transcept window through the pilaster work of the Norman north tower. So the idea of trying to restore the thing to some mythic past is clearly not going to work. It's not there.
# posted by Jim @ 5:50 AM 
