Francis P. Kelly | |
---|---|
Nationality | British |
Education | MA, 1971 |
Alma mater | Courtauld Institute of Art |
Occupation(s) | Architectural historian and inspector |
Employer | English Heritage/Historic England |
Francis P. Kelly is a British architectural historian and formerly an inspector for English Heritage and Historic England, working in the south west of England. He has contributed to a number of publications on medieval buildings, and his extensive slide collection is held by Historic England. [1] He is a member of the British Archaeological Association.
Francis Kelly completed his MA in 1971 at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, with a dissertation on the Romanesque capitals of Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire. [2] He has also contributed architectural photographs to the Courtauld Institute's Conway Library archive, which is currently undergoing a digitisation project. [3] He has maintained his links with the Courtauld, and is currently listed as a supporter on the Institute's website. [4]
Kelly worked for English Heritage and Historic England for many years as an Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas in the south west of England. One highlight of his career came in 1999 when he requested a dendrochronology test on the oak roof of St Mary's Church in the village of Kempley, Gloucestershire, believed to have been built by Hugh de Lacy, a Norman baron. [5] [6] Tests carried out in the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory found the church roof to be the oldest surviving medieval roof so far discovered in Britain, [7] dating back to 1120-1150. [8] [9] [10] Kelly was quoted as saying: "The vulnerability of timber roof structures, which are always prone to fire and rot, makes this survival very exciting." [5]
In 2013, Kelly was required to do an emergency inspection of a Grade I listed church, St Odulph's in the village of Pillaton, Cornwall. The church had been badly damaged during a snowstorm on the night of 21 January 2013, when a thunderbolt struck the tower and heavy pieces of masonry from one of the pinnacles crashed through the tiled roof and fell into the church below. [11] Kelly commented: "Tall corner pinnacles are a feature of Cornish church towers. The sheer engineering skill of the masons responsible for setting the pinnacles up in the first place, before the benefits of modern machinery, is a wonder in itself. Reinstating the pinnacle in 2013, even with the aid of complex scaffolding and modern lifting gear, proved no mean feat, all the more so as a result [of] having to take into account the distortions caused by time and the effects of the lightning strike." [12] Kelly was responsible over the following months for overseeing the extensive repairs needed, and the church was able to reopen in November 2013, in time for the annual Remembrance Day service. [11]
One modern-day issue with churches and chapels in the UK is that congregations have dwindled, so that some buildings stand empty and unused. Kelly has been active in this area, for example working on a project with the historian Jeremy Lake entitled 'The Big Update: Finding Uses for Cornwall’s Historic Chapels', for which they surveyed and photographed a large number of heritage buildings at risk. They produced a slide presentation showing exterior and interior views of the buildings, some of which are nationally listed, [13] and wrote an article for the March 2014 issue of The Victorian magazine. [14]
In 2016 Kelly donated his extensive collection of just under four thousand 35mm colour slides to the Historic England archive. The slides are mainly of historic buildings in the south west of England, focusing particularly on Bath, Wiltshire and Somerset, with some of the images depicting restoration and conservation. [1]
Francis Kelly has moved to the south-west of France where he is Vice-President of the Association pour la Sauvegarde des Maisons et Paysages du Quercy (ASMPQ). [15] He is also an active member of the Société des Etudes du Lot, [16] which he joined in November 2018. [17] He has a particular interest in studying and photographing historic French farm buildings. [18]
Kelly has written and contributed to various publications on architectural subjects:
Sir George Gilbert Scott, largely known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he started his career as a leading designer of workhouses. Over 800 buildings were designed or altered by him.
A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are typically made of stonework or brickwork, or else of timber structures with metal cladding, ceramic tiling, roof shingles, or slates on the exterior.
Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly serious and learned admirers of the neo-Gothic styles sought to revive medieval Gothic architecture, intending to complement or even supersede the neoclassical styles prevalent at the time. Gothic Revival draws upon features of medieval examples, including decorative patterns, finials, lancet windows, and hood moulds. By the middle of the 19th century, Gothic Revival had become the preeminent architectural style in the Western world, only to fall out of fashion in the 1880s and early 1890s.
Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon secular buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. No universally accepted example survives above ground. Generally preferring not to settle within the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture, at fords in rivers or sited to serve as ports. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, provided with a central hearth.
Bristol Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, is the Church of England cathedral in the city of Bristol, England. Founded in 1140 and consecrated in 1148, it was originally St Augustine's Abbey but after the Dissolution of the Monasteries it became in 1542 the seat of the newly created Bishop of Bristol and the cathedral of the new Diocese of Bristol. It is a Grade I listed building.
Torre Abbey is a historic building and art gallery in Torquay, Devon, which lies in the South West of England. It was founded in 1196 as a monastery for Premonstratensian canons, and is now the best-preserved medieval monastery in Devon and Cornwall. In addition to its medieval and Georgian rooms, Torre Abbey is known for the formal gardens on Abbey Park and Meadows, for the third largest art collection in the county of Devon and for regular exhibitions by contemporary artists.
Philip Boughton Chatwin was an architect in Birmingham, England.
English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed arches, rib vaults, buttresses, and extensive use of stained glass. Combined, these features allowed the creation of buildings of unprecedented height and grandeur, filled with light from large stained glass windows. Important examples include Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral. The Gothic style endured in England much longer than in Continental Europe.
The medieval cathedrals of England, which date from between approximately 1040 and 1540, are a group of twenty-six buildings that constitute a major aspect of the country's artistic heritage and are among the most significant material symbols of Christianity. Though diverse in style, they are united by a common function. As cathedrals, each of these buildings serves as central church for an administrative region and houses the throne of a bishop. Each cathedral also serves as a regional centre and a focus of regional pride and affection.
Warwick James Rodwell is an archaeologist, architectural historian and academic. He was lately Visiting Professor in the Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, and is Consultant Archaeologist to Westminster Abbey, where he is also a member of the College of St Peter in Westminster. He is the author of many books and articles, including the standard textbook on church archaeology. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the Royal Historical Society.
Michael James Swanton is a British historian, linguist, archaeologist and literary critic, specialising in the Anglo-Saxon period and its Old English literature.
St Mary's Church is in the town of Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Kendal, the archdeaconry of Westmorland and Furness, and the diocese of Carlisle. Its benefice is united with those of six local churches to form the Kirkby Lonsdale Team Ministry. The church contains Norman architecture and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.
Captain Charles John Philip Cave FRAS, FSA was an English meteorologist, a church architectural historian and photographer, and a captain in the Royal Engineers.
Lindy M. Grant,, is professor emerita of medieval history at the University of Reading, an honorary research fellow of the Courtauld Institute of Art, and a former president of the British Archaeological Association. Grant is a specialist in Capetian France and its neighbours in the 11th to 13th centuries.
St Mary's Church in Kempley is a former parish church in the Forest of Dean district of Gloucestershire, England, close to the border with Herefordshire. It is a Grade I listed building. St Mary's Church is now owned by English Heritage and maintained by The Friends of Kempley Churches.
Charles William Justin Hanbury-Tracy is a British scholar and heritage consultant on the history and development of medieval British and European continental church furniture. He publishes under the name of Charles Tracy.
Deborah Kahn is an American art historian, author, and academic, specializing in European Medieval art and architecture. She is an eminent figure in the study of Canterbury Cathedral collection. Kahn has acted as a consultant on sculpture and conservation to Canterbury Cathedral and Lincoln Cathedral. She became Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Art History at Columbia University from 1986 to 1987. She went on to work at Princeton University, from 1989 to 1991; before joining Boston University in 1996, where she is currently Associate Professor, in the department of art history. She is the author of two books, as well as numerous articles and conference papers.
Peter Draper, is an architectural historian who has, over his long academic career, specialised in medieval architecture with a particular interest in English ecclesiastical building, primarily cathedrals, and the relationship between the architecture and its social, political and liturgical functions. Latterly his research has extended to Islamic architecture and its influence on Western traditions. He is Professor emeritus and an honorary life member of Birkbeck College, University of London where he is currently Visiting Professor in the History of Architecture. He has published numerous articles and books including The Formation of English Gothic : Architecture and Identity, for which he won two prestigious awards; the Spiro Kostof Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians in 2008 and the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion in 2009, awarded by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain.
Sydney Alfred Pitcher FRPS was a photographer with a special interest in medieval ecclesiastical architecture, particularly stained glass windows. In his 1926 book on English Stained Glass, the art historian and critic, Sir Herbert Read, acknowledged that the illustration of the book would have been difficult “without the co-operation of Mr Sydney Pitcher of Gloucester” to whom “all students of stained glass and of medieval art in general, are under a great debt for the enthusiastic zeal with which he is recording the remains of church art in England”.