Purbeck Stone and Purbeck Stone Roofs (Part 1)

View of the Chancel and South Transept of St Peters Church, Church Knowle

At first glance this church is of no particular architectural merit, but the church walls seen in this photo were constructed in the twelfth century and retain all but one of their original windows. The odd window out is the south-facing window with a rectangular surround, which dates from the fourteenth century.

The retaining wall in front of the church is listed as an ancient monument. I assume that it also dates back to the twelfth century.

The modest church exterior hides a delightfully unpretentious and welcoming interior.

There is a lot of Purbeck stone here in Purbeck, I know a little but my neighbour is a quarryman and I need to learn more from him. At some time in the future I shall present some more stony photos for you.


Photography notes:

(1) Photographing buildings is often made tricky by considerations of size and space. To take an extreme example, you will probably get your best photo of St Paul's Cathedral in London by crossing the millennium footbridge and going to the top of Tate Modern museum. (I am uncertain of my ground here, but you get the general idea.)

When photographing any building you will create perspective distortion if you tilt your camera upwards: the walls as shown in your photo will be seen as falling inwards. There are two possible remedies, or part-remedies.

Firstly, if you use a reasonably sophisticated photo editor, it ought to include a means of reversing the distortion. I use this from time to time in my editor, but generally in order to lessen the distortion rather than eliminate it; in any event, I am not sure that the result gives the correct ratio of height to width.

Secondly, you may be able to take the photo WITHOUT tilting the camera upwards. This is a method which I use as much as possible. You may get a lot of unwanted foreground in the photo, but the building looks as it should look. If foreground is unwanted, crop the photo to remove it. This is what I have done here. At the centre of the original photo is the triangular growth of ivy on the church wall.

(2) The church is surrounded by an old cemetery, and two gravestones stand in front of the church in this photo. The left hand one was rather too dark, so I brightened it; the right hand one was at the same level of brightness as the church wall behind it, so I darkened it a little to ensure that it did not blend visually with the church. The result is a much more three-dimensional look..

(3) I also applied a little sharpening to the image, to accentuate the texture of the stones.

(4) The photo was taken with the sun at right-angles to the camera. Thus the oblique light on the east walls (those facing me) was also helping to bring out the texture on those walls - just compare them with the south-facing walls, in full sunlight and looking much blander. Within a few minutes of my taking the photo the east-facing walls were in shadow.

(5) Autumn sunlight is one of God's gifts to the photographer.