The Cloisters, Letchworth

I've photographed this amazing building before. It was my first attempt at HDR 14 months ago which seems like a lifetime ago now.

There was still some pink in the sky and I thought it looked good. I was approached by a passer-by who thought I was looking for a photo of the big red moon we are supposed to be having. This led me on to a wild goose chase trying to find a decent picture of the moon. I gave up driving around Hertfordshire when I remembered my learning from chasing sunsets - planning is required.

Anyway I like this building and will no doubt blip it again.

Here is a bit of history.

Quaker Miss Annie Jane Lawrence (1863-1953) moved to Letchworth and leased an isolated three-acre plot where she built a house for herself `Cloisters Lodge' and The Cloisters a fantastic towered building designed by architect William Harrison Cowlishaw.

Building commenced on the 3-acre (12,000 m2) site in 1905, and the building opened on January 17, 1907, having cost the then huge sum of £20,000.

The design apparently came to Miss Lawrence in a dream and consisted of; a large half-oval 'open-air room' called the `Cloister Garth' with an open colonnade to the south and large glazed bays to the north, this was flanked by two wings, one housing the kitchen and store rooms and the other the cubicles & dressing rooms for an oval open-air swimming pool.
It was designed according to the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement, and was built using materials from all over Europe. Green veined Swedish marble columns supported the arcade of the Cloister Garth where at night men and women (strictly segregated by the expanse of the central hall) slept on hammocks that lowered from the ceiling on pulleys.

In the central hall of the there was an Art Nouveau fountain from which water flowed through a series of ceremonial hand washing basins and then on around the Cloisters in open channels.
A small permanent community grew up at the Cloisters augmented by people attending the numerous classes and summer schools. Communal meals were served on a great marble-faced dining table that stretched across a great bay window on a raised altar-like dais.

Members of the community were encouraged to grow their own food, but seemed by all accounts to have preferred to spend their time philosophising, watching the sunset or stars from the rooftop promenade or partaking of nude bathing at dawn.