The new church porch

As I wandered round the village pondering Mono Monday's "modern" challenge and longing for the kind of cutting edge, geometric and reflective architecture I used to love photographing when I still visited the towns and cities in which such buildings are located, I wondered what is defined as "modern" in a village listed in the Domesday Book, with a church dating from 1200 and evidence of human activity going back to neolithic times. It's not a chocolate box village too precious for new housing: there is social housing probably built in the 1950s, two small estates which to me look like 1970s and 80s housing, and a small group of nineties detached homes with Tudor pastiche details. Our house dates from 1919, was substantially extended in 1980s, and we have further added to it in the past ten years. None of these, however, struck me as great subjects for photography. There are a few individual, architect designed modern houses around the area, but not within walking distance in the time available: thinking about these, I realised that modern probably just means younger than me, as it might include anything from the 1960s onwards. I was surprised to realise that some of the buildings I think of as modern may be fifty or sixty years old.

My blip though, contrary to appearances, is only two years old: the porch is a very recent addition to the church, and is full of wonderful modern inventions which the eight hundred year old building previously lacked, including toilets (yay!), wheelchair access into the church without having to ask someone to get out the wooden ramp, a sink for the flower arrangers, and a servery with a dishwasher. For as long as anyone remembered, the pub across the square had doubled as the church toilets. It has of course been carefully designed to harmonise with the existing structure: modern does not have to mean steel and plate glass.