Raymond Sheppard and Ruxley Oast House, Chilham Square, Eynsford Bridge and Olive Cook too

Ruxley Old Church

An email can send me down rabbit holes of fun sometimes.  Come with me to Kent, the "garden of England" (is that still true?). Cilla Hawkley wrote to me sharing an image of an Oast House she had.

I have a framed picture by Raymond (see picture attached), which I've been unable to find anywhere online.  I wonder whether you know anything about it?  It is in exactly the same style as some of the illustrations in The Rolling Year by WJ Blyton that I've seen online.  Maybe it appears in there? [Afraid not Cilla]

The picture belonged to my uncle and was framed rather strangely, so I had it redone. On the back it said 'Oast House and Old Church (used as a barn) Ruxley, Kent. 

I've always absolutely loved the picture, but knew nothing about the artist, or why my uncle had it, although he was born in Kent.  I wondered whether the buildings are still there, and have now found that Ruxley is now classed as in Bromley.  The barn/church now appears to be Grade II listed by Historic England but there is no sign of the oast house.

My uncle was born in 1921 in nearby St Mary Cary (then hop- and strawberry-picking Kentish countryside) and my mother, who was born in 1915 (so was only two years younger than Raymond) went to school in Bromley.  This would explain my uncle's interest in the picture (apart from its beauty).  From 1946 onwards my uncle worked as a printer for Thanet Press in Margate.  I know they took work from all over the country and I'm wondering whether Thanet Press ever printed, or reprinted books containing Raymond Sheppard's illustrations, as this might explain where Uncle got it.

I'd be really interested to hear from you, if you have the time and inclination.

Best wishes
Cilla Hawkley

I've never thought of cataloguing the printers of Sheppard's work so can't immediately help there, but it's a very strong possibility Thanet Press printed the images below. I checked a few books around the time and ones I've written about already and none were printed (or more accurately credited to).

So I went exploring Ruxley, but before I got what I wanted Cilla wrote back with more information. 

Ancient Monuments UK tells us:

St Botolph’s Church, also known as Ruxley Old Church, was built adjacent to Ruxley Manor in about 1300. It served as the parish church of Ruxley until 1557, by which time it was in a ruinous state. Cardinal Pole de-consecrated the church and relocated the  congregation to the parish of St James’ Church in North Cray. It was subsequently converted into a barn, which was known as Church Barn in the 18th century. A cylindrical stock brick oast house was built at the north-east corner in the early 19th century. The church was latterly used as a donkey-mill, chicken house, stable and machine shop before it was restored in the late 20th century.

I found the following tweet on Twitter from Bexley Archives (@BexleyArchives, November 6, 2018) 

Incredibly both Sheppard and Bexley Archives show the same farmer and horses. So it looks as if Sheppard added the photo characters to his version of the church and oast house!

Sadly times have changed. The church is now right next door to Ruxley Manor Garden Centre.

Arrow shows church on edge of car park!

And this is an image captured from Google Streetview shows its current sad state:

Ruxley collapsed oast house and church

If you want to know more about the conservation work head to the PDF format newsletter (June 2018) of the Society of St. Botolph, where you can read several pages and see inside...and there's mention of the "oast kiln" too. Thanks to Cilla for setting me off on another exploration of places illustrated by Raymond Sheppard.

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Last year I received two images by Raymond Sheppard. An eBayer (buydi1953) is also selling them at the moment and kindly confirmed the information written on the rear of both pictures which again saved me a lot of work!

The ebayer kindly replied:

The two R S prints had these inscriptions on when bought in 1974 and sold as ‘ Kent’ with Chilham Square Canterbury and Eynsford Bridge, Kent 1930. I looked up pictures of the latter and it looks as if that is so. However the Chilham Square site I took it ‘as written’ as I am not familiar with Kent .

The strange thing is that in doing the research on Chilham, trying to match views with Google, I remembered a view and realised my wife and I have been to Chilham Square, as it's called!

 

Looking down Taylor's Hill from The Square, Chilham in Kent

Here's where I think this comes from - as shown on Google Streetview - although I can't replicate the exact angle!

The Square, Chilham, Kent

The second image I purchased is also presented in the pair being offered by the eBayer which makes me think they were sold as a pair when first sold (perhaps 1930 according to the above information)

Eynsford Bridge in Kent

The River Darent at Eynsford photo by Jerry Clarke on Google Maps shows a very close match to Sheppard's position but Google's Streetview van couldn't get up the narrow road. Maybe one day I'll visit the area and update the photos myself! The ford next to the bridge still exists - and can be seen via the tyre tracks in the first image below.

Eynsford Bridge from the High Street

Closer view of the cottages

The view from the cottages on Riverside

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Finally I want to share some images that Christine Sheppard owns which may or may not relate to the above but are certainly in the same style.

Mock-up cover of Cambridgeshire by Olive Cook

The image is a print of a farmer sweeping straw on the floor of an enormous barn and the picture is glued to a hand-written title and author. It's possible that this was a mock-up by Sheppard himself (a sort of portfolio piece) and it's mounted (most likely by Sheppard's wife) on construction paper along with these images below.

The British Library has a record for a Blackie publication of 1953 "Cambridgeshire: aspects of a county" with 112 pages and illustrations. One reference I've found to the book shows photographs apart from the drawn windmill on the title page (not Sheppard) and credits for photographers. [UPDATE: I now own a copy and this is definitely a photo-illustrated book] "Janus", the Cambridge University cross-archive catalogue, has an entry on Cook and her papers.  Cook married Edwin Smith, the photographer famous for many British scenes including Wells Cathedral steps leading to the Chapter House and together they eventually moved to Saffron Walden. Cook was a native of Cambridgeshire and with her husband produced many books on British (and Italian) architecture.

The two other images are below and are described by me. If anyone has any ideas where these might be Christine Sheppard and I would be most grateful to know. meanwhile enjoy the artwork - sorry for the poor photos.

Cobbled floor, archway and tower

Monk walking from under an archway