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| The former Amersham Workhouse |
This week, on
my way to visit a member of the congregation currently staying at Amersham
Hospital, I passed the former Amersham Poor Law Institution – commonly known as
‘The Workhouse’.
Two things struck me as I walked along – both slightly ironic. The first is that this building once set aside for those who were financially destitute is now a tremendously smart address with a price tag to match. The second is hinted at by the Workhouse’s new name of ‘Gilbert Scott’ Court. So even though this was the most functional of buildings its architect was the same man who designed the splendours of St Pancras Station, The Albert Memorial and The Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Maybe this isn’t so strange. The Victorians had a high view of civic architecture which meant that even power stations and sewage plants ended up resembling either a mini cathedral or country house.
Amersham Work House was in this tradition. It was completed in 1839 at a cost of £5,750 and was one of a number designed by Gilbert Scott at the beginning of his career.
I wonder if there is a modern day equivalent? It would be rather like having Lord Rogers, designer of the Pompidou Centre and Lloyds building, cutting his architectural teeth on a social housing project.
Although the world has changed beyond recognition since Scott’s time we still have to make judgement calls about how much energy, enthusiasm and commitment we put into a project or relationship. I suppose the vital question we ask in that respect maybe – ‘is it worth it?’
Is it worth turning out every Friday evening to run my Brownie Pack? Is it worth keeping interested in the work of Christian Aid? Is it worth staying on the Governing Body of my local school? Is it worth keeping that appointment with God and my fellow pilgrims at church Sunday by Sunday?
Christ seemed to shock his community more than once by giving people the sort of value and respect which others thought was thoroughly misplaced - be that in meeting a woman ‘with a past’ at the well, taking tea with a fraudulent tax-collector or helping ten lepers literally living on the margins of society.
We sometimes talk of the topsy-turvy values of The Kingdom of God – those inversions of expected norms such as the ‘last being first’.
All of this makes Christianity potentially counter-intuitive and counter-cultural – a risky business some might even say.
So Gilbert Scott’s stunning Workhouse here in Amersham has prompted me once more to reflect that no task for God is too small and no act of love for my community is too insignificant to merit my best.
Such inspiration comes not only from a young Victorian architect but from the example of the wandering preacher from Nazareth who showed us what it really means to give our best.
Perhaps Steve Turner’s poem puts it as stunningly as Scott’s architecture:
Two things struck me as I walked along – both slightly ironic. The first is that this building once set aside for those who were financially destitute is now a tremendously smart address with a price tag to match. The second is hinted at by the Workhouse’s new name of ‘Gilbert Scott’ Court. So even though this was the most functional of buildings its architect was the same man who designed the splendours of St Pancras Station, The Albert Memorial and The Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Maybe this isn’t so strange. The Victorians had a high view of civic architecture which meant that even power stations and sewage plants ended up resembling either a mini cathedral or country house.
Amersham Work House was in this tradition. It was completed in 1839 at a cost of £5,750 and was one of a number designed by Gilbert Scott at the beginning of his career.
I wonder if there is a modern day equivalent? It would be rather like having Lord Rogers, designer of the Pompidou Centre and Lloyds building, cutting his architectural teeth on a social housing project.
Although the world has changed beyond recognition since Scott’s time we still have to make judgement calls about how much energy, enthusiasm and commitment we put into a project or relationship. I suppose the vital question we ask in that respect maybe – ‘is it worth it?’
Is it worth turning out every Friday evening to run my Brownie Pack? Is it worth keeping interested in the work of Christian Aid? Is it worth staying on the Governing Body of my local school? Is it worth keeping that appointment with God and my fellow pilgrims at church Sunday by Sunday?
Christ seemed to shock his community more than once by giving people the sort of value and respect which others thought was thoroughly misplaced - be that in meeting a woman ‘with a past’ at the well, taking tea with a fraudulent tax-collector or helping ten lepers literally living on the margins of society.
We sometimes talk of the topsy-turvy values of The Kingdom of God – those inversions of expected norms such as the ‘last being first’.
All of this makes Christianity potentially counter-intuitive and counter-cultural – a risky business some might even say.
So Gilbert Scott’s stunning Workhouse here in Amersham has prompted me once more to reflect that no task for God is too small and no act of love for my community is too insignificant to merit my best.
Such inspiration comes not only from a young Victorian architect but from the example of the wandering preacher from Nazareth who showed us what it really means to give our best.
Perhaps Steve Turner’s poem puts it as stunningly as Scott’s architecture:
Like your landlord becoming your
lodger
Like your managing director up before you for an interview
Like Beethoven queuing up for a ticket to his own concert
Like a headmaster getting the cane
Like a good architect living in a slum built by a rival
Like Picasso painting by numbers -
God lived among us.
With best wishes,
Like your managing director up before you for an interview
Like Beethoven queuing up for a ticket to his own concert
Like a headmaster getting the cane
Like a good architect living in a slum built by a rival
Like Picasso painting by numbers -
God lived among us.
With best wishes,
p.s. Blog holiday next week!
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