The village of Compton in Surrey is not only blessed with decent pubs, ridiculously pretty houses and an excellent tea shop, but was the home of the Victorian Arts & Crafts artists, George Frederick Watts and his wife Mary. Their legacy is seen in two buildings on the edge of the village: Watts' own gallery, built to house his painting collection and the Watts Cemetery Chapel, designed by Mary and built by her and the local craftspeople she trained. The Chapel is a truly beautiful Romanesque brick building, covered with celtic-inspired moulded brickwork and with a gesso interior created by Mary and her craftspeople.
The Watts Gallery is currently the subject of a major restoration appeal, to restore and conserve both the building itself and its collection. It has just been featured on the BBC's Restoration Village series.
Continue reading "Watts Chapel, Compton"The Eden Project in Cornwall, England is an Ark for the era of Global Warming – Silent Running come to Earth. Its huge geodesic biomes sit in the shelter of an old clay quarry that itself has been sculpted to form a setting for the technopagan presence of the domes, their plants, sculptures and people.
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