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| The Rayners: Intro // Ann Frances Louise Margaret Nancy Richard Rose Samuel // Known Paintings Sources |
| Regional pages on Louise: Chester Dudley Flint Northern England Eastern England London and the South East |
 At present we have very few pictures of Northgate, and this photograph that Louise had taken of one of her paintings is not Northgate itself, but the King Charles Tower a little further along the city wall at its north east corner. Built in Mediaeval times and earlier known as the Newton Tower from the local suburb, it took its popular name from King Charles I's presence there in 1645 when his army was defeated at nearby Rowton Moor and the tower itself was mauled. It was offered subsequently as a guild meeting house on condition that they restored it. This work added a stone with a carved phoenix from the guild's emblem, so it also became known as the Phoenix Tower. Louise's painting is from the 1870s, prior to the tower's next restoration in the 1880s, and shows it from the canal built along the wall in 1772. The wall curves away leftwards past the canal boat and then out of view (towards Northgate itself), and while the works on the right might suggest the remains of a bridge, they have no connection with the wall. |
 The effect of
walling a city and putting gates into its four main faces is to encourage four main streets to develop
(or existing ones be reinforced) from gate to centre, and that is exactly what happened in Chester. And
they meet not quite squarely at the Cross by St Peter's Church. The northern route is along Northgate Street,
and the picture here (apparently titled City Street, but not necessarily given the name by Louise) was kindly provided by Peter Cleaver from a print which has begun fading to blue. The view - thought to have been painted around 1880-90 - is from near the Northgate bridge over the canal looking down Northgate Street toward the Town Hall and the city centre.Visible names on the left of the painting are Morton(s) on the dark sign, and Smith just beyond it. The Bluebell Inn (M.Hodgson?) on the right is two medieval buildings merged into one and extended, and known as Lorimer's Row. Building the upper floor out over the pavement is fairly common in Chester but this example is unique in having a shop on the front face of the passage. It still exists as no.65 Northgate Street. |
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Town Hall Square, Chester The Town Hall was built in late 13th century Gothic style in 1865-9, during Louise's early period of residence in Chester. But with her love of the old and the grand, she may not have chosen to sketch the building while it was under construction - except, perhaps, for herself. [Grosvenor Museum collection, large print available, included in Picturesque Chester.] Until 2011, we had seen no paintings of Chester Cathedral which is almost directly opposite Town Hall Square, and was rather a big gap to have. All we knew was that it could be reached by St. Werburgh Street, which is covered on our East-West page. We still have no general view of the cathedral, but the next two paintings offer a taste. |
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Above, we see Figures outside the West Door of Chester Cathedral. The image comes from WickiGallery.org where it is described as an oil on canvas. However, the family have a previously unidentified photograph that Louise had made of the original painting which could have been a watercolour. If so, the colour image here may have been of a reproduction of that watercolour, made to look like an oil. There is also a Shrewsbury painting with a very similar look to the finish. Whatever the truth of that, we are looking at the heavily decorated West Door entrance, and through it into the cathedral lit by long shafts of sunlight. We have no date for it, but it was clearly a period or a commission when she set her brush to capturing as much of the detail as she could.At right, another photograph Louise had made of her work, and though the photograph is fading, the fine detail of her work is again impressive especially in the monument itself and the faces around its base. This painting is Bishop John Pearson's Monument in the North Transept. Andy King says that this is how it looked when first completed. Bishop Pearson actually died in 1686 but the monument was designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, possibly around the mid 1880s to coincide with the bicentenary, and carved by Nicholas Earp with an effigy by Matthew Nobel. Andy adds that it seems to have been moved since then, and has lost its elaborate canopy. We don't have a date for this painting, though these notes point us to the 1880s at least - and clearly Louise was still in full command of her skills when she created it. |
Although the title ascribed to the view above is Lower Bridge Street, it matches no other buildings in her paintings for that area, and the street is very level whereas those in the Lower Bridge Street area tend to slope. As Louise omitted titles
from some of her paintings, there are examples of sellers titling by guesswork (or even to raise the price, perhaps),
and we think this has happened here.We are in a street with Rows, approaching a tee or staggered junction with another street that has Rows, and this immediately suggested the southern end of Northgate Street with Eastgate Street running across the bottom to the Cross, just out of sight to the right. The Roman-style building just left of centre is therefore the City Club in Northgate Street, and though its tower is invisible, the building beyond it is St. Peter's Church at the Cross. Alex Malthouse, a research historian currently studying Northgate Street's Inns and Taverns for the period 1775-1900 has kindly confirmed our identification, and adds that the businesses on the right were in buildings sometimes called 'Shoemaker Row'. Phillipson & Golder (of Eastgate Street) produced commercial trade directories of Chester, and their 1870 and 1876/7 directories both list T.F Denson as a tailor/draper at no.6 Northgate Street Row West. To the right, the 1870 directory has John Dodd as the proprietor of a wholesale confectioners in Northgate Street Row, without offering a shop number - but the 1876-77 directory is more positive and gives a Mrs. Dodds, wholesale confectioners, no.7 Northgate Street Row. The business of Taylor & Willcock is more of a problem as it isn't listed in either directory. This implies a period outside the 1870-6 bracket, and from the clothes worn we'd suggest it was later. But as Northgate Street had no trams, and Louise has suppressed the street lighting from her picture, we don't get any hints from those. Comments welcome! |
| This painting, auctioned by Peter Wilson in February 2009, gives us a view of Shoemaker's Row, Chester from inside the Row itself, and we can see the business signs of City Tea Warehouse, John Cook, and to the rear, of a shirt business. There are times when Louise seems uncomfortable about painting younger children - you can make your own judgement on these - but she's very much at home with the languid pose of | 
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| the man by the railing, looking across to the east side of the street. There is another point of interest in this painting in that it is so far the only one we have seen that looks north along the street. We've added an enlarged detail from the painting to show the street beyond the Row, and you can see how much bustling detail Louise has added to this piece of background as a contrast to the calm interior of the Row, when she could easily have been a lot more superficial. Chester has attracted a host of artists over the years - quite a few of whom have managed to make quite an unusual city look two-dimensional - but Louise always delivers scenes you feel you could walk into. The painting sold for £3,800 in the midst of the world economic crisis, so it may do better if it appears again in a sale room at some future date. It's possible the painting was originally a gift, as it carries an inscription "With good wishes from Westminster, February 8, 1894" - which usefully gives us an approximate date for the painting and the scene it depicts. |
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Many of the Chester images appear with the co-operation and courtesy of the Grosvenor
Museum, Chester.
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| Dudley Mall pages about Louise: | |
| Louise Rayner | - the main biography and a list of her earlier paintings |
| Louise at Chester | - where Louise made her home and did some of her best work. |
| Louise at Dudley | - front page introduction |
| Louise at Flint | - the images for Henry Taylor's book. |
| Louise in Northern England | - York... Selby... and hopefully more |
| Louise in Eastern England | - Lincoln... Derby... Cambridge |
| Louise in London and the South East | - London... Tunbridge Wells... Hastings |
| Louise in Wales and the west Midlands | - Conway... Ludlow... Gloucester |
| Louise in the South and South West | - Oxford... Chippenham... Salisbury |
| Louise in Scotland | - Edinburgh |
| Louise in Southern Scotland | - Roslin (we have no other Scottish paintings at present) |
| Louise Abroad | - Rheims... Venice... and possibly Bruges |
| In preparation: | - The Rayners at Windsor |
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Please take note: we claim no art expertise, and in no way do we offer provenance for any paintings. What you see here was compiled out of interest in Louise Rayner's paintings and those by her family, but is based on sometimes very fragmentary evidence. As such, it is inevitable that there will be errors, though we naturally hope to reduce these over time. We would gratefully receive any information or corrections that will help us to fill the gaps and resolve unproved links - for example confirmation of dates of birth, death, etc., and details of other addresses the family lived at (and roughly when). Images of any of the family's paintings would also be very welcome. Thank you! |
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