The House at Southery

The House at Southery

Southery is a village in the Norfolk Fens, situated on slightly higher ground above the surrounding fields. The house in this photograph is typical of the vernacular architecture of the region: brick-built, functional, and set in a landscape that offers little shelter from the wind and the weather. It is a building that has been shaped by its environment — by the flatness of the terrain, the exposure of the site, and the particular quality of the Fenland light.

Vernacular Architecture and the Fenland

The vernacular architecture of the Cambridgeshire and Norfolk Fenlands is not picturesque in any conventional sense. The buildings are functional rather than decorative, built to withstand the conditions of a demanding environment rather than to please the eye. And yet there is a quality to these buildings — a directness, an honesty, a sense of being entirely appropriate to their setting — that I find deeply compelling as a subject for photography.

The house at Southery is one of many such buildings that I have photographed over the years. Each one is different in its details, but all share the same fundamental character: the character of a building that has been made for a specific place and a specific purpose, and that carries the evidence of that making in every aspect of its form.