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Ricardo's Tomb
20 Wiltshire Scenes (12)
First some of the history... the parish church of St. Nicholas at Hardenhuish (pronounced "Harnish" by local people) stands like a classical monument on the side of a hill overlooking Chippenham and the north Wiltshire plain. One of only two Georgian churches in Wiltshire – the other being the chapel of Wardour Castle – it was built at the expense of Joseph Colbourne, the Sheriff of Wiltshire, in 1779 to the design of John Wood of Bath. Wood, it should be remembered, was responsible for the Royal Crescent, Lansdowne Crescent, the Circus and the Assembly Rooms in that nearby Regency city.
This Georgian church replaced and used the stone from a mediaeval place of worship which was situated further down the hill. Although the Wood design was not strictly adhered to (extra windows being added) the light colored ashlar-faced building, with its small octagonal and domed tower at the west end over a doorway pediment, is quite noticeable from afar when the sun shines favorably on it.
In the churchyard, and even more classical in style than the church itself, is the monumental tomb of David Ricardo the economist who died in 1823. Designed by William Pitts, the marble piece is severely Greek in style, but has a gaiety with the four almost naked maidens standing around a central Corinthian column.
Ricardo (b.1772) was the son of a very rich Dutch Jew whose family seat was at Gatcombe Park in neighboring Gloucestershire. He was elected in 1819 as a Radical Member of Parliament for the Irish "rotten borough" of Portalington – with all of twelve electorate! In 1809 as the only Parliamentary Radical who was listened to with much respect he wrote "The High Price of Bullion, a Proof of the Depreciation of Banknotes" which was an argument in favor of a metallic money system. However, he is chiefly remembered for his deductions, recommendations and essay of 1817 entitled "The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" which dominated political thinking for many years after – despite what other economists thought!
Photographic footnote
The church was one subject of a comprehensive commission and traveling exhibition entitled "Sites of Rites" undertaken in the late 1980s. I photographed all the selected subjects in both monochrome and colour for the commission, but as it transpired the black-and-white images were the ones more often than not chosen for reproduction.
I think you can see why from the image selected here... the toned monochrome image of the maidens on Ricardo’s Tomb stands out from the rest. It was shot on a Leica rangefinder with my favorite 2,1cm Schneider Super-Angulon wide-angle lens using Agfa 100 Professional film printed on Agfa Record Rapid paper before being split-toned in Kodak Rapid Selenium toner.
Split-Selenium toning is a technique used to introduce a second color into a monochrome print. It is not too difficult to do but almost impossible to replicate exactly a second or third time... which to my mind adds to the fascination of traditional darkroom printing work. I split-tone fiber-base prints by toning the print in a strong, warm Selenium toning solution (in a well ventilated darkroom because the fumes are very noxious) and then snatch the print from the solution just as it starts to turn from it’s long tonal scale of black through grays to white... to a chocolate-brown color with grays and white. The deepest shadow areas turn brown first and when this happens the print has to be snatched from the toner within a second or two before the mid-tones start to turn brown also, which is not what you want because the print then takes on an overall mono-brown tone.
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