Sunday Promenaders by Normanton Church, Rutland, 1829
The elegant Baroque tower of St Matthews church, with its semicircular portico, was built between 1826-9 to a design by Thomas Cundy. The church stood isolated later when the great Palladian house it served was demolished.
Promenading was a fashionable social activity in the early C19, and lent its name to a popular dance in which the partners stood side-by-side, and acted as a single unit.
Normanton’s present appearance is extraordinary - the church appears to be rising from Rutland Water, or sinking towards its depths. This came about as a result of a scheme in the nineteen seventies to incorporate the church into the development of a huge new reservoir. The floor was raised by three meters and the walls waterproofed whilst a stone causeway was constructed to connect it to the newly inscribed shoreline. It is a modern folly.
