If anything is truly deserving of the, often overused, phrase ‘hidden gem’ - then it is definitely Holgate Windmill. It’s one of my favourite buildings in York - a city full to the brim with impressive architecture and a countless array of strong contenders to the ‘best building’ throne. And although the windmill may not have the obvious grandeur of say, the Minster, (but what can compete there really?) it does however have its own self effacing beauty - plus it oozes charm in every sail - how could you not crush on it?
Read MoreMargate: In Pictures
Margate, Kent. A town on the south-east coast that’s managed to retain and regain some of the good old-fashioned British seaside town charm of its heyday.
On the surface Margate seems, at first, rather sleepy - but head down towards the pier or into the Old Town and there’s a definite bustle afoot. Vintage, antiques and independent shops are aplenty - and its not short of a good bolthole or two either!
Margate’s two main attractions are perhaps the Turner Art Gallery and Dreamland, two striking and imposing buildings in their own rights. They bring an artistic and creative edge to Margate, which has been gradually flourishing since a post-recession regeneration programme took place in the town, spearheaded by the opening of the Turner Contemporary in 2011. Now Margate is home to lots of artists and has become a popular alternative to places such as London and Brighton for studio spaces.
It’s about 90 minutes on the train from London on a good day - a straightforward journey and well worth taking if you’re ever down that way or just fancy getting out of the city for a bit.
The Turner Contemporary Art Gallery.
Antony Gormley, ‘Another Time’.
Dreamland - The World’s first heritage theme park.
‘Dreamland Welcomes You’.
Block Brexit.
The Lido.
Saltaire.
West Yorkshire. If you’ve ever been, then you’ll be well acquainted with its post-industrial landscape. This part of the world was a veritable hub in the Industrial Revolution and evidence of this can still be seen today. Coal-blackened sandstone, canals, railways, weavers cottages, towering chimney stacks of former mills and factories - the county’s landscape is a palimpsest of past trades and social history.
C O A L & C L O T H
In the 19th century, the textile trade was one of the most prominent industries in West Yorkshire - closely followed by the coal mining industry. Huddersfield was the wool capital, Leeds was flax, Halifax - carpets, Bradford was renowned for its worsted wool & cloth manufacturing and so on. Each town had its own specialism. As for coal, Wakefield was the heart - with fifteen collieries in the district. Indeed, today the National Coal Mining Museum for England is in Overton, near Wakefiled at the site of the former Caphouse Colliery. Much of this social and industrial heritage survives today through the preservation of museums and creative centres. Many former mills are now art centres and galleries. Leeds Industrial Museum is based at Armley Mills, which was once the largest woollen mill in the world. Dean Clough Arts centre in Halifax was once the site of the Crossley Carpets, the largest carpet mill of the Victorian era. Halifax is also home to the stunning Piece Hall - a vast former cloth hall, a one time epicentre for textile traders, now home to independent shops, cafes and restaurants. It also houses an art gallery and heritage centre. However, the jewel in the crown of West Yorkshire's Industrial Heritage preservation is perhaps, arguably, Saltaire - a model Victorian village near Bradford, built by mill owner and philanthropist Titus Salt in the mid 1800s.
Saltaire was the brainchild of Victorian visionary Sir Titus Salt. After working most of his life in textile manufacturing in Bradford - Salt made his fortune in worsted cloth and through his revolutionary introduction of alpaca wool into the trade. By the late 1840s he was the largest employer in Bradford, its Mayor and a Liberal MP. Increasingly concerned about the pollution, poverty and over-crowding in Bradford, Salt decided to build a new mill away from the smog and the slums. He purchased some land just outside of Shipley, perfectly positioned by the Leeds and Liverpool canal, the river Aire and the Midland Railway. Saltaire Mills, or Salts Mill as it is now known, opened in 1853 on Titus Salts 50th birthday. Salt threw a massive party in celebration - holding a banquet for his workers which apparently included two tonnes of meat and one hundred vats of jelly!
Meat and jelly aside, the welfare of his workers was very important to Salt and shortly following the completion of Saltaire Mills, the design and construction of his 'model' village began. Architects Lockwood and Mawson designed a village of sandstone and Welsh slate that would take more than twenty years to build. Each house had fresh running water, sanitation and a gas supply - a drastic change from the impoverished conditions in Bradford for mill and factory workers. They also built a school, almshouses, an institute for recreation and education, a hospital, allotments, public baths and wash-houses, a gymnasium, a library with a reading room, a public park and a Congregational church, now known as the United Reformed Church. It was a highly ambitious concept of its time, a watershed in the progression of social planning. The township was hugely influential on future social welfare and urban planning development, not just in the UK - but globally. Saltaire’s important social history, heritage and architecture has led to its status as a registered UNESCO World Heritage site.
Back in August, I took a trip to Saltaire with my good friend Claire. It was a quiet, balmy day and the allotments were full of gladioli and sweet peas. Saltaire is one of them places that’s lovely any time of year, even on a grim day. But for me, you can’t beat Saltaire in the Autumn: the colours, the crispness, the leaves underfoot and the evening light on the sandstone - that certain dreamy evening light that you only get in the Autumn months - pure romance.
It’s a short and easy journey on the train from Leeds city centre, just fifteen minutes to be precise. Or if you’re feeling a bit more adventurous you can cycle the towpath route from Leeds city centre - a 13 mile path that takes you along the canal and into Saltaire. It was Claire’s first visit, but as soon as she stepped off the train and onto the platform, to my delight, she transformed into my personal tour guide - armed with plenty of good Trevor facts, (Trevor is her dad and former history teacher) a girl after my own heart - I would have expected nothing less.
“Did you know that all the streets are named after his children and that the pub here is called ‘Don’t tell Titus’ because pubs weren’t allowed in Saltaire back in his day?”
Our Trev’s facts are, of course, nothing if not accurate. The streets in Saltaire are indeed named after his children (of which he had eleven), his wife and his grandchildren. The architects that designed Saltaire also have streets named after them, as do Queen Victoria and Prince Albert - and Myrtle, Daisy and Fern place are said to be named after either maids from the Salt Household, or popular Victorian flowers. And as for the pub situation - alcohol was prohibited in Saltaire, although Titus himself was supposedly not impartial to a drink or two, it was believed to cause too many problems among the workers. Pubs were not allowed - it was another way for Salt to keep a firm grip on his workers. A paternal philanthropist yes, but some people see him as a little more controlling than that. There was the element of ‘Big Brother’ in Saltaire apparently. Pubs didn’t just mean alcohol consumption, they were public meeting houses, places for workers to congregate, to plot and scheme and discuss ideas. Places where rebellion could be born. This theory is perhaps supported by the fact that Salt also banned Trade Unions.
TITUS, WILLIAM HENRY, GEORGE, EDWARD, HERBERT, WHITLAM
CAROLINE, AMELIA, FANNY, MARY, HELEN, ADA
KATHERINE, JANE, DOVE
CONSTANCE, GORDON, SHIRLEY, HAROLD
LOCKWOOD, MAWSON, VICTORIA, ALBERT
MRTLE, DAISY, FERN
We took a stroll through the sandstone terraces, named after Salt’s kin, had a potter around the various independent shops in the village and then took a turn around Roberts park where the men played cricket.
We crossed back over the canal where the boats, of course, are named with Yorkshire themed puns - then we headed into Salts Mill for a good Hockney fix - and some tea and cake for extra measure. The Salts Mill you see today is the product of Jonathan SIlver, a Bradford man and a successful clothing entrepreneur. He bought the mill in 1987, rescuing and restoring the near derelict building and transforming the space into a creative enterprise with art and culture at its heart. Silver was a good and long standing friend of fellow Bradfordian David Hockney, which is why today the mill holds the largest permanent collection of Hockney prints and paintings in the world and how the 1853 Gallery came to be. Silver worked tirelessly on his creative vision of Salts Mill for ten years - breathing new life and a hive of creativity not just into the building but also the village itself. Silver cemented Saltaire’s place in the creative world. Sadly, Jonathan Silver fell victim to cancer and passed away in 1997 at just 47 years old. But his legacy and boundless creative energy still lives on as his family now run Salts Mill, continuing to honour his vision.
The Saltaire lions tell a tale in their own right, sitting in Victoria Square, just outside Victoria hall their names are:
WAR, PEACE, VIGILANCE & DETERMINATION
Peace passively licks his paw, while War sits with his left paw raised a little and slightly clenched - his jaw square and hard and a look of anger in his eyes. These sandstone giants are magnificent sculptures created by sculptor Thomas Milnes. However, they were not (apparently) magnificent enough for their original purpose, which was to sit at the base of Nelson’s column in London’s Trafalgar Square. Milnes had his commission dropped in favour of Landseer’s bigger, bronze beasts. But the sandstone lions were good enough for Titus, who on seeing them in Milnes studio, bought them and had them installed in Saltaire in 1869.
We ended our day out in Saltaire with a stop to admire the building of the URC church. The church is Italian in style with exquisite attention to detail - its ornate Corinthian columns hold up a tower topped with an elegant little dome, or cupola as it is rightly known. Unfortunately there was a wedding photo shoot underway outside the church on our visit, which meant we couldn’t go inside - however I have since been back to Saltaire, and I finally got to see what the church’s interior has to offer. It certainly doesn’t disappoint.
Inside, the classical style continues - there are no obvious religious relics or iconography to be seen, instead the space is that of a blue calm - simple and elegant. The eye is instantly drawn upwards, to the elaborate vaulted ceiling, with its square paneled plasterwork, from which hang two magnificent chandeliers. The walls themselves are powder blue and are aligned with yet more Corinthian styled columns, which are coloured in hues of deep marbled blue. The church has no formal aisles but its wide central walkway, carpeted in blue - of course - is flanked by straight-backed oak pews. At the end of the walkway a large, impressive organ presides over the room. On the south side of the nave is the Salt family mausoleum, where Sir Titus and his family are buried. Titus died in 1876 at 73 years old. It was the year the final building was constructed in Saltaire, signifying an end to his pioneering spirit and development. His township and his legacy was finally complete.
Markenfield Hall : In Pictures
Winter is swiftly approaching, and I am still living in summer through my film photographs - as I take the time to sit down, look back and edit through them all.
The beauty of having all these photos (there are quite literally hundreds of them) developed and in front of me is the simple physicality of them. Yes, it is a time consuming process taking them, developing them, scanning them, then editing through them - and I always feel one step behind in that sense. However − I often feel one step behind in life, so unless you can learn to embrace that feeling - be it good or bad, then you can never truly appreciate film photography and all of its processes.
Ultimately, I suppose what I'm trying to say is, what’s the point in rushing all the time? Sometimes it’s important to move at a slower pace. To take time to be in a moment, a place, a feeling. For me, there is a strong sense of permanence and memory in each one of my photographs. In the time and thought it took to frame each shot. That awareness you have when shooting film − that you only have maybe 24 or 36 shots to a roll , so you have to savour each one - you have to take your time.
I’ll be posting more collections of my film photographs that I’ve taken this past year on this blog - some may be more extensive than others, some might have a story , some might just speak for themselves. But for now, here are some photographs I took at Markenfield Hall this year, before the Autumn colours hit.
Despite its age and historic status and its obvious Medieval and Gothic grandeur (it's not often you find yourself wandering past a moated building with its own black swans for extra measure) the house has a certain humble quality to it. It rarely opens its doors to visitors, it’s tucked away and overlooked - accessed down a simple farm track and still has a working farm attached to it. It’s lived in and you can feel that when you're there.
Enjoy! x
Cill Rialaig.
At the beginning of this summer, I was given the opportunity to visit an Artists Retreat called Cill Rialaig in County Kerry, in the west of Ireland. Nestled on Bolus Head at the very end of the Iveragh Peninsula, Cill Rialaig was originally a pre - Famine village built on the headland in 1790. The last person to leave Cill Rialaig was in the 1950s - after this, the village became abandoned. Left unto the law of the elements and the Atlantic, Cill Rialaig quite unassumedly dawdled into inevitable ruin.
It wasn't until the early nineties that Irish Arts mogul Dr Noelle Campbell Sharpe stepped in. At this point the village was seriously under threat and faced with total destruction. However, with true grit and tenacity and by generally just being the one woman powerhouse that she is, Noelle rescued the village and transformed the eight remaining dilapidated cottages into the retreat we see today. A remote and removed place for artists, writers, poets, musicians and other creatives from all over the world to come and escape to.
We began the journey down from Dublin, which was by no means short, passing through all shades of green until the train reached Killarney. From then on we had to travel by car, continuing westward - we had a brief dalliance with the well known tourist trap, the Ring of Kerry. We stopped off for lunch at one of the towns on the Ring - Killorglin - before heading on to Cill Rialaig. Think of the quintessential Irish town and you get some idea of what Killorglin is like: surrounded by lush, wild landscape and sky-lined by mountains, dotted with brightly painted houses and a river (The River Laune to be precise) runs through it - crossed by an eight- arch stone bridge. Perfectly picture-postcard.
Killorglin is most famous for its annual goat crowning festival, 'Puck Fair', one of the oldest fairs in Ireland. Noelle told us that every year, local men from Killorglin go up into the mountains and capture a wild male goat. In a post-sedation stupour he is then presented to a young woman from the town, 'The Queen of Puck', who then crowns him 'King Puck' - signifying the beginning of the three day festivities. The he-goat is then paraded around the town before being put in a cage and hoisted up onto a 60ft scaffold in the town square to reign, as it were, over Killorglin for the remainder of the festival. Afterwards, he is brought down from his great height of enclosure and released back into the mountain wilds. I wasn't sure whether to wholly believe the story at first, but then I beheld a large bronze statue of King Puck presiding over the town. It would seem that wild goat crowning is taken very seriously in Kerry. Records of the fair exist from the beginning of the 17th century, however it is supposedly much older than that, with legend taking it as far back as pre- Christian Ireland to the Celtic festival 'Lughnasadh', which marked the beginning of the harvest season, with the goat acting as a pagan fertility symbol.
Fed, watered and bemused by local traditions, we left Killorglin. Flanked by the ocean on our right, we drove along the coastline, following the water's edge until we reached Ballinskelligs, the village next to the Cill Rialaig Retreat.
Ballinskelligs is traditionally a Gaeltacht village and one of the few remaining Irish speaking areas in Kerry. It sits on the Skellig Ring and takes its name from the neighbouring monastic Skellig Islands that jut out of the Atlantic beyond its shores.
Ballinskelligs Castle.
Noelle’s House, Ballinskelligs.
Noelle’s own private Pub, The Anchor.
The village is small, quiet and sparsely populated, with some surprising and impressive history up its sleeves - leaving you with an impression of it being unsung and overlooked. However, I was told this is mainly because they are a very modest community. Whilst sat in one of the two pubs in the village, Cable O' Leary's, Noelle told us the meaning behind its name. In the 1860s, Ballinskelligs and nearby Valentia Island, were the sites of the laying of the first successful Transatlantic telegraph cable from Europe to North America. They literally laid a cable across the Atlantic Ocean all the way from Ballinskelligs to America, which resulted in nearly instantaneous communication between two continents. Local legend tells of a giant of a man named Denis O' Leary, who completed the link in the Transatlantic communication system. When the ship bearing the cable couldn't bring it ashore because the water in the bay was too shallow, twelve local men were sent out in a boat from Ballinskelligs to try and move the cable from the ship to the shore. Despite all their force and determination they could not move the cable - this is where Denis O'Leary stepped in. On seeing the problem he waded out to the men in the boat until the water of the bay was up to his chin. They passed him the cable and single-handedly he pulled the cable yard by yard with bloodied hands to the shore with the strength greater than that of twelve men. According to Noelle the end of the cable could still be seen at the bottom of the caravan park next door to the pub. "There ought to be a blue plaque or something by that cable, most places would have something like that but they're just not bothered about that sort of thing here. They named a pub after it instead". I checked afterwards and sure enough she was right, there lay O'Leary's cable, poking out the ground - not a plaque in sight.
Ballinskelligs Bay
Ballinskelligs Priory.
After a look around Ballinskelligs we carried on up the hill to Cill Rialaig, finally completing our journey. To say it's tucked away would be a bit of an understatement. Being one of the most westerly points on the Irish mainland it literally is on the edge of it all. You feel that when you're there. When you look out across the vast expanse of sea that is the North Atlantic Ocean and you know you're not going to be hitting any land until you get to America. It's such an overwhelming sensation of size and scale. It gets you right in your gut. You somehow manage to feel miniscule and gigantic all at the same time.
The North Atlantic.
Apparently it is not uncommon to see whales and porpoises from the cliff edge. If you're lucky in late summer and into the autumn you might catch a glimpse of a Humpback Whale and according to Noelle Orcas and Basking Sharks have also been spotted here. You can see why they call it 'The Wild Atlantic Way'.
The cottages themselves have been lovingly and beautifully restored. A few had smoke from the peat fires coming from their chimneys, tell-tale signs of the artists residing within. You have to apply to Noelle directly via her gallery in Dublin to spend some time at the retreat, as there is no formal website. Demand is high however the residencies are free as long as you contribute back to the community in some way. You can spend up to four weeks at Cill Rialaig and although the remoteness isn't for the feint hearted, it will certainly take your breathe away and leave you feeling inspired. I definitely had plenty of heart-in-mouth moments in that little corner of the world.
Former Birds Custard Factory, Digbeth. The original factory is one of Birmingham's listed Victorian buildings, built by Sir Alfred Bird - inventor of eggless custard. Now, after an arts regeneration project that began in the early nineties, the Custard Factory has been redeveloped into an award winning arts and media centre within Digbeth - an area known as Birmingham's Creative Quarter.
Birmingham.
Birmingham is one of those cities that I've never had much cause to go to - somewhere in the middle that you rarely hear a great deal about. Granted, it's been put on the map in recent years thanks to the likes of the blue eyed, high cheek boned gang leader Tommy Shelby - but it has so much more to offer than the reinvention of men in caps, new themed bars and Race Day fancy dress. Sorry Cillian.
A few years ago my uncle met a Birmingham girl at a festival: they fell in love , he moved down from the North East, they got married and the rest is history. Having new family ties in Birmingham has given me the opportunity to start getting to know the city for myself. Perhaps I am wrong, unfair or even ignorant in calling Birmingham an unsung city. Maybe I've been missing something that everyone else has already been in on for years. Being from the North of England and Yorkshire within that - gives you a real sense of place, because they are two parts of the country with such strong cultural identities. I'm very used to being around people who are loud and proud about where they come from - their northern heritage or their Yorkshire roots. Birmingham is different. It happily sits: quietly, humbly and assumedly under the radar - not feeling the need to shout out louder than its northern counterparts. This self-effacing nature can at times make it hard to have a sensibility towards the city or to gauge its character. But its modesty is what makes it all the more interesting when you do discover something new.
According to my Aunty, "Birmingham has more canals than Venice". This is a fact that I am yet to be sold on, but I can say with certainty that Birmingham has a lot going for it in terms of green spaces: more parks than any other city in Europe and the biggest urban park in Europe in addition to that, Botanical Gardens, nature reserves and rows upon rows of trees. One of the first things I noticed on visiting Birmingham was the amount of tree-lined avenues it has. In Kings Heath, the leafy south suburb where my family live, you can see the house J R R Tolkien spent some of his early childhood growing up in. Just down the road from there is Moseley Bog, a hidden part of the city that was young Tolkien's playground wonderland. It's not hard to see why - stepping down the hill and into the tree root gnarled walkways, enclosed by a thick canopy of greens and browns - it's easy to lose yourself. The outside world becomes a distant memory - you could be any place, any time. Moseley Bog is said to have inspired much of the settings in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy as did other local sites such as Sarehole Mill and Edgbaston Waterworks. You can undertake the Tolkien Trail to discover all these points of interest. On my last trip down to Birmingham in late spring this year I went to the Botanical Gardens for the first time - just as the daffodils had come into late bloom after a long cold winter and the magnolia trees were in full blossom.
Birmingham Botanical Gardens were designed by J.C. Loudon in 1829 and opened to the public in the summer of 1832.
Magnolia stellate, native of Japan.
Birmingham is a city with a wealth of diversity, which is strongly reflected in its arts and music scene. Again, with Birmingham, it's all about knowing where to look. Lots of its top cultural venues aren't always as central as you might expect. Places like Kings Heath and Moseley are great spots for soaking up some alternative culture. My personal favourite live music venue in Birmingham is a pub in Kings Heath called the Hare and Hounds. You can always count on it for some great live artists in a more intimate setting and the pub itself is a gorgeous victorian buliding with Art Nouveau wall tiles worth swooning over - if you happen to be that way inclined.
Digbeth is an area close to the city centre that is well and truly at the forefront of arts culture in Birmingham. Years of redvelopment of this former industrial hub have cemented its place as Birmingham's Creative Quarter. Rough around the edges, to say the least - it is an area scarred by industry: abandoned warehouses, railway arches and former factories make up the architecture here. It's a stark contrast to the green calm of the city parks. Proper pubs with character and history are easy to come by and great music can be found at Mama Roux's or the Night Owl, to name just a couple of places. In the middle of it all is the Custard Factory. Comprising independent shops, digital and creative businesses and studio and event spaces. It plays host to regular fairs, gigs, festivals and other creative events. Similarly, Centrala is another creative community space in Digbeth - bringing artists and like-minded people together through workshops, gigs, visual art events, galleries and an onsite café - with food inspired by its Polish founders. It's this independent, creative ethos that can be seen flowing throughout Digbeth, as literal as the Rea itself.
Alongside it's reputation as Birmingham's Creative Quarter, Digbeth is also known for it's connections with the Irish community. These connections began predominantly in the early 1800s, when Irish emigrants came to Birmingham in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Driven to escape the deathly clutches of the potato famine back home, they sought to find work building new canal networks and railroads. Ever since then, the Irish spirit has been at the heart of Digbeth. This can still be seen today in its pubs, The Irish Centre and the annual St Patrick's Day Parade, which is the biggest of its kind in the UK.
There's still a lot of Birmingham for me to explore - the Back to Backs and the Canal Systems are next on my list - so perhaps I shall be sharing posts from them in the future, but until then - go and check out all the understated cool this city has to offer for yourself.
Thanks for reading.
Beth
Lay of the Land.
At the beginning of last Autumn I was fortunate enough to have a little adventure over the Irish Sea and down to West Cork. This wasn't my first time visiting the area - I'd been the previous summer and fell in love with the place. It was on that first trip over that I came across an Irish Arts organisation called Lay of The Land. They were running their first year of a project named 'Tombolo' , the namesake being derived from the spit of land their project was based at, known as Brow Head.
Tombolo is a site responsive arts project, best described in their own words:
"We support emerging artists whose practices focus on the landscape, and where themes of environment, community, heritage and collaboration are intrinsic to, and reflected in their work.
Artistically our aim is to drive artists and the experience of art outwards into the wild landscape of this island [Ireland].
We believe that the interconnection of art, nature and people can be transformative. Our projects create greater accessibility to the arts in rural communities while allowing the visual arts to stand alone as a valuable and necessary cultural activity and experience. " LOTL.
Responding directly to landscape, place and environment is something I always strive to do in my own work, so I was instantly drawn to the ethos of Lay of The Land. So much so that the following year I decided to get in touch with the project founders, Kari and Hazel, to ask if I could get involved somehow. They welcomed me over without hesitation and a few months later I was back in Ireland to lend a helping hand to an incredibly talented bunch of artists and crew.
West Cork really is a beautiful and remote part of the world. It is made up of all things Irish and then some: rugged peninsulas, quiet harbour towns and villages, fishing, farming, art, culture, music, storytelling, sailing, festivals, markets, ruined castles, lighthouses, old copper mines, coastal forts, islets, secluded beaches and coves, fresh seafood, open crab sandwiches, Gubbeen cheese, pints of Murphy's, proper pubs, friendly people and a generally slower pace of life - all flanked by the Atlantic Ocean.
Tombolo 2017 commissioned eight artists: Emily Robyn Archer, Kari Cahill, Sophie Gough, Hazel Mc Cague, Rosie O'Reilly, Felix Power, Theo Shields and Anna Wylie to create work in response to the landscape of Brow Head, Mizen Peninsula. Through sculptural installation, intrinsic to the Headland - the artists collaborated together to make their own individual works.
Establishing a sensibility towards the Irish landscape by responding to it in a creative way is a primary aspect of LOTL’s philosophy. Through sharing the work created from the interconnectivity of artist and landscape, LOTL champion the land of Ireland to a wider audience: its culture, past, people and language.
Language plays a particularly significant role in defining a landscape and historically the Irish language pays close attention to place. It is a language heavily rooted in the natural environment, described especially well by visual artist, writer and cartographer, Tim Robinson:
“The landscape here [Aran] speaks Irish. The cliffs, rocks, fields and paths are named in words nearly all still alive, descriptive and rich in memories for the islanders themselves”.
Yorkshire born and now Irish based for over 30 years, Robinson has heavily surveyed and studied the Irish landscape and the language that forms it. He demonstrates the power words have in terms of connecting us to a past place. Words not only give landscape a voice, but a beating pulse too and Robinson’s work highlights the importance words have in sustaining a landscape. For every word lost or forgotten a part of that landscape is lost or forgotten with it – defunct and stripped of its integral meaning. However, by reclaiming words we are also given the ability to breathe life back into a landscape and wake up parts of it that have laid dormant for so long.
As you may have surmised, I’m fascinated by words and their etymologies (Long live Countdown’s Susie Dent and Dictionary Corner, amen). To understand the origins of a word, its history and how it changes through time is to further understand the world around us. I have long been influenced by the work of writer and academic Robert Macfarlane, whose book ‘Landmarks’ collects hundreds of place-words from all over Britain and Ireland, across languages and dialects. Macfarlane’s work makes you engage with landscape in a different way, look at it with a fresh perspective and give a greater appreciation to what you’re seeing.
Ireland’s literary landscape is the underpinning of many artists work, who, like Robinson, draw inspiration from the Irish language and its ability to shape a sense of place. During Tombolo I was introduced to the work of artist, Carol Anne Connolly, whose book ‘The Water Glossary’ or ‘An Sanasán Uisce’ is a celebration of the Irish language. She explores the relationship between land and word through her vast research into Ireland’s vocabulary. Her work is very much influenced by Robert Macfarlane’s and it is easy to draw parallels between Landmarks and The Water Glossary. However, the difference being that Connolly’s soul focus is specifically the Irish lexicon. Her collection of words is rich with imagery and bound in nature. The many nuances and illustrative qualities of Ireland’s lexis conjure up a descriptive landscape. From words and phrases to articulate a certain way the rain falls over a body of water, to the numerous wave formations in the ocean, or the many different sounds of the wind. Connolly’s book would often be left out on a table or a chair somewhere in the house we were all staying in for the duration of the project, for people to flick through. It served as a kind of go to source for some of the artists exhibiting in Tombolo to take inspiration from and keep referring back to. As an English person I found it interesting to learn new words from the glossary, and from the Tombolo Team, every day. To learn a new word is to learn a new way of seeing, and in doing so it brought me closer to my surroundings and gave me a greater comprehension of the local landscape.
As a homage to Robinson, Macfarlane and Connolly, I have tried to caption all my photographs below using some of the words and phrases I gathered whilst in Ireland. Words are ingrained within landscapes and as such landscapes are ingrained within words. I hope that by pairing my photographs with these words, it will help give each image a sense of place.
If you haven’t already, please check out the works I have mentioned on the links below:
- Tim Robinson, Folding Landscapes
- Landmarks, Robert Macfarlane (2015)
- The Water Glossary / An Sanasán Uisce, Carol Anne Connolly (2015)
Working with the LOTL project on Tombolo 2017 was such a rewarding experience, I learnt so much just by being around and collaborating with like-minded people. All the hard work and efforts of the artists and crew throughout September and into October culminated across two weekends, in which people were invited to journey to the Mizen Peninsula to celebrate great art, great landscape, great food, great music and even greater company. Craic Agus Ceol all round.
Rather than give a full blow by blow account of every little thing I did whilst in West Cork working on Tombolo, I thought I would just share with you the photos I managed to get when I had my camera on me and a roll of film handy! More of a visual journal if you will - enjoy...
Galley Cove, home for the Duration.
An mhuir bhraonach / The ocean flood; the wide ocean. If you look closely you can see the Fastnet Rock and Fastnet Lighthouse in the centre of the photograph. Fastnet is also known as 'Ireland's Teardrop' because it was the last thing 19th century Irish emigrants would see on their journey across the Atlantic Ocean to North America.
Signal Flag, 2017. A collaborative piece between the Tombolo '17 artists, harking back to the Napoleonic War. Stations were built throughout Ireland to warn the British Army of impending invasions by French Forces. Two flags and three balls in different combinations created its own language.
![Runga / Rung [of a ladder]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53428e79e4b057b0688563ed/1517847813404-TGUFDVF94F1Y20JLSPXO/63.jpg)
The Miner's Cottages. This ruined housing is part of a small hamlet and is what remains of a nineteenth century Cornish mining village. Other signs of mining activity on Brow Head include mine shafts and a reservoir. Brow Head or Mallavogue as it was also known was a thriving copper mining community. The first copper ore was extracted here in 1852 and the mining continued intermittently until at least 1906.
For more information and insight into the work of Lay of the Land and their future projects please check out their website http://www.layoftheland.ie/ and help support Tombolo 2018!
Thanks x
Where to start? An Introduction:
For some time now I have been talking myself in and out of starting a blog.
To anyone who knows me, the idea of talking myself in and out of doing something will come as no surprise. I have a unique ability to overthink a seemingly commonplace task, become overwhelmed by it , then put it off for the foreseeable.
Why the prospect of writing a few words down that will probably be read by about five people tops should appear daunting to me, I don't know? How do you write a blog without sounding ridiculously narcissistic or overly pretentious? Who really gives a shit about what you have to say? So far I have at least two confirmed readers: my Grandma Rose (who cannot work computers and doesn't know what the internet is, so that's promising) and my friend Sam (who is only really awaiting my first blog post for what I'm sure he deems as comedy value and to see those immortal words written on my Instagram page: 'link in bio'. Also promising).
Now I have established that I have at least have two people interested in the reading of future blog posts, all that's left to figure out is what exactly am I going to write about? If you do a quick internet search on 'how to write a blog' , which believe me - I have, the obvious advice comes up: 'know your target audience', 'establish what you are going to write about', etc. etc. Well, I suppose I have already narrowed down my target audience: women in their eighties - who are computer illiterate and friends who are in need of something to mock - quite niche, but I reckon I'm off to a good start there. Now to the writing part...
Writing is not a form of expression that comes naturally to me, I have to admit. I enjoyed creative writing at primary school, but sadly it's been all downhill since then. Nowadays writing is something that I associate with secondary school and university - essays, dissertations and job applications - something that you have to do that's not for fun. Oh, and also not forgetting the Twilight Years. And by 'Twilight Years' I don't mean me writing my memoirs in my old age, I'm only in my twenties. I mean fourteen year old me, reading the Twilight Novels by Stephanie Meyer and endlessly professing my love for a fictional immortal seventeen year old vampire through the written word. (well, he's actually over one hundred but just retains the physical appearance of a seventeen year old if we're being technical, hence the immortal part.. duh...)
Anyway, moving swiftly on from the tangential musings of my teenage fantastical writing habits and back to the subject of blog writing. The other main point of advice that the internet gave me in regards to blog writing was to define an 'area' or 'theme' in which your blog can nicely sit in order to navigate your target audience. Well, the purpose of me wanting to start a blog ('new year, new me' joking aside) is simply to have another means of sharing my photos that I take on my 35mm film camera whilst out and about. If for no one else (other than the odd friend or family member) then at least for myself, as a way of documenting, remembering and looking back. Otherwise, they're only sat packaged up in my room collecting dust, quite literally. However, if I had to pick some sort of theme for my blog to fit into, which quite frankly I don't really feel the need to, I suppose it would have to fall under the wider umbrella of travel and photography blogging. But please, just because I am a twenty something female writing about my travels and sharing my photos, don't expect to be seeing pristine images of me all bronzed, toned and bikini clad in the Caribbean or some other far flung corner of the world doing a yoga pose on a beach. The more realistic version of that image would probably be me face planted on a beach in Northumberland because I fell down a hole (yes that actually happened).
Finally - to surmise my ramblings - I'm clearly new to this blog writing game, and therefore anything I write from now on will certainly be a work in progress, so please be kind. I can't promise anything exciting, Grandma friendly yes, but I'm not exactly a globe trotter. If you're wanting to read a blog where I report back from a different continent every other week, then perhaps my posts won't be your cup of tea. But if you would like to see photos of North Yorkshire, my home county, or maybe even somewhere as exotic as the Emerald Isle, then you're in for a thrill ride let me tell you! You don't have to go far to have an adventure after all, and to clarify that - I shall leave you with the words of Roger Deakin : 'Why would anyone want to go to live abroad when they can live in several countries at once just by being in England?'