Category Archives: Museums and galleries

A Chester Archaeological Society visit to the Grosvenor Museum Stores

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Many thanks to Pauline Clarke, the Excursions Officer of the Chester Archaeological Society, for organizing our CAS visit to the Grosvenor Museum Stores, and to Liz Montgomery of the Grosvenor Museum for taking us on a splendid guided tour.  All the way round there were dozens of questions from the group, always the mark of a successful event.

It was a real eye-opener, not merely because of the box upon box of objects, but because of the amount of work that remains to be carried out.  Many of the boxes represent excavations that have been published, but also those for which post-excavation funding was not available.  Intriguingly, there are boxes of items from the excavations that took place when the old police headquarters was replaced with today’s HQ building, where St Mary’s Nunnery once stood.

The storage boxes are stacked on racks, with organic and metallic remains kept in airtight containers and, in one of the storage sections, whole objects and big stone-carved fragments kept on display on some of the racks. It was fun to spot some boxes from Cuppin Street, where I excavated in the 1980s with a great group under the supervision of Simon Ward.  Bigger objects, particularly Roman stoneware, are kept on palettes. There is a lot of Roman and post-Roman, including Medieval material, but there is also a collection of prehistoric items from the neighbouring area as well as the Cheshire ridge.

More recent items, from the earlier 20th century, are also lying on the shelves as well as in storage boxes, including wartime and inter-war period plus more recent objects.

All the contents of the storage facility have been carefully recorded, and many of the older boxes have been replaced with more appropriate specialized storage containers.  Everything is kept clean and all items are accessible.  These measures make the storage collection a very useful resource for researchers, who can take the selected storage boxes to a room equipped with tables and chairs (and an efficient radiator!) to explore the contents in comfort. It  looks as though there may be opportunities for volunteers to contribute to this work in the future, which will be an excellent opportunity for non-experts to help the professionals to put the storage collection to good use.

This storage facility is largely dedicated to the museum’s archaeological collection, with a smaller set of items from more recent history, and the whole lot is utterly fascinating.  This is not, however,  the only storage facility for the museum.  The old saltworks caverns have been converted into storage for some organizations, including the museum, and valuable items like jewellery, coins and other perishable metalwork are stored in a vault elsewhere.  The 1000+ paintings collected by the museum, particularly under the aegis of Peter Boughton, are also stored elsewhere.  As with most other museums, both this and the other Grosvenor stores demonstrate that what the museum has on display is just a fraction of what it holds, but also demonstrates just how much activity goes on behind the scenes, as well as the extent of the museum’s many responsibilities.

The photos below are a random selection of the many, many delights that the stores have to offer.  Thanks again to Liz Montgomery for an excellent guided tour, which provided real insights into the value of a storage collection to the work of this and other museums.

 

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Day Trip: The Iron Bridge and the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site

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Introduction

The Iron Bridge is the star attraction of the Ironbridge area, the focal point of the UNESCO World Heritage Site (awarded in 1986), and managed since 1991 by the Severn Gorge Countryside Trust, which includes 52 sites, 60 historic structures, 230 hectares of woodland, 25 acres of wild flower meadow, 26kms of paths and 8 kms of bridleways.  This includes at least twelve museums and managed sites, some of which are open all year round, others only seasonally.  This makes the Ironbridge Gorge a splendid place for an extended visit as well as for day trips to selected destinations.

It can be easy to come away with a fragmented view of Ironbridge Gorge whilst driving between the bridge and the different museums and villages.  Once known collectively as Coalbrookdale, the immediate valley area is now divided into Ironbridge, Jackfield, Coalport and Coalbrookdale with outlying attractions in the surrounding area.  However, all areas are united by the underlying geology that was revealed by glacial action and became the source of raw materials for manufacturing in the area, both of ironworks that produced industrial scale projects like the bridge itself as well as decorative objects for home and office; and clay-based household objects such as tiles, and finer decorative china.

The first engineer and entrepreneur to exploit the full potential of the Ironbridge area’s geology for industry was Abraham Darby I who had a small furnace in the area and who in 1709 successfully experimented with carbonized coal, called coke, as fuel instead of charcoal that depended on less volumes of mature woodlands and required much less labour.  Abraham Darby I’s formula for iron was a ratio of 600kg coke to 600kg of ironstone and 250g limestone, all of which were available locally, and produced 250kg iron.  Efficiencies in the iron manufacturing industry were further improved with refinement of coke production and the introduction of steam-powered engines later in the 18th century.
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From the leaflet “Exploring Ironbridge Gorge” showing the key components of the visitor attractions today

The other essential geographical feature was the river Severn, which flows through the Ironbridge Gorge.  The gorge was itself formed by the pressure from a glacier, that sat over much of Shropshire, on the underlying trapped water.  This water, with nowhere else to go,  forced itself out from under the glacier through the soft limestone of what are now named Benthall Edge and Lincoln Hill, forming the steep-sided channel that the river occupies today.  In the 18th and 19th centuries the water from the Severn provided both power, first to water wheels and then steam engines, as well as cooling for many of the machines and as part of many of the industrial processes.  It was also a major transport link between the Ironbridge area, the Bristol Channel and the rest of the world.  Looking at the river today in its wildlife and heritage setting, it is difficult to imagine how much pollution there must have been both in the air and in the water, produced by the furnaces, forges and kilns, as well as the chemical waste.

Source: The Iron Trail, Ironbridge Gorge (leaflet), Severn Gorge Countryside Trust

The Iron Bridge

The building of a cast-iron bridge was proposed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard 1723-1777), who also designed the prototype.  Up until the building of the bridge, which opened in 1781, most of the traffic across the river was by ferry; the nearest bridge was the medieval Buildwas bridge next to Buildwas abbey, 3.8km upstream from the site of the new Iron Bridge. The connection between the north and south sides of the river was essential, allowing the movement of raw materials, people and supplies.  The bridge was an obvious solution to the problem of a river that was vulnerable to changing levels and seasonal weather extremes such as low levels, floods and high winds.

Thomas Farnollis Pritchard by C. Blackberd c.1765

Thomas Farnolls Pritchard specialized in the restoration of prestigious houses. Although he had built bridges in wood and stone, none had been as ambitious as his Ironbridge proposal, and this was the first attempt to use cast iron to span a gap this wide. the idea was to use a single arch to span the widest section of the river, avoiding piers that would impede navigation.  He sent his proposal for a cast iron bridge to John “Iron-Mad” Wilkinson, an obvious sponsor for this type of innovative project.  Wilkinson in turn discussed the matter with Abraham Darby III, who instantly saw the potential for the bridge not merely as a means of spanning the river, but of marketing his company and the benefits of the Ironbridge area as a whole, at that time known collectively as Coalbrookdale.  A committee was formed to take the project forward.

The only known image of the bridge under construction, by Elias Martin (1739-1818) painted in the summer of 1779

An Act of Parliament was granted in 1776, and shares were soon issued to raise funds. Work began in 1777.  The iron for the bridge was cast by Darby at his works, but there is no record as to which of his three furnace sites was responsible.  It is probable that the work was shared out to all three, spreading the load to ensure that existing and new commercial contracts continued to be delivered.  It is known that wooden scaffolding was employed in the construction of the iron bridge, but the exact process of construction is unrecorded.  The painted inscription on the ironwork that spans the top of the bridge reads “This bridge was cast at Coalbrook-Dale and erected in the year MXDCCLXXIX [1779].”  Ribs were cast in two pieces and joined in the middle.  Observation of the bridge’s construction shows that it was assembled using both metalwork techniques and joinery techniques such as mortise and tenon joints and dovetailing.  The ironwork was flanked by and set into stone abutments.

Once the basic frame was built, spanning 100ft 6ins (c.31m)  the scaffolding was removed in 1779 and a road was constructed over the top and a small toll-house added on the southern side.  The bridge eventually opened in 1781, on New Year’s Day.  Although it was built closely in the spirit of Pritchard’s original plan, several changes were made.  Pritchard did not live to see the bridge completed but his family were duly paid for his contribution.

The bridge had cost a massive £6000, twice the estimate.  Darby had taken on the bulk of this financial burden.  Although he was quick to use the marketing potential of the bridge deploying it as an advertising emblem, and visitors came from all over the world to see it, neither this nor the tolls for use of the bridge were able to make up the substantial shortfall.  Darby was unable to make up his losses and the bridge left him in debt for the rest of his life, with both business and properties mortgaged.

Unlike Buildwas and other Severn bridges, the Iron Bridge  survived the Great Flood of 1795, unlike the medieval stone Buildwas Bridge, proving the durability of a cast iron bridge.  Thomas Telford had repaired the Buildwas bridge in 1779 but during 1795 it was damaged beyond repair and, taking Ironbridge as his model, Telford replaced it with his own iron bridge.

Over the following century repairs were carried out as required, but during the early 20th century its stability was questioned and its demolition was suggested in 1926.  Fortunately, it was decided to save the bridge and was limited to pedestrian use from 1934, and was listed as a National Monument.  In 1950 it passed into the hands of Shropshire County Council.  Substantial restoration work has been carried out since 1972 to stabilize and reinforce the bridge.  It is now in the care of English Heritage.

A footpath runs under the bridge on the Ironbridge village side, allowing a good view of some of the metalwork.

The small town of Ironbridge began to develop in the later 18th century.  Today Ironbridge village is small but attractive, with a row of shops, cafes and pubs lining the road that runs along Severn between Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale, with houses, a massive church and other community buildings climbing the hill above the river in Ironbridge.  I can recommend the ice cream 🙂

The Museums

I have already posted about the glorious Jackfield Tile Museum here, with lots of photos, but there are at least total of twelve museums and related visitor attractions in the Ironbridge area, and I will post about the other four museums that I visited on future posts.  I would have visited the Broseley Pipeworks and the Tar Tunnel, but neither were open, so I plan to visit those when they re-open.  The Darby Houses were also closed.  Nor did I visit Enginuity, which appears to be geared towards children, but actually looks like a lot of fun, if you are child-friendly, with plenty of interactive activities demonstrating engineering principals.  Blist’s Hill Victorian Town just wasn’t my cup of tea, but the recreation of everyday life in 1900 Shropshire sounds like a good initiative.

From the “Ironbridge Valley of Invention” leaflet, 2024

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A have talked about the Jackfield Tile Museum in detail on a previous post.  Don’t miss it.  In the world of museums, this is a rock star.

Part of the Coalbrook China Museum

The Coalport China Museum to the east of of Ironbridge and Jackfield consists of two areas of interest – the displays of decorated china ware made in the local area, and the surviving furnaces in which many of them were made, which you can enter and walk around.  Although the china is worth seeing, partly because it demonstrates the many shapes, textures and patterns that were produced, I found the splendid industrial heritage of this site the most evocative and engaging part of the experience, bringing the sheer vast materiality of these enterprises to life.  This part of the Severn valley would have been full of these furnaces.  There is good car parking.  Ticket prices are on the Ironbridge website, and don’t forget to ask for an English Heritage discount if you  are a member.

The Toll House, free of charge, is set just to the south of the Ironbridge near to the car park, is now a museum of the bridge, telling it story.  This is mainly a matter of information boards rather than objects on display, but is very informative.  It also serves as a ticket office for those wishing to buy family tickets and day passes (although you can also buy tickets on an ad hoc basis when you visit individual museums).

To the east, easily reached by walking along the wide pathway that follows the Severn, is the Museum of the Gorge, also free of charge.  There is a small car park next to it.  The exterior of the building is fabulous, and there are some great internal features, and there are information boards about the history of the building and the conservation work, as well as a selection of reproductions of historic maps of Shropshire.

The Old Furnace at the Iron Museum

Up the hill is the splendid Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron.  The museum captures the essence of the area’s iron production output, from geology and early history via the bridge itself, including some excellent original images of the Ironbridge, via civil engineering equipment to a surprising and elaborate array of domestic items.  On the museum site is also the substantial and impressive remains of the the Old Furnace, some of which has been turned into an indoor feature.  Like the China Museum, this is a splendid mix of museum displays and well preserved and explained industrial archaeology.

Not shown on the above map is the Bedlam furnace, half way between Jackfield and Iron bridge on the north side of the river, which can be viewed from the laybay in front of it and is well worth visiting, partly because although there is little of it left, it was the subject of Philip de Loutherberg’s famous 1801 painting.

“Coalbrookdale by Night” by Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, 1801. Open coke hearths give off vivid flames and smoke. Archetypal image of the Industrial Revolution. From a colour transparency in the Science Museum Photographic Archive, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Licence.

 

Visiting

Wherever you are, keep an eye open for leaflets, as some of these have some very helpful information, including chronological charts, maps and self-guided trails to some of the features that are beyond the museums.

The bridge

The bridge is open to visitors all year round, assuming that no restoration or repair work is taking place.  The opening times for the toll house, which acts as a museum for the bridge, can be found on the Ironbridge Gorge website.  Extensive pay and display parking for Ironbridge is available on the south side of the river, which allows you to choose how long you are going to stay.  This is handy if you just want to spend a short time looking at the bridge and browsing in the village but also allows you to stay longer if you want to walk along to to Coalbrookdale to visit the Museum of the Gorge museum and up the shallow hill to visit Enginuity and the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron.

The museums

The Iron musuem

All the Ironbridge Gorge museums are covered on one website – Ironbrige Valley of Invention.   This inexplicably has very few images of what’s on display, and suffers from Russian doll syndrome, with pages buried within pages, but the information on days when the museums are open and closed (changes seasonally) and the opening times are there if you look for them.  Some of the museums are closed completely at certain times of the year (such as the Tar Tunnel and the Broseley Tobacco Pipe Works).

Note that if you are a member of English Heritage there is a discount on ticket prices, but you will need to ask for it.

Other sites to visit in the area

This is a rich area for destinations to visit, including five medieval abbeys a relatively short drive away, a number of National Trust properties and only a little further afield, Shrewsbury makes for a rewarding day out with the abbey church, the excellent Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery and the attractive medieval and Georgian architecture.  Not far away is the RAF Museum at Cosford, just outside Telford (my post about it is here), and whilst there, the Church of St Bartholemew at Tong with its lovely medieval choir, its elaborate tombs and the remarkable Tudor chapel and is crammed full of interest and just a 10 minute drive away.

St Bartholemew’s Church, Tong

 

Sources:

Books, booklets and papers

2019 edition (no author or reference number).  Exploring Ironbridge Gorge (booklet). The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust Ltd.

Jones, C. 1989. Coal, Gas and Electricity. In (ed.) Pope, R. Atlas of British Social and Economic History Since c.1700. Routledge

Mathias, P. 2001 (second edition). The First Industrial Nation. The Economic History of Britain 1700-1914. Routledge.

Mokyr, Joel 1981 (2nd edition). Technological change 1700-1830.   In (eds.) Roderick Floud and Deidre McCloskey, The Economic History of Britain since 1700.  Volume 1: 1700-1860. Cambridge University Press

Osborne, R. 2013. Iron, Steam and Money. The Making of the Industrial Revolution. The Bodley Head.

Leaflets

Undated leaflet (no reference number). The Ironbridge and Town. The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust Ltd.

Undated leaflet (no reference number). The Iron Trail, Ironbridge Gorge. Severn Gorge Countryside Trust

2024 leaflet (no reference number). Ironbridge Valley of Invention. The Ironbrige Gorge Museum Trust Ltd.

Websites

Ironbridge Valley of Invention
Official website
https://www.ironbridge.org.uk/

UNESCO pages for Ironbridge Gorge
UNESCO World Convention
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/371/

 

Day trip: The chaos of the Avanti train to and from Chester and Euston for “The Great Mughals” and “Silk Roads”

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The Reading Room at the British Museum

One of the things I write about on this blog is how viable day trips to specific places actually are.  On Thursday December 5th my friend Helen and I went on a planned trip to London for the day to see two exhibitions and a quick touristy visit to Harrods Food Hall. The exhibitions are described briefly below, in case you are considering attending either and are interested in some insights, but this is mainly a story of an Avanti fiasco.

It’s the first time since moving to this area that I’ve been back to London by train, because on previous visits I took the car.  Virgin was still in charge of the west coast line when I was last traveling by train to visit my parents in the Chester area (when I was living in London), and although people complained about it, I used it a lot and found both the prices and the service very acceptable.  The line is now run by Avanti West Coast Trains.  A single return journey does not provide a valid sample of the service on an everyday basis, and perhaps this was not typical, but on a typically alternating dry-wet English day, not only were both direct trains that we should have been booked on, there and back cancelled, but there were other complications too.  It was a mess. Whether typical or not, this is certainly something to consider when planning a trip by train from Chester to London.

The Avanti Fiasco

A few weeks ago we both went to Chester to book the tickets on Chester railway station, in person, and that’s where the first problem occurred.  We wanted a direct fairly early train, and that limited us to three services – the 0732, the 0832 and the 0920.  Neither of us felt like an early rise for what was intended to be a very full but light-hearted day, so we selected the 0832, with return tickets booked on the 1902.  We learned later that we were supposed to have received a print-out of the travel plans, put none was given to us.  When we checked the tickets for the exact timings closer to the day of travel, we found that we had been booked on to the 0732.  In spite of Helen’s efforts to get our tickets changed, in person at the station, all the bookable seats on the the 0832 were already taken. The person at the station was apparently really helpful and apologetic but we were stuck with the 0732.  When we arrived we noticed that the 0832 had in fact been cancelled.  The passengers were presumably either heading to Crewe on the shuttle, or hanging around for the next 50 minutes because there is no direct train until 0920 (if that too was not cancelled).  On the upside, the train was clean and comfortable, stopping at Crewe and Stafford before arriving into Euston.

Avanti West Coast Train at Stafford. Source: Wikimedia Commons

When ready to take the train home, we returned to Euston with plenty of time to spare, and found that our train, the 1902, had been cancelled.  A station employee suggested that we take the 1833 to Manchester Piccadilly and change at Crewe.  We had to run for it but we made it.  It was absolutely packed but after walking through four carriages of a very busy train to try to find two seats together, we eventually installed ourselves.  The next bit of news, thanks to another passenger, was that no driver was currently available and we would not be leaving until 1900.  There were no announcements to this effect in the half hour that we were sitting there, so my thanks to that passenger for the information.  A few minutes after 1900 we slowly pulled off.  Nearing Crewe, having lost another 15 minutes en route there was an incredibly garbled announcement about people wanting to go to Crewe and Holyhead that involved platforms 5 and 6. No Avanti personnel came through the train, so there was no-one to ask for clarification.

We opted for platform 6 and once we had left the train at Crewe crossed the foot bridge and found the platform.  The overhead sign was reassuringly marked for Chester, leaving at 2103.   Just minutes before it was due to arrive there was an announcement to say that it was now coming in on platform 11, so we were again legging it along the platform towards the stairs to locate another platform (thanks very much to the knowledgeable fellow traveler who pointed us in the right direction).  We got back to Chester in the end, at something gone half past 9 (even that leg of the journey was late), rather later and much more stressed than we had planned.

In practice, both of the trains that we should have been on were cancelled. We were booked onto the wrong train on our outgoing journey, and on our return journey, instead of travelling direct to Chester in booked seats, we had to take pot luck on being able to sit together, and were forced to change and wait at wet and windy Crewe, adding yet more inconvenience to an already tiresomely unsatisfactory experience.

It is not yet over.  There is now the hassle of seeing if we can negotiate for some form of compensation.  I’ll update this post when the outcome has been decided.

 

The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence at the V&A

This is a lovely, informative and eye-opening exhibition if you are in London before the 5th May 2025.  It has been on since November 9th 2024.  I didn’t take my camera so please note that all the photos below were either from the V&A website or were taken by Helen Anderson on her iPhone (see captions).

The great age of Mughal art lasted from about 1580 to 1650 and spanned the reigns of three emperors: Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. Hindu and Muslim artists and craftsmen from the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent worked with Iranian masters in the masculine environment of the royal workshops. Their very different traditions were combined to produce a radically new, and rapidly evolving style of art for the court. (V&A)

The exhibition covers the art of the reigns of three successive rulers on the Indian subcontinent.  Under each emperor the empire expanded and the resulting wealth funded a rich output of artistic work, including paintings, manuscripts, floor coverings, tiles, clothing, glass wear (including rock crystal) metalwork, jewellery, and other objects that made versatile use of gemstones and other raw materials such as mother of pearl and decorative stone.  A gold-hilted dagger and scabbard, for example, are studded with 1685 rubies This is very much the output of power and wealth.  The love of vibrant colour and glowing textures shines throughout.

Akbar’s entry into Surat in 1590-95. Source: V&A museum number IS.2:117-1896

Although it is a celebration of natural beauty, the overarching message is one of luxurious court living with its taste for the exotic and the religious all overlaid with by the idealism and expansionist determination of three imperial rulers.  Jahangir’s name means “World Seizer”, ahd he gave his son Khurram the title Shah Jahan, meaning “King of the World,” leaving no doubt that this is a story not merely of art and the skilled craftsmen that created it, but of political and territorial ambition.

The most astonishing thing, apart from the beauty of the artwork, is the sheer number of influences that were at play, producing a rich variety of styles and motifs.  Each region had its own characteristic approach to art and craft, as well as its own cultural motifs, but these were also mingled over time to create new portfolios of idea and expression.

The exhibition also includes pieces that express the influence of European ideas and art works on Mughal work.  The presence of merchants, diplomats, and Christian missionaries sometimes created a blend of Mughal and European concepts in art.

Each of the items, and the paintings in particular, reward examination on at least two levels: the overall subject matter on display, and then the individual details that make up these scenes. There are layers upon layers of patterning and motifs contained within the larger narrative, and each individual person, animal, bird, plant and building is a work of art in its own right.  This is clearly seen in the multiple layers of action, pattern and detail in Akbar’s entry into Surat above, and the glorious Squirrels in a tree, below. The sheer exoticism of some of the religious personalities are marvellous in their conceptualization.  As history, they also reveal a lot about court life, activities and and taste, and how extravagant and sensuous this all was.

by Abu’I-Hasan and Mansur. British Library Collection. Photograph by Helen Anderson, who holds the copyright

Rock crystal cup  studded with precious gems and kingfisher feathers, c.1620. Photograph by Helen Anderson, who holds the copyright

The rock crystal cup is an astonishing example of how different raw materials can be drawn together to produce a work of both breathtaking beauty and elaborate luxury, which can be enjoyed both as a single item and for its individual parts.  The rock crystal is set with rubies, emeralds and dark blue glass.  On the interior, the turquoise is provided by kingfisher feathers sealed under slithers of rock crystal, and the reverse sides of some of the stones are painted with tiny faces.   In spite of the luxurious components, all framed in gold, it miraculously conveys delicacy and charm rather than tipping into excessive ostentation and gaudiness.

Rock crystal cup showing interior with painted faces and kingfisher feathers, c.1620. Photograph by Helen Anderson, who holds the copyright

Some pieces seem much simpler at first sight, but contain such elegance and sophistication of design, form and shaping that they too sing out.  The wine cup of Shah Jahan is a particularly fine example of simplicity of concept and intricacy of design.

Wine cup of Shah Jahan, 1657. Source: V&A museum number IS.12-1962

This was a very well thought out and curated exhibition, making good use of the space in the several rooms and providing excellent information throughout.  It was quite busy at 1pm on a Thursday afternoon, but there was no sense of having to queue to see an item.  Whatever your taste in art, I would say that this is a must-see exhibition, because the quality of the objects is so high and the emphasis on natural beauty is delightful.  It is on until May 5th, and if I make it back to London before then, I will certainly visit again.

Man’s hunting coat with delicate colouring and splendid detail. Source:   V&A  For 23 more images see the V&A website

There is an excellent background to the history of this period on the V&A website, accompanied by many images from the exhibition, at:
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-arts-of-the-mughal-empire

Visiting details are on the V&A website here:

Photos are permitted without flash.

Gold thumb ring set with emeralds and rubies and enamelled on the inside, 1600 – 50, Mughal. V&A Museum no. IM.207-1920. Photograph by Helen Anderson, who retains the copyright


Silk Roads at the British Museum

Rather than a single trade route from East to West, the Silk Roads were made up of overlapping networks linking communities across Asia, Africa and Europe, from East Asia to Britain, and from Scandinavia to Madagascar. This major exhibition unravels how the journeys of people, objects and ideas that formed the Silk Roads shaped cultures and histories. The Silk Roads were in use for millennia, but this visually stunning show focuses on a defining period in their history, from about AD 500 to 1000. (British Museum)

The Silk Roads exhibition at the British Museum began on 23rd September 2024 and runs until February 2025.  Both Helen and I had reservations about it, each slightly different.  These are my thoughts.

Tang Dynasty Horse

First, this was very busy at around 3pm on a Thursday afternoon, and the exhibition’s organization does not make the most of the space, which was not as extensive as I had expected for such a widely advertised event.  Glass display cabinets only face one way, which does not help to break up the bunching of groups of people in front of them.  If the objects had been visible and labled on both sides, it would have been much easier to get a view of them.  Instead, it was a matter of queuing painfully slowly until visitors had read the signage or listened to the running commentary in their smartphones.  The alternative was to dash between display cabinets as they became available, which I did, but completely breaks down the narrative value of the signage.

Section of a wall painting from the palace of Varakhsha Uzbek, c. AD730, showing a hero on an elephant fighting wild beasts. Collection of the State Museum of Uzbekistan

Because the silk roads cover a very wide area, and this was quite a small exhibition, there is not a great deal of connectivity between the objects on display,  and there is a great deal of variety, meaning that the information boards are essential to tie everything together.  This means that you really have to read the information boards in the order in which they are displayed to understand the role of the objects in the exhibition. The main problem was that it was far too busy at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon, with long slow crocodile queues of people trying to see objects and related signage.  An earlier or later time might have made the exhibition a far more enjoyable experience.

As well as the cultural-artistic aspect of the story, I had been hoping to learn more about the silk roads themselves, with the objects used to illustrate the commercial history of how the trade in silk operated and why it became so important, but there was very little on the subject.  It was not about the silk routes themselves, focusing instead on how these routes lead to the dispersal of objects, religious ideas and technical skills over large areas, mainly between east and west.  The narrative on the information boards does a good job of conveying the latter, if you are able to read them in the correct order, and there are some helpful maps.

To me, the narrative drawing all these objects together around the silk roads theme seemed rather forced. It felt more cobbled together than elegantly thought through, but as busy as it was, there were some very fine pieces on display, and if you see this as something of a kaleidoscope, an impressionistic view of the silk roads and the items and ideas that moved along it, there are some really nice individual pieces to enjoy.

For a more positive and much longer review see Jonathan Jones on The Guardian website gives The Silk Roads a big thumbs-up,  There’s also a good and positive overview by Josephine Quinn on The London Review of Books.

The British Museum’s own introduction to the exhibition can be found here:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/beyond-sand-and-spices-introduction-silk-roads

Visiting details are on the British Museum website here:

Photos are permitted without flash.

Funerary banner of a high-ranking Uyghur, perhaps a royal minister, named Kara Totok, wearing horse-riding attire. Museum fur Asiasfische Kunst.

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Final Comments

Pilgrim vases from Abu Mina in Egypt AD 480-650. The one on the right is from Alexandria in Egypt; the one on the right was found in Kent. Both are in the British Museum collection (on show in the Silk Roads exhibition)

The booking of exhibition time slots makes the risk of train cancellations a more complex logistical factor than it should be.  Nowadays time slots for an exhibition are standard, and it clearly makes sense to give yourself a lot of wiggle room unless you are a paid-up member of an organization that allows members to enter without booking a slot.  Although most permanent collections (as opposed to temporary exhibitions) do not require you to book, the Courtauld Institute collection at Somerset House on The Strand is splendid but their website says that they will only let you visit their permanent collection with a booked, timed ticket.  I did email them to question if this was really the case, but they did not reply.  So I would suggest that after checking your destination museum or gallery, you book your train with a lot of wiggle-room built in.

If you have never visited the Food Hall at Harrods, it’s a fun destination at Christmas.  The prices are eye-watering, but as well as being stuffed full of indulgences, luxuries, it also stocks things that are very difficult to find elsewhere, and is a wonderful piece of pure tourism.  For a particular celebration I had wanted to pop in for white asparagus, which I cannot source up here, and snaffled the last pack that they had.  But after that vital piece of semi-sensible shopping, we then wandered through all the different rooms in the food hall, enjoying the beautiful displays, the fabulously packaged items and largely resisting the considerable number of temptations.

In spite of Avanti’s cancellation of both of the direct Chester ↔ Euston services that we chose, (which resulted in no seat bookings and the requirement to change at Crewe), it was a really good day and next time I will know that whatever I am / we are planning to do in London the best policy is to assume that the train service will go wrong, that Crewe will be involved even when you have tried to book a direct train, and that exhibition ticket slots need to be planned accordingly.

Good luck and enjoy!

Dale Chihuly’s contemporary central glass sculpture under the dome at the V&A

Day trip: The Jackfield Tile Museum, near Ironbridge, Shropshire

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 Introduction

Craven Dunnill and Co

At the top of my to-do list for my short break to Shropshire in October was the Jackfield Tile Museum.  I wanted to see all the Ironbridge area museums themed around the Industrial Revolution, and managed to do so, but I have a great love of tiles, and since I moved up to this area have been dying to visit the museum in the village of Jackfield, next to the river Severn.  It was even better than I had expected.  To get the most out of this museum, you have to really love Victorian and Edwardian design, because this is a celebration of the tiles produced during the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, but if you do, it is a superb experience.

The museum is beautifully thought out, very well lit, and the tiles are presented in a way that allows them to be appreciated and understood not only as designs, but as the products of specific manufacturing processes, as the result of industrial innovation and as the output of very proficient commercial drive.  It is amazing what went in to making tiles and mosaics and turning them into a commercially viable product for both private homes and public buildings.

Craven Dunnill and Co

As well as original display cases and tile arrangements that show how the tiles were arranged to show to potential buyers, there are rooms showing development in artistic and craft styles (the Style Gallery) and reconstructions of entire rooms that used tiles as the major component of their decorative schemes.  There are also reminders that the tile-works also made plates, vases and other decorative items.  The museum also holds the John Scott Collection of tiles.

The impressively long 1872 building, the original Craven Dunnill and Co tile-works, is occupied partly by the museum and partly by a working tile-works.  Today’s Craven Dunnill is a successful commercial venture building on the successes of its 19th century predecessors, a very nice link between the building’s heritage and its present manufacturing activities.

Craven Dunnill and Co

Apologies for some of the photographs.  There is excellent lighting in the museum, but this sometimes makes it difficult to photograph without reflections, and many of the photographs have big patches of bright light on them.  Some of the angles are a bit odd too, as I tried to lean away from the reflections.  It didn’t help that I was in a bright fuchsia-pink coat, which reflected in the display cabinet glass!

Visiting details (with links to opening times, ticket prices, and parking details etc) are at the end of the post, as usual.

The length of the building reflects the way in which tiles were produced via a series of stages from east to west, from preparation of the clay to the finished product

The museum is arranged into different themed areas, which explain both different aspects of the Jackfield tile-works itself and the development in the 19th century of tiles and how they were marketed and sold, and what sort domestic, commercial and public locations they adorned.

Entrance, showing replica of one of the Craven, Dunnill and Co commissions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introductory Gallery

One of the original 19th century floors of the Craven Dunnill and Co tile-works, where prospective customers entered to view tiles in the trade showroom.

The self-guided tour starts with information boards describing the background to the tile industry and its commercial development from the 17th century, when the area was famous for its clay tobacco pipe manufacturing works at Broseley.  By the 1720s there were several small potteries in Jackfield, taking advantage of locally available raw materials and the proximity of the river for power and transportation.  There had been a pottery on the Craven and Dunnill site since 1728.  The railway arrived in the valley in 1862, with a siding for Jackfield and stops at Coalport and Ironbridge, improving connections and the speed with which products could be shifted to market.  The expansion of local industries followed, and two of the largest Victorian tile factories in the world were built next to the railway:  Craven, Dunnill and Co in 1875 and Maw and Co in 1883.  Tiles were valued not only for their decorative value but, in a period that was just getting to grips with the importance of hygiene, were easy to clean.  By 1881 Craven Dunnill and Co had 94 workers including 53 men, 15 women and 25 youths.

Craven Dunnill and Co

Mosaics on the stairway up to the the trade showroom, displaying the skills of the tile-works

Craven Dunnill and Co

Craven Dunnill and Co

The Trade Showroom

The first gallery, The Trade Showroom, is the display area of the Craven Dunnill and Co. tile-works, where architects, interior decorators and their customers could view catalogues, but could also see samples of the company’s tiles wherever they looked.  Today’s layout preserves one of the company’s original display cabinets, and the tiles on the walls, including floor and wall tiles, are based on images of this room as it was in the 19th century.  Display cabinets in the middle of the room show other aspects of the company’s operations.  On this floor there are also reconstructions of the offices that would have existed in the building in the Victorian period, with recordings that you can listen to, capturing accounts of personal memories of the tile-works in the past.

On of the original display cabinets

 

A design book by Owen Gibbons from 1881. Gibbons and his brother taught at the Coalbrookdale School of Art, producing many tile designs

Mosaic cutter

 

Style Gallery

The Style Gallery offers a eye-dazzling view of the sheer number of fashions in tile design that trended during the Victorian period.  It is a reflection not only of how the Victorians were interested both in referring to and interpreting the familiar past, and reinventing the present but of how some of these styles employed imagery from the Far East and and the Middle East.

Both companies used well-known designers for some of their output, but much of the design work was done by in-house designers, some of whom were secured from the Coalbrookdale School of Art.  This was a rare opportunity for women to enter industry as skilled artisans.

 

William de Morgan

Examples from a series of 7 Art Pottery vases by Walter Crane for Maw and Co, 1889

 

Tiles in Everyday Spaces

This area of the museum is superb, recreating some of the real-world contexts in which tiles manufactured were employed.  It was great to see the Covent Garden tube station recreation, because that was my tube station for several years when I worked for a company on Long Acre.  And if I could have had a glass or two at that wonderful tiled bar, what a great destination that would have been!

Butcher’s shop, Ripon by Alfred Potter for Maw and Co

Washstand by Maw and Co., c.1883

Long Gallery

The Long Gallery is elegantly displayed and beautifully designed, showing both sides of individual tiles, and demonstrating the variety of methods and techniques as well as styles and designs manufactured locally.  Each of the displays shows a different decorating technique accompanied by tiles, with both front and back display, that illustrate that particular technique or method.

 

From the Long Gallery to the John Scott Gallery

Between the Long Gallery and the John Scott Gallery is a corridor with views into the historic mould store, and a panel on the corridor wall consisting of more historic moulds.  These all have relief patterns that were drawn on and then hand-carved.  To make the tile, the clay was pressed or poured into the mould, and then fired.  Once it had cooled it could be glazed, before being fired again.  The ones stored here are part of the commercial and industrial heritage of Maw and Co and Dunnill Craven and Co.

 

 

John Scott Gallery

Part of a six-tile panel showing a peony design, attributed to Kate Faulkner, Morris and Co., 1880s

Slightly anomalous, because this is a collection that does not relate specifically to the Ironbridge area, this gallery displays the collection of John Scott, who began collecting tiles in 1968 and continued until he died in 2020.  His collection, gifted to the museum in 2013, includes over 1700 pieces, of which an elegant portion are displayed here.  I really liked his statement, shown on one of the information panels, that he collected only what he both liked and could afford.  He was collecting for his own pleasure, not to build an illustrious collection.  By the time he died, his collection had become a remarkable reflection of the history of tile design and manufacturing.
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Uroboros, sometimes signifying eternity. By C.F.A Voysey. Pilkington

 

William de Morgan

 

One of six panels designed for Membland Hall, Devon. William Morris and William de Morgan 1876

Fish and water lilies. Relief-moulded tile panel design by C.F.A. Voysey, Pilkington

Art Nouveau tile panel by John Wadsworth. Minton Works c.1910. The repeat is achieved with just one tile.

Exterior buildings

Once you leave the museum, you will walk out through some of the original buildings that supported the works, including the massive kilns and storage facilities.  From here, you can re-enter the museum to visit the gift shop and the cafe before leaving.

 

When you leave, the church next to the tile-works is well worth a look, with a partially tiled interior.

Final Comments

All of the museums in the immediate Ironbridge area are well thought out and beautifully presented, and I enjoyed them all enormously.  The Jackfield Tile Museum was the one that most closely demonstrated domestic and commercial artistic tastes throughout England.

The museum offers an impressively detailed insight into multiple aesthetic tastes captured by Victorian tiles and mosaics, showing dozens of them to ensure that visitors are able to appreciate the sheer versatility and exuberance of Victorian taste.  Seeing the tiles built into pieces of furniture, and used to create entire spaces like churches, bars, bathrooms and the Covent Garden tube station brought the tiles to life, showing them both as aesthetic decisions and practical architectural applications. 

Even though the visual impact of the tiles was always going to steal the show, the museum does not neglect explanations of the really fascinating history of the local tile-works, the development of the manufacturing technologies that went into creating tiles and mosaics, and details about the commercial challenges involved in the marketing and sale of both.

I really loved it.


Visiting

Be careful with the opening days, because when I visited it was closed on Monday and Tuesday, but these days, and the times, change depending on the time of year. If you are intending to visit other museums too, it is worth checking out if they are open at the time of year of your visit.  The Broseley clay tobacco pipe works, for example, was closed for the autumn-winter season, which was disappointing.  You can find prices and opening times on the museum website here, and if you want to see other museums too there is a page with all the opening times in the related museums here.

If you are a member of English Heritage be sure to hand over your card, whether asked for it or not, to obtain a 15% discount.

There’s no guide book, which is a shame.

Jackfield Museum has a car park, which is chargeable via some sort of online arrangement that is loosely described on the website here.  I was staying nearby so walked down to the museum and didn’t need to get to grips with the parking system, but I suggest asking at the ticket desk if you have trouble with it.

Nearby there’s an excellent pub called the Black Swan with tables overlooking the Severn outside, and a cosy, friendly interior with excellent pub food.  It has a really super, mellow atmosphere and is a two-minute drive away, with plenty of free parking.  It has no website but it has a Facebook page and if you Google it, the phone number will come up.  It is quite small, so best to book by phone or in person.

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Day Trip: The RAF Museum Midlands at Cosford, near Telford

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Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter (replica) in Hangar 2

Even if aircraft and aviation history are not really the first things that spring to your mind when you are looking for a museum to visit on a day out in the general area, the RAF Museum at Cosford offers a thoroughly absorbing experience.  Aeronautical development has progressed so rapidly since the early 20th century that the first engineers and pilots might well find all the new innovations, capabilities and capacities that are on display at the museum fairly miraculous, and these have been significantly surpassed by much newer models.

This was my third visit.  The first visit was with my father who as a school boy at Calday Grammar on the Wirral had loved being in the Air Cadets, and went on to do his National Service in the RAF.  The second was with a friend whose father had served as a  Flight Engineer from before his 20th birthday during the Second World War, working and flying on Avro Lancasters.  Both my father and my friend brought away very personal experiences of the museum, but even without  these intimate connections, the RAF museum at Cosford is a rich journey into aeronautical history.  There is splendid innovation, superb technology, surprisingly aesthetic appeal and, in some cases, the sheer immensity of some of these vast monsters.  The full-life biographies of the aircraft themselves are themselves compelling, but the museum also tells dozens of stories about the people whose lives were embedded in the RAF, as well as in commercial travel, both in times of war and peace.===
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Hangar 4. Mikoyan-Guevich “MiG” 15bis.  Single seater jet intercept fighter, Russian-designed and notable for its use in Korea where its superior performance came as a shock to American pilots.  Maximum speed 688 mph. 1949-1970s

The aircraft are not exclusively British. There are American, German and Russian planes, as well as those built as joint enterprises.  The information boards compare and contrast them with contemporary British aircraft that they came up against, in terms of maneuverability, speed and technical specifications.  As well as planes there are also a couple of helicopters, staggeringly massive things that don’t seem even remotely aerodynamic, as well as some supporting ground vehicles including tanks, cars and aircraft tugs.  Although less obviously comprehensible, the range of aircraft engines on display also contributes to the story of aviation and its development, with information panels explaining how the engines improved the viability of aircraft.

Hangar 4. Hawker Siddley Vulcan in the foreground. A fabulous-looking long-range medium delta-wing bomber that was eventually converted for use as an air-to-air refuelling tanker

The focus on aircraft is not exclusively military.  Although there are a lot of those, several of the planes on display were commercial airliners of different sizes, built for carrying passengers, and the history of some of these early pioneers is well explained.

The museum is immense, taking up four gigantic hangars, each one with its own particular themes.  Although each of the Hangars is themed, there are some aircraft that don’t fit neatly into the themes, allowing for the inclusion of a lot of variety throughout all the hangars.

Bristol Britannia 312 turboprop aircraft known as The Whispering Giant due to is comparatively quiet engines. It first flew in August 1952. Due problems with the turbine engine less than 90 were made and sold to both civilian airlines, like the now defunct BOAC passenger carrier, and the RAF.

The Hangars

It is worth taking some time before you start your tour to have a look at the wall maps in the reception area, which provide details of how the different hangars connect. The numbering of the hangars is a little counter intuitive, because the first of the four that you visit is Hangar 2 (H2), then Hangar 3 (H3), then Hangar 4 (H4) and the last hangar that you visit is Hangar 1 (H1). The maps are dotted throughout the hangars but in order not to miss anything it is a good idea to sort it all out in your head in advance.  It is easy, for example, to completely miss the second hangar on your visit, because it is connected to the first hangar that you reach via two small doors that are relatively unobtrusive.  There is a guide book that has a copy of this map, copied below.  More visiting details are at the end as usual.

The site map from the Souvenir Guide (2024, Royal Air Force Museum), page 72

Hangars 2 and 3

The first hangar that you visit is Hangar 2, or H2.  To reach Hangar 2 the route takes visitors outside, passing between three magnificent aircraft, each with information boards, before passing a fourth, the innovative, versatile and very successful PBY Catalina flying boat and amphibious aircraft, at the entrance into Hangar 2.

On the other side of the door is a gallery dedicated to stories about RAF experiences between 1918 and 2018, before you pass into the hangar itself.

1940 wooden emergency exit hatch from the cockpit of Hawker Hurricane P2798 showing the cartoon cat Figaro, the personal marking of Wing Commander Ian Gleed, pilot and Second World War fighter ace

The function of the RAF, the world’s first independent air farce, remains unchanged across a hundred years: its mission is to defend the UK, to attack if required, to support in times of humanitarian crisis and to move people and equipment quickly across the world.

Like the other small galleries in the four hangars, this displays information about the immense variety of men and women who have served and continue to serve, with the vast range of skills that are required to make this military machine function. They also display the objects that related to those people, both formal and very personal.  This is an excellent way of using objects to connect people to their personal biographies and their official careers and the honours they were awarded.  Be sure to enter H3 from one door and return to H2 via the other so that you visit both galleries.

Page from the Souvenir Guide (Royal Air Force Museum 2024, p.32) talking about some of the highly personal measures that RAF personnel took to help them face the tasks before them.  Objects like these are just as much a part of RAF history as the aircraft in the museum

The main hangars in H2 and H3 focus on War in the Air and Test Flight, a mix of wartime and post-war aircraft.  Some of those on display are such icons that it is almost impossible not to reach out and touch.  In the First and Second World Wars, many planes were employed before it was possible to put them through their paces before they were needed in combat, and they were essentially put to the test in active service.

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The iconic Spitfire MK1, the oldest surviving example

 

The Boulton Paul Defiant was vulnerable to Luftwaffe fighters. Instead of being withdrawn from service, these were painted black and moved to night operations, although they were eventually withdrawn altogether.

 

TheGerman Junkers JU-88R-I

Although it is  not possible to convey the sheer immensity of the Avro Lincoln, it is an absolute giant of a thing.  Its design was based on the Lancaster, but although it was too late for a combat role in the Second World War, it served the RAF until 1963, long after the first jet engines had come into use.  Cosford doesn’t have a Lancaster, but this is an imposing creation in its own right.

An Avro Lincoln, giving no impression in this photograph of how massive it truly is

After the Second World War significant investment was made in developing technologies to provide specialized requirements, and testing became increasingly important.  Whilst some aircraft took on important roles in the RAF, others either failed to make it into production or were significantly modified before they were adopted.  The history of aircraft is as much about those that failed, or were not entirely successful, as it is about those that became either fundamental icons or invaluable workhorses of aviation history.  It is this mixture of aircraft biographies and narratives that define Hangars 2 and 3.

 

British Aircraft Corporation TSR2, Combat Prototype

Details of the British Aircraft Corporation TSR2, Combat Prototype

BAe Experimental Aircraft Project

 

Hangar 4

H4 is next, a soaring modern building themed around The Cold War.  It is a truly spectacular building in its own right, both outside and in, a functional and striking space for displaying a huge number of aircraft to best advantage.  This is all about a new generation of fighter and surveillance aircraft, missiles and drones, as well as support vehicles.  Entered from H2 at ground level, you find yourself confronting aircraft overhead, on the same level and below, with lifts as well as stairs to get down to the the lower level.  One of the novelties, apart from the aircraft overhead, is being able to walk along the gallery and view some of the vast machines that are sitting on the lower level face to face.

It is a magnificent visual display but as in the other hangars also has plenty of information about why each type of aircraft was built, and what makes them unique, plus information about the men and women who worked in these different contexts.  At the same time, it addresses the important and often vexed subject of conflicting ideologies and why such ideologies erupt into military action, making military assets a necessary aspect of modern life.  The focus is, as the name of the hangar indicates, the Cold War, and the opposing ideologies that resulted not merely in defensive strategies but also in both armed conflict and, in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of war, such initiatives as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
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The Vickers Valiant of 1955, designed for nuclear strikes, and withdrawn form service in 1965. Group Captain Ken Hubbard, caption if Vickers Valiant XD818 remembers its first drop of a British thermonuclear bomb with the resulting mushroom cloud “a sight of such majesty and grotesque beauty that it defies description.”

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Douglas Dakota

The Lightning, the first RAF fighter capable of flying at twice the speed of sound, but with short operational range

Details of a personalized Handley Page Victor, which entered service in 1958

Sikorsky MH53 Pave Low long range combat, search and rescue helicopter

Sikorsky MH53 Pave Low interior

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Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer light transport

 

Hangar 1

The last of the hangars, H1, is themed along the lines of Transport and Training.  Transport of equipment, personnel and supplies is a major element of airforce logistics, and aircraft designed specifically for these tasks may be either passenger carriers or sometimes gigantic warehouses on wings designed to carry whole platoons or heavy armoured vehicles and armaments.  Training aircraft may be tiny by comparison with some of the vast aircraft in tis hangar, used for acclimatizing trainee pilots and building up the skills of both trainee pilots and other air and ground crew, including engineers.  This hangar also has an excellent display of engines, which also required the training of aircraft engineers, giving insights into the anatomy of these power houses propel aircraft off the ground and keep them in the air.

Fairchild Argus II light transport, which entered service in 1932

Hawker Siddeley Andover E.3A. Originally designed as a transport aircraft, it was converted to carry out calibration duties on radar and radio navigation aids

Percival Pembroke, which entered service in 1953 for light transport and communications and was withdrawn only in 1988

Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.3

If the size of the Lincoln was the first of the aircraft to blow my mind, the Armstrong Whitworth Argosy is seriously humongous.  It is impossible to convey its scale, with its twin tails and its enormous wing span. It entered service in 1962 and could carry up to 69 troops or 13,000kg of equipment including armoured vehicles. It is two storeys tall from ground level to the cockpit.  The lens on my camera couldn’t fit anything like the whole thing in, and gives no sense of what this aircraft actually looks like, so see the image below the one in the museum of one of these crazy-looking things in flight.

Armstrong Whitworth Argosy

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Armstrong Whitworth AW660 Argosy C1 XP445 in RAF Near East markings from the BAE Systems website.

 

Rolls Royce RB211 22C engine used in the Lockheed Tristar, and the Boeing 747 and 767. Compare with the size of the edge of the doorway immediately to its right. Huge!

Vickers VC10 C1K long range transport

Final Comments

My father in typically mellow mode after he chose the RAF for his National Service, looking awfully youthful.

Anyone who visits will take something different away from Cosford, depending on their interests and their personal connections with aircraft.  We left the UK when I was a child, returning in late 1979, and part of my experience of living overseas was flying to and from Britain to visit family, first as an “unaccompanied minor” and then on my own, making it a routine form of travel.  Once, flying from Heathrow to Liverpool with my father in a propeller plane, he warned me about coming in to land and the noise and vibration that I, having only flown in jets, would probably find startling.  I did, but what fun! Years later, in a passenger plane taxiing down a Heathrow runway, the captain told those of us on the right side of the plane to look out of the window to see a Harrier jump-jet do a vertical take-off.  Fantastic.  Twenty or so years ago I saw a Vulcan flying at the Farnborough Air Show and have never forgotten it, and at the same show saw a vast commercial passenger plane being put through extraordinarily acrobatic paces, and that too remains in my mind as a very different but remarkable sight.  Two years ago I was at RAF Duxford with my father, and was lucky enough to be there just as a whole series of vintage biplanes were taxiing down the field and taking to the sky. Magical.  Aircraft do have their own special sorts of aura, some darker and some brighter than others.

The aircraft at Cosford are beautifully displayed, and while you can just stand and admire the sheer magnificence of these astonishing beasts, the signage is all thoroughly educational without in any way talking down to the visitor.  The sheer amount of information delivered in a digestible way is genuinely impressive.

Visiting

The museum is free of charge, but parking is charged (at the time of writing) at £7.50.  You can check for updates on charges and opening times on the museum’s website here.  The museum hosts a number of events throughout the year, including an air show and corporate events, so do make sure that the entire museum is open on the day you want to go, and that none of the hangars are closed for any reason.

The car park is huge, and payment of the set fee is via machines that are dotted around.  There is a really nice cafe in the reception area, which offers drinks, snacks and lunches, and everything is bright, clean and modern.  You will need to stop at what looks like a ticket stand to confirm that you have paid for parking, and so that you can be counted, because the museum’s funding depends on the volume of footfall.

The museum’s shop is in the third hangar, with some fun stuff for sale, but you can buy a souvenir guide in the reception area.  I did buy this, with some considerable doubt in my mind because anything that refers to itself as a souvenir doesn’t inspire confidence, but this 73-page booklet, full of great photos and information, was really enjoyable and when I arrived home I read it cover to cover.  Just like the museum itself, this mixes stories of planes and people, and the result is admirable.

The museum recommends that you allow four hours to get around all four hangars, including walking around the outside aeroplanes.  Not being an expert, and not stopping to listen to the many audio recordings or watch the video displays, I did it in a leisurely two and a half hours, stopping to read a lot of the excellent signage and to take photographs.  I took an additional half hour afterwards to consume a heavenly coffee and a bite to eat.  So for me, including my snack break, it was a three hour visit, which I enjoyed phenomenally.

Lockheed Hurcules C Mk 3P medium-range tactical transport aircraft that could operate from short runways.

If it looks like rain take a brolly or a raincoat with a hood, because you will have to walk from the reception area outside to the first hangar, and there are aeroplanes to see in the grounds as well.  The first two hangars, 2 and 3, are physically linked, but it is easy to miss that there are doors letting you through.  From there, it is a matter of going outside again, into Hangar 4, and again across a small access road into Hangar 1.  If you want a coffee or something to eat afterwards, it’s few minutes to walk back to the reception area via another two outdoor planes.

There is disabled access throughout, including H3’s viewing gallery, lower level and shop.  Signage is all at a level that can be read by wheelchair users.

Museum Ground Crew

Only one of the aircraft, at least on my three visits, allows visitor access, and this was a guided tour for a fee at restricted times, so experiencing the planes is a matter of viewing either from the floor or, in the third hangar, from both floor level and via a viewing gallery.

If you don’t want to be inundated with children, avoid weekends and school holidays.  School trips mean that they are not completely avoidable, but you stand half a chance.

Every time I have been there, especially last month (October) when I turned up at opening time, there were volunteers everywhere who are there to offer knowledge and help you with any visiting information.  They are a hugely knowledgeable and friendly bunch.

If you have even a marginal interest in aircraft or the history of technology, this makes for a very rewarding day out.

Hawker Cygnet, 1924-29

 

Chester in art in two exhibitions at the Grosvenor Museum: George Cuitt and Louise Rayner

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Two versions of Bishop Lloyd’s Palace on Watergate Street. On the left George Cuitt and on the right Louise Rayner

 

Lower Bridge Street looking south. Louise Rayner

There are two exhibitions running concurrently in the Grosvenor Museum in Chester, both showing highly individual interpretations of Chester’s architecture.  The first, The Romance of Ruins – the Etchings of George Cuitt (Gallery 1 on the ground floor, accessible to wheelchair users) runs until 12 January 2025.  The second, Louise Rayner: Victorian Watercolours (Gallery 2, upstairs with no lift) runs until 9 February 2025. Both came from artistic families.  Cuitt (1779-1854) was the only son of painter George Cuit the Elder, becoming an art teacher in Chester, and Rayner’s (1832-1924) parents and several of her siblings were also artists. Cuitt added a second “t” to his surname to distinguish himself from his father.  If you visit both exhibitions at the same time, the most obvious contrast is that George Cuitt’s etchings are monochrome, whereas Louse Rayner’s watercolours are characterized by vivid colours, but in spite of the time differences between their work, and the chronological distance between them, there are a lot of similarities in their perceptions of Chester.  Both artists focus on detail, and both lean towards a picturesque and somewhat romanticized view of Chester, populated not merely by buildings but by a myriad of people and livestock.  Cuitt’s work is by its nature more linear and less impressionistic than Rayner’s, but both highlight key details of individual buildings, capturing much of the minutiae that makes Chester’s architecture so engaging, and the skills demonstrated by both are well-honed.  Rayner makes particularly good use of perspective to draw her viewers into her paintings.  Although this was not always a feature of Cuitt’s work, a particularly nice view of the cathedral cloister uses the same technique.

The Cloisters, Chester Cathedral, 1811. George Cuitt

Quite apart from their value as artistic interpretations of Chester, both the Cuitt and Rayner exhibitions provide insights into architectural details that no longer survive, lending themselves to historical research as well as art appreciation.  From Cuitt’s portfolio, an 1827 view through a ruined arch towards Chester Castle captures a surviving in situ feature of the medieval St Mary’s Benedictine Nunnery.  It is entitled “Chester Castle from the Nun’s Gardens,” (shown below)  It is also a nice juxtaposition of two contrasting architectural styles, and two equally contrasting states of preservation.  The arch has been moved to Grosvenor Park, where it is accompanied by other orphaned pieces of gothic architecture.  Another of his etchings shows the cloisters before the windows were added.  Louise Rayner’s corpus has provide a great many examples of buildings that are no longer standing, but I found the one showing St Werburgh’s Mount of particular interest, shown below, where St Werburgh Row, is now located.  Her painting of Lower Bridge Street is an eye opener, shown above, looking towards the Dee with some lovely buildings now demolished and replaced by a 1960s monstrosity, and the Harvie’s almshouses, also below, must have been a very attractive feature.

St Werburgh’s Mount, c.1873. Louise Rayner

Both exhibitions provide full information about both artists, providing insights into the influences acting on their work and how their careers developed.  The pictures displayed have been chosen to highlight not only how they each interpreted Chester but how their skills have been applied to such a rich subject matter.

Find details about opening hours and other visiting details on the Grosvenor Museum website.

View from St Mary’s Nunnery arch to Chester Castle, 1827. George Cuitt

Harvie’s Almshouses, Duke Street. Built 1692, demolished 1892

St Michael’s Church Porch, 1809. George Cuitt

The King Charles Tower and the Shropshire Union Canal. Louise Rayner

 

Day Trip: Wroxeter Roman City, near Shrewsbury

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Hypocaust in the foreground with, in the background, the wall known as the Old Work, making one side of the former basilica.

Founded in the mid-1st century AD next to the point of the river Severn where it could be forded, Wroxeter (Viriconium) was built on land farmed by the Iron Age Cornovii.  It became a legionary fortress with the capacity to hold 5500 men in the 50s, becoming an urban centre towards the end of the 1st century, eventually becoming Britain’s fourth largest town, four times larger than the the legionary fortress.  The remains of the site lie in a rural landscape to the east of Shrewsbury and is managed by Historic England.  There is an imaginary reconstruction of a Roman villa.  Indoors there is a very nicely presented Visitor Centre with exhibits and displays, as well as a small shop.  Visiting details are at the end of this post.

Display in the Visitor Centre

There is little point repeating everything that the fact-filled guide book has to say about Wroxeter and its history, so this is just a short summary of what you can expect to see on a visit.

What remains of the site is a very small section of the original 192 acre (78 hectare) city, consisting of the lowest courses and foundations of the bath-house, part of a market-place and a row of column bases that marks one site of the forum.  The road that carries visitors into the town follows the line of the Roman road, Watling Street.  The city was surrounded by a 3-mile long circuit of ditches and banks originally topped with a timber palisade, now on farm land and not accessible to the public, but still visible on aerial photographs.

Information board in the Visitor Centre at Wroxeter

Unlike Chester, York, London and many other Roman urban developments that survived the departure of Rome, Viriconium was one of the Roman towns that were completely abandoned, beginning in the mid-3rd century.  Looking out over the surrounding fields towards the Wrekin, after which Viriconium may have been named, it is difficult to imagine a thriving urban mass of public and private buildings connected by a maze of roadways and alleys. A series of archaeological excavations, however, have provided insights into what used to be here, and the visitor centre and guide book do a good job of explaining it.

The town was divided by the mighty Watling Street that connected it to London in the south, and to Whitchurch to the north, where the road forked with one branch going to Chester and the other towards the northeast, York and beyond.

Artistic reconstruction of the basilica on an outdoor information board

The most conspicuous feature of the site is the single piece of surviving wall, known as the Old Work, shown at the top of this post, which is what remains of what was one of the walls of the basilica, which was shared with the rest of the bath-house.  The big opening in the wall marks where there were once double doors.  The layers of brick-like stone blocks and tile work were covered in pink plaster, some of which would have been painted with decorative scenes.

Information board showing the main architectural features at the site with the basilica shaded in blue, the shops and marketplace side by side in the foreground and the bath-house taking up the rest of the space.

Changing rooms at the end of the basilica

The bath-house, which has been excavated in its entirety, is the most complete part of the site, with remains of one wall, sections of the the hypocaust (raised heated floor) and the footprint of the baths’ basilica, giving a clear indication of the scale of the original complex.  Bath-houses were an important part of Roman life, a component of civilized living and a good place to socialize and network. Even the small industrial base at Prestatyn had a tiny bath-house (posted about here).  The Roman visitor to a big bath complex would usually begin in the basilica, a long thin space flanked by columns, where exercise and sports could be carried out in the central area, whilst the side aisles could have been used for personal care activities like massages and hair dressing.  At the end of the basilica were two changing rooms.

The outdoor plunge pool

Then bathers moved through the baths in a sequence from an outdoor cold water plunge pool (heaven help them in this climate!) to an indoor cold water pool (natatio), an unheated room (frigidarium), a  warm room (tepidarium), and a number of both wet and dry hot rooms (an alveus, caldarium, and sudatorium).  Heat was provided in the warm and hot rooms via a hypocaust, consisting of regularly placed pillars of tiles that once supported a raised floor about 1 metre high, through which hot air was directed from three furnaces.  Hollow box-like flue tiles were used to capture the hot air as it rose from below.  A piece of decorated ceiling plaster from the hot room has been reconstructed, and copies are kept in both the Visitor Centre and the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery.

Hot room

Reconstruction of ceiling plaster of the frigidarium in the Visitor Centre

Part of the western extension of the baths

Water from the baths was drained away beneath the bath-house and was used to flush out the latrines, the lower courses of which survive.

One of the shops that fronted onto Watling Street

Although the rest of the remains today lack the impact of the basilica wall section, mainly consisting of no more than two or three courses of stonework, these too were important parts of the civic quarter of the city, and there are explanatory information boards all over the site that explain what you are looking at and showing helpful artists’ reconstructions of how buildings may have been experienced by the Roman inhabitants.

Part of an information board showing the market place used by wealthy residents

Next to the bath-house is what remains of a market hall, with two storeys surrounding a central courtyard, containing shops that sold high quality food goods to the wealthy.  This building survived into the fifth century AD.  Nearby were other shops with open fronts overlooking Watling Street, which may have included food and drink for those using the baths, like modern take-away outlets or bars.

One of the ground floor shops in the marketplace

Colonnade of the forum, facing Watling Street

Over the road there is a line of column bases that are the remains of what must have been a very impressive forum, which was once covered 2.5 acres (1 hectare) and measured 80m x 120m (262 x 393ft).  This consisted of covered buildings arranged in a square around an open courtyard. The buildings served administrative, legal and mercantile functions, and the ruins represent a colonnade that faced onto Watling Street.  The central area was for an open market where stalls could be rented by local traders.

The reconstructed Roman house, a simplified version of excavated building “Site 6,” had a shop facing onto the street with accommodation at the rear.   It was built in 2010 for a television programme and provides a good way of visualizing what Watling Street and other areas of Viriconium may have looked like.

The forum

The reconstructed Roman house

A room in the villa

Next to the house, but not open to the public, is the model farm built in the mid 19th century by Lord Barnard, and incorporates considerable amounts of Roman stonework in its construction.  The farm is no longer in use but is maintained by Historic England.

The visitor centre and the lavishly illustrated guide book provide an excellent overview of the entire city’s history and what was found in archaeological excavations, with more information provided in the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery.

Visiting

Prices and opening times can be found on the English Heritage website here.  There is plenty of parking.  The visit begins at the visitor centre, where tickets are purchased and you are given the option of taking an audio guide. I didn’t take one, but plenty of people were using them.  There is a small shop where you can purchase a detailed guide book, and although it is impractical to read this as you go around the site, there is a site plan and an aerial photograph with all key features marked, both of which great to have as you walk around.  The Visitor Centre is small but excellent, with plenty of helpful information boards and attractive displays of objects found at the site.  There is no cafe but there is a picnic area with a few benches.

1st century harness mount showing Bacchus

The site itself is mostly on the flat, with pathways between all the main buildings and information boards explaining what you are looking at.  There was a coach-load of children there at the time I visited and it is clear that for children, the villa was easier to get to grips with than the ruins themselves.

Nearby is St Andrew’s Church, which I very annoyingly missed but is widely recommended with some attractive and unusual features, some dating back to the Norman period. Both the church and the model farm, the latter not open to the public, are described in English Heritage’s Wroxeter guide book.

St Bartholemew’s, Tong

If you are driving via the A41, both Lilleshall Abbey and Tong’s St Bartholemew’s Church are well worth the visit.  Tong is right on the A41, very convenient for a visit en route.

Near to Wroxeter is the 18th century National Trust Attingham Park property. Shrewsbury is not far, and has a really excellent museum and art gallery with a super Roman gallery with finds from Wroxeter. Shrewsbury itself is a lovely and apparently thriving town with a good mixture of architectural styles from the Medieval period onwards, including the vast church of the former Shrewsbury Abbey, some lovely half-timbered buildings and some fine Georgian architecture, as well as some great places to find lunch!

Sources

White, Roger H. 2023. Wroxeter Roman City. English Heritage (also includes St Andrew’s Church, the Victorian model farm and the reconstructed house)

Information displayed in the Wroxeter Visitor Centre

Information displayed in the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery (Roman gallery)

Discovering Shropshire’s History (website)
Roman Shropshire – (AD 43 – AD 410)
http://www.shropshirehistory.org.uk/html/search/verb/GetRecord/theme:20061122101531

 

Exhibition in Chester Cathedral: “Trena Cox: Reflections 100”

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Introduction

The new exhibition at Chester Cathedral, Trena Cox: Reflections 100, which is on until the 8th November 2024, a scarily short window of opportunity for visitors, has pulled out all the stops to create a really imaginative  and absorbing examination of stained glass artist Trena Cox and an exploration of her legacy in more recent art works.

First, it was a new opportunity to learn more about an important local stained glass artist, a woman engaged in a form of art-craft that was usually the preserve of men.  She is, for example, one of only two female stained glass artists represented in the cathedral, and she has nine windows, one large (the St Christopher window in the slype shown below) and eight small ones in the cloisters (four of which are shown further down).
To appeal to different preferences for experiencing exhibitions, there are downloadable audio guides, online information sources via QR codes and real-world interactive screens, as well as beautifully designed and displayed posters and original works of art employing diverse materials in multiple styles.

Detail of Emily Lawler’s “Flock of Five Geese.” The entire composition, referencing the story of St Werburgh and her miracle, is shown below.

Second, it was terrific to see how the four different parts of the exhibition explored different aspects of Trena Cox’s legacy, because this is as much about the art and ideas that Trena inspired as it is about her own work.  In addition to  well known artists in different types of medium, the pre-exhibition project headed out into the community to involved different groups, including school children.  The sheer diversity of responses to Trena’s work is remarkable, many of them picking up not on the main themes of her work, but on the tiny details that make her work unique.

Third, it was fascinating to discover how the entire cathedral was employed in displaying the works on display, drawing visitors into different areas of the cathedral to experience new ideas in a medieval context.  The abbey has small, intimate spaces as well as large lofty ones, and the trail makes good use of the architecture.  By using the entire cathedral space, the art works could be separated, giving each one the opportunity to create its own impact.

The St Christopher window following restoration. Photograph by Helen Anderson (and copyright Helen Anderson)

Next, it was splendid to experience at first hand how beautifully the St Christopher window has been restored by Recclesia.  I attended a Chester Archaeological Society visit, lead by Artist in Residence Aleta Doran who is also the exhibition’s curator, and although thought it was stunning then, it has since been restored and it was fabulous to see not only how it has been repaired and restored, but how new details have been revealed.  This can be seen in the window itself, but is also the subject of a splendid video in the cloister that captures the work carried out.

Finally, I was with artist Helen Anderson, and we were given an informal tour of the exhibition by its curator, Artist in Residence Aleta Doran, who is always a joy for her knowledge and enthusiasm, which provided us with a terrific insight into how the entire exhibition came into being, a real learning curve into what it takes to pull together an exhibition that has so many aspects to it.  A real logistical tour de force, as well as a visual treat.
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Finding your way

The exhibition is grouped into four different sections, each exploring a different aspect of Trena’s legacy.  As you enter the cloisters from the reception area (free of charge at this time of year), there is an information board that points you to the left, but pause to investigate as it also has QR codes, one of which is a map of the route that you can download to your phone, another an audio guide that relates to the numbered posters and exhibits.

Don’t forget to pick up the booklet, the cover of which is shown at the top of the post, from the reception area.  There is some very useful information about the exhibition, its contributors and its partners and sponsors, as well as QR codes to more information online.

Learning about Trena Cox

The first part of the exhibition introduces the visitor to Trena Cox (1895-1980) using, depending on whether you downloaded the audio introduction, either posters or a combination of posters and Aleta’s audio tour.   The posters are beautifully designed, framed in slender black frames that emulate the leaded frames of stained glass, showing photographs of Trena Cox glass from many locations, accompanied by isolated motifs taken from her glass works. The only known photograph of her was taken when she was a young teenager and shows a direct gaze and a certain fearlessness.

Born on the Wirral, Trena Cox trained at the Laird School of Art in Birkenhead, receiving a traditional introduction to a broad range of techniques and skills before switching to stained glass. There are over 150 stained glass pieces known, but others may remain to be found.  Working mainly in the Cheshire and northeast Wales areas, her works are, however, in other areas, and most of them are in churches.  Trena’s story, which has sometimes been a challenge for Aleta to discover, emerges from both the posters and the audio track and demonstrates not only Trena’s talent but her willingness to modify her style to suit the times.

Trena Cox windows showing King Henry II on the right looking somewhat balefully toward Thomas Becket on the left

Trena Cox’s cathedral windows are an important part of the the exhibition and the route takes you first to those in the cloister (the walkway around the garden).  The cloister was windowless until the arrival at the cathedral of Dean Frank Bennett, whose energy and enthusiasm created the stained glass sensation that we see today.  Eight of Trena’s windows are small lights each side of a corner, in each case two above and two below.  My favourites are the paired Henry II and Thomas Becket of Canterbury.  There are other connections to St Thomas Becket within the cathedral, but what I particularly like about these two windows is the way that Henry looks out of his window towards Becket in his window, recreating something of the narrative of this impossibly difficult relationship, which resulted in the martyrdom of Becket, and a period of political difficulty for Henry II.  You can almost hear Henry thinking “Will no-one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” (almost certainly apocryphal). There is a QR code on one of the information boards for finding out more about all of the cloister windows on the Chester Cathedral website.

Detail of the St Christopher window shown at the end of the post, with Trena Cox’s signature and the bee surrounded by a pattern made of her fingerprints.

The recent restoration and professional cleaning of the main Trena Cox window in the cathedral, the St Christopher window in the slype, has returned from Recclesia with a glowing, incandescent and luminescent quality that is quite extraordinary.  Whether or not this is your sort of aesthetic, this is an extraordinary piece with charming details full of symbolism.  Minutiae that were not previously visible are now bright and sharp, and the richness of the entire composition can now be appreciated as Trena Cox first designed it.  I particularly melted at how Trena’s fingerprints were incorporated into a pattern around the bee in the window.  It was also revealed that the lead was used to create texture and relief at certain points, with St Christopher’s remarkable hair not merely painted on, but highlighted with sections of lead.  There is an interactive display in the slype (corridor) next to the window which allows you to explore the imagery and symbolism of the window, which are extensive, and this really helps to open up the secondary stories.

Video showing the skilled work carried out on the St Christopher window by Recclesia Stained Glass

A video in the cloisters describes how the restoration work was carried out.  It shows footage of the team at work, including the absolutely nail-biting process of putting the window back into its arches after restoration.  Aleta says that it was just as bad watching it being taken out, but somehow the sense of being at the finishing line after all that hard work was horribly tense even on a video!  But of course these people are experts and everything was fine.  Microscope analysis of the stained glass shows how in one section of the glass, which had become damaged simply due to its age, the edges of some of the painted text had begun to deteriorate, so the restoration work was incredibly timely.

Trena Cox in today’s Community

One of the really creative parts of the exhibition, and an admirable requirement for a part of the funding for the exhibition, was that the local community should be given the opportunity to respond to Trena Cox’s stained glass art with art works of its own.  I knew about this when I visited the Trena Cox windows with the Chester Archaeological Society, lead by Aleta, but was not at all clear about how this part of the project would manifest itself.  What a super surprise to see the inventiveness and imagination produced by local community groups and schools!  Here are some examples:

St Werburgh’s and St Columba’s Primary School

Heritage Engagement Window. During the 2024 Chester Heritage Festival in June, children as young as two years old painted panels that were incorporated into this splendid leaded panel, all based on the St Christopher window

Detail of the above Heritage Engagement Window.

Jigsaw, a community artwork based on a Trena Cox window in St Werburgh’s Church, by 15 women of Chester

The Story of Stained Glass

The creation of stained glass is probably one of the most poorly understood areas of art, craft and design.  Although it is widespread, and not only in religious buildings, its history and the processes of manufacture and repair are something of a mystery for most of us.  The process of demystification has been very much assisted by an enormous but easily digested set of information boards that lead down one part of the cloister, charting the chronological history of the artistic and technical advances in stained glass development. It’s a real revelation and is beautifully written and designed.

Artistic responses to Trena Cox

In Our Hands by April Pebble Owens.

How current artists have responded to Trena Cox is one of the innovative aspects of the exhibition, not only helping to highlight some of the unique features of the original stained glass creations, but also inspiring and forging new creations.  These new works of art, some in glass, others in paint and fabric, others engraved, some in mosaic, some in print, certainly demonstrate a wide range of skills but more importantly showcase the diversity of creative and empathetic responses to Trena Cox’s enormous catalogue of artistic expression.  I have copied a few of these below, chosen simply to show some of the range of different ideas and interpretations that emerged.  In the exhibition accompanying labels explain some of the ideas behind these works, one of which is shown below.

Tamsin Abbot. The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb

Label explaining ideas behind the above panel by Tamsin Abbott. Each of the pieces on display in the exhibition is accompanied by a similar piece of explanatory text

By the River of Swirling Eddies by Linda Edwards, reminiscent of medieval bestiaries

Flock of Five Geese, by Emily Lawlor

Apertures, by Lindsey Kennedy

Birds Without Borders by Gillian Curry

Final Thoughts

Detail of the St Christopher window

The idea for the exhibition was born around four years ago.  Work has been concentrated in the last two years.  There are so many different aspects to it that there it is difficult to do justice to it, but as a celebration of Trena Cox, of stained glass, and of how communities as well as individual artists can respond to an artist’s output, this was a revelation.   Even more than the work of Trena Cox herself, I found the whole conceptualization of the exhibition with its multiple strands of knowledge transfer, and its outreach to the local community and other artists, truly engaging.

The exhibition works, and it works brilliantly.  This was demonstrated perhaps more than anything else by the two elderly ladies who walked around it, arm in arm, discussing in depth all the modern responses to Trena Cox’s work.  Neither knew much about art, but both were fully absorbed with the narrative of the exhibition, from Trena Cox herself to the evidence of her legacy.  Splendid.

Detail of the newly restored St Christopher Window

Find out more

Detail of the Heritage Engagement Window

There is a “Trena Cox:Reflections 100” symposium, which has been arranged to coincide with the exhibition, on 25th October 2024:

“Using the life and legacy of Trena Cox as the focal point, attendees will hear from a variety of respected speakers from across the stained glass, heritage conservation, and art sectors. This evening keynote will conclude the day, looking at the past and future of women in stained glass.”

You can find details for the symposium on the Chester Cathedral website at:
https://chestercathedral.com/events/event/21607

You can follow Aleta Doran on Twitter (@StargazingAleta), or via her blog at https://www.aletadoran.co.uk/. 

For those wishing to investigate further afield, Green Badge Guide Katie Crowther is leading a “Trena Cox:Reflections 100” walking tour of Chester on 3rd November to complement the exhibition:

This walk will be a chance to get out onto the streets of the city where Trena lived and worked from 1924 until her death in 1980. We’ll take a look at some of the buildings where her distinctive work can be seen today and learn more of their history.  Trena was a passionate advocate for the preservation of her adopted home’s history and heritage. Along the walk, we’ll consider several of the streetscapes that changed quite dramatically during Trena’s time in Chester.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/trena-cox-reflections-100-chester-sunday-netwalk-tickets-1013497697897?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=wsa&aff=ebdsshwebmobile

The free booklet provided at the reception area also provides the following QR codes for those who want to find out more:

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Websites with more information:

Chester Cathedral
Trena Cox: Reflections 100
https://chestercathedral.com/events/event/15207

The Trena Cox Project
By Aleta Doran, ongoing
https://www.aletadoran.co.uk/thetrenacoxproject

Recclesia Ltd
https://recclesia.com/
https://recclesiastainedglass.co.uk/

Chester Archaeological Society
An Interview with Chester Cathedral Artist in Residence Aleta Doran. For CAS, by Andie Byrnes, 7th July 2024
https://chesterarchaeolsociety.blog/2024/07/07/an-interview-with-chester-cathedral-artist-in-residence-aleta-doran/
Chester Archaeological Society visit to Chester Cathedral with Aleta Doran to learn about stained glass artist Trena Cox. For CAS, by Andie Byrnes June 13th 2024
https://chesterarchaeolsociety.blog/2024/06/13/our-visit-to-chester-cathedral-with-aleta-doran-to-learn-about-stained-glass-artist-trena-cox/

Based In Churton
A roof boss in Chester Cathedral: The Murder of Thomas Becket
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2023/07/14/a-ceiling-boss-in-chester-cathedral-the-murder-of-thomas-becket/

A short comment on the missing past of St Mary’s Nunnery, Chester

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I have been trying to find a publication of the excavations that took place when the profoundly ugly Chester HQ office development was built on the site of St Mary’s Nunnery and its cemetery. This lead me to the article by Professor Howard Williams below.  Outside the Chester HQ buildings is a very odd permanent display area made of red sandstone displaying bits and pieces of random archaeology.  I’ve thought it was peculiar for a very long time, one of these token gestures, neither fish nor fowl, that are usually funded by developers when they build over the top of heritage sites.  It has no cohesive message, no coherent linkage between any of the objects, and is anyway missed by most passers-by.  This excerpt from a very nicely written article by Professor Williams (University of Chester), posted in 2017, really gets to the nub of the matter.

https://howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/22/unethical-medieval-nuns-on-display/:

I see the vision but I can’t really get my head around the reality in a sympathetic way. Rather than evoking a history of place, reporting on the contexts discovered and the rich and varied social, economic, political and religious history of the city and this site’s place within it, instead we get a transtemporal pastiche. This is little more than a banal and context-free open-air cabinet of curiosities that shamelessly aggrandises the corporate architecture of the 21st century and its construction facilitated by the rifling of past times.

He goes on to discuss the display of one particular object, a truly lovely medieval stone grave cover with a fabulous decorative theme that represented the Tree of Life.  It would have been laid horizontally over the grave, covering the deceased, but here is displayed vertically.  This is really well worth a read if you are interested in heritage management, respect towards funerary monuments and contexts, the activities of developers with respect to the heritage they impact and the role of object histories.  Loving the phrase ” transtemporal pastiche,” which gets it in one.  Professor Williams never disappoints.

Back on the subject of the archaeological excavations, it was also interesting to note that in a 2013 article Professor Williams notes the following:

Archaeologist Mike Morris of Cheshire West and Chester Council was forced to announce that the developer – Liberty Properties – was in breach of their agreement [Cheshire Live] by not funding post-excavation adequately following the excavations at the HQ building revealing graves from Chester’s Benedictine nunnery. The website of Earthworks Archaeology – the commercial archaeologists who excavated the remains associated with the Benedictine Nunnery – says that post-excavation is ‘under way’.

The Cheshire Live article says that not only were there remains of 100 individuals from the cemetery at the nunnery site, but “foundations for at least one large Roman town house were discovered including an undisturbed mosaic floor – the first to be found in Chester since 1909.”  The Earthworks Archaeology site announces:  “The practice is currently on sabbatical.”  There is no additional content and the website says nothing at all now.  If anyone has any information about the excavations I would be grateful?  But I suspect that it’s a horribly lost cause.

The last remaining structural feature of St Mary’s Nunnery – a 15th century archway that now stands in the Grosvenor Park.

Excavation without publication is an archaeological evil.  If the remains carefully troweled out of the ground are not professionally published, the information is lost forever, the data never contributing to knowledge about the city as a whole and about the nunnery’s history in particular.  It is the responsibility of an excavation not merely to extract data from the ground, but to share it. Anything else is an abdication of responsibility, and the loss of an important story.  If the excavation results are never published, how will we ever understand what there was to know about St Mary’s?  Where contracts are granted for this sort of work, surely the conditions of those contracts should be enforced.

The Chester HQ building where the nunnery once stood

The 1715 “Old Dock” – The earliest of Liverpool’s commercial docks, preserved beneath the Liverpool ONE shopping centre

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Introduction

The Eyes map of Liverpool showing Old Dock on a previous tidal inlet and enclosed within the streets of an expanding Liverpool in 1765, 50 years after it first opened. Later docks were laid out along the foreshore. Source: National Museums Liverpool

Earlier in summer 2024 I went on the Old Dock tour in Liverpool when it was offered one Sunday.   Old Dock, of which only one corner remains to be visited, was perhaps Liverpool’s most important commercial and civil engineering initiative at a time when Chester’s port was going into decline and Liverpool had the opportunity to become the trading centre for the northwest.

Old Dock, Liverpool

Old Dock in Liverpool, the first of Liverpool’s impressive network of enclosed docks, opened in 1715, to the design of civil engineer Thomas Steers.  It is Europe’s oldest enclosed cargo-handling dock.  What remains of Old Dock is underground, beneath the “Liverpool ONE” shopping centre.  Its lock gates can no longer be visited, but remain under The Strand (the modern dual carriageway that runs along the line of the old foreshore).  Only the northeastern corner of the dock is accessible to visitors, and has been provided with a gantry and information panels, and its history is presented to pre-booked groups by an excellent guide.  I’ve added details about booking and the tour itself at the end of the post under “Visiting.” The following looks at some of the history of Old Dock.

The 1699 Howland Great Wet Dock in London. British Library HMNTS 10349.ff.9.. Source: Wikipedia

Old Dock was modelled on the Howland Great Wet Dock, shown right, built in 1699, which was built to shelter ships, mainly of the East India Company, in the days when ships over-wintering on the Thames were regularly subjected to both storm damage and piracy.  It was surrounded by a double planting of trees to help protect the ships within and had shipbuilding dry docks at its entrance. It was a convenient place to carry out repairs and to ready ships for the upcoming season, but was not used for handling cargo so was not a commercial trading dock.  The Howland Great Wet Dock was built in a rural space on the south of the Thames in what is now the residential Surrey Quays area of southeast London, and was replaced in the 18th century by Greenland Dock, which itself became part of the Surrey Commercial Docks.

The commercial argument for Old Dock

Liverpool was established by a charter of King John in 1207 and was provided with a castle in 1235.  At this time, however, Chester was the main northwestern port, and Liverpool did not become a commercial giant until the 18th and 19th centuries, and this required some pioneering Victorian thinking and civil engineering before it really took off as one of Britain’s leading ports.  Old Dock is at the heart of this story.

Painting of Liverpool in 1680, from the Old Dock display area. Unknown artist. The original is held by the National Maritime Museum. See more (and a better image) on ArtUK

Before the docks, the Mersey was not the easiest of rivers to use in an age of sail partly due to strong winds but also because of the twice-daily tidal events that swept down the estuary. An additional problem was that due to the dumping of rubbish and ships’ ballast along the river edges, deep-sea shipping was unable to approach the river banks to offload and reload.  It could also become very busy with river traffic of all shapes and sizes. The handling of cargo on the Mersey was achieved by mooring ships in the main channel and loading and offloading them with lighters – unpowered boats into which the cargo was loaded by hand, then rowed to shore, and offloaded by hand.  This could only be carried out between tidal events, confining the activity to around 5 hours a day. To empty a single ship averaging 150 tons could take between two and three weeks.

The engineering success of the Howland dock enterprise inspired MP Thomas Johnson, who was both a successful merchant a slave trader, to approach one of the engineers probably responsible for the Howland dock, George Sorocold, to discuss the viability of a similar dock for Liverpool.  Johnson, however, saw the greater potential of an enclosed inland dock, not for over-wintering ships but for creating a cargo-handling facility to radically improve speed and efficiency. Under The Dock Act of 1708 a Common Council of leading city figures was established to became trustees of the proposed dock, which they operated through council committees.  The risk of doing it this way rather than as a private enterprise was that failure could have put the entire city finances in jeopardy.  Thomas Steers from London was the civil engineer appointed in 1709 to make this a reality, only a decade after the opening of the Howland Great Wet Quay on which he had probably also worked.  Initially costs had been estimated at £6000, but this was a serious underestimation and eventually the dock cost more than double this amount.

Building and opening the dock

The dock was lined with bricks in the upper sections with local red sandstone in the lower courses.  I am accustomed to the later Surrey Commercial Docks in southeast London, where I used to live, which are lined with stone much like Liverpool’s Albert Dock, so the sight of a brick-lined dock seemed extraordinary to me.  The bricks were made on site from local clays, with a dedicated kiln built for the task, and a special mortar was used to resist the incursion of water.

At the base of Old Dock, Liverpool

The result of all the investment, civil engineering and labour was Old Dock, which opened in 1715 at the mouth of a former tidal inlet or creek.  Up to a hundred ships could be taken into the 3.5 acre dock via a 30ft wide entrance lock and could draw up against the quayside to offload without the use of lighters. Because of the tides, ships could only enter the dock at the top half of the tide, but a 1.5 acre tidal entrance basin was provided as a waiting area.  By drawing ships up against the quayside, three weeks could be reduced to just one to two days.  The proof of concept was soon confirmed.

The area around the dock was soon surrounded by residential, commercial, retail and service industry premises. Excerpt from a poster from the Old Dock exhibition area.

An entire new residential, commercial, retail and service industry quarter grew up around the dock, which became known as the Merchants’ Quarter.  As well as homes, warehousing and other commercial facilities there were lodging houses for sailors, and less salubrious businesses that catered to their needs.  This is a good illustration of the sort of process of urban sprawl that follows on from a specific industrial development.

Old Dock was such a notable success that new docks were soon opened, and the Liverpool foreshore began its transformation.  During the 18th century South Dock, also built by Thomas Steers (later Salthouse Dock) opened 1753, George’s Dock opened 1771, King’s Dock opened and Queen’s Dock opened in 1796.  It is a measure of the success of the dock concept, Old Dock having been established 53 years before Bristol’s first dock, that between 1772 and 1805 the total tonnage of shipping increased from 170,000 to 670,000, with foreign shipping increasing from 20,000 to 280,000.  By the end of the 19th century 9% of all world trade passed through the Liverpool docks, and there were 120 acres of enclosed docks along 10km (7 miles) of Liverpool’s foreshore.

Closure of the dock

Old Dock, Liverpool

Old Dock itself closed in 1826 mainly because as ship sizes increased, in terms of width, length and depth, it became increasingly obsolete.  It did not help either that the dock had become surrounded with other buildings and could not easily expand without considerable destruction.  Instead, the development of docks beyond the existing foreshore seemed like a better option and this is what happened.

This new use of enclosed docks for cargo-handling was pioneered at Old Dock in Liverpool, creating the first revolution in cargo handling in the UK.  To provide additional real estate for the rapidly growing city, most of the dock was infilled and built over, so this one remaining corner is a significant survivor from Liverpool’s early development as a major trading port.

Final Comments

Old Dock brickwork

Much of what is known about Liverpool’s earliest docks comes from the archaeological investigations that took place between 1976 and 2009. Old Dock was examined prior to the building of Liverpool One by Oxford Archaeology between 2001 and 2006. The remains of Old Dock are designated a site of Outstanding Universal Value.

It is difficult to over-emphasize how important London’s Howland Great Wet Dock and Liverpool’s Old Dock were to the development of maritime trade in Britain.  With an enclosed dock designed by Thomas Steers, the Old Dock set Liverpool firmly on the path for trading success throughout the 18th century and the commercial and architectural triumphs of the Victorian period.

Visiting

Booking details, opening times, ticket prices and everything else you need to know are on the Old Dock Tour website.

At the time of writing the meeting point shown on one place on Google Maps is in a different location from the one that is shown on the Old Dock Tours website, and the latter is the correct one.  I don’t know Liverpool at all and I was confused by the directions on the website, partly because I had no idea what a “Q-Park” might be when it escaped from its burrow, so I arrived early to make sure that I was in the right place, which was on the Thomas Steers Way entrance to the “Q-Park” (the Liverpool ONE car-park), on the left as you head up from the Mersey, near the base of the Sugar House Steps.  Here’s the What3Words address for that location, which is traffic-free, but do check on the website or your ticket that this remains the same meeting place: https://what3words.com/found.farm.gent. Have your ticket handy to be checked, either printed out or on your device.

This is a guided tour.  You receive an excellent lecture as you walk to the dock via a wall-sized map of old Liverpool, and then stand on the  gantry looking down into the dock. Our guide was informative, humorous and engaging, parting with a staggering amount of information in an easily digestible way.  It is always a mark of how well a guide does when there are questions afterwards, people wanting to explore specific aspects of the story, and there were lots of questions.  I used to live overlooking Greenland Dock in London, and the remnants of the Surrey Commercial Docks were my home for twenty years.  Opposite was Canary Wharf, where the former East India and West India quays are preserved and the Museum of London Docklands is located. It was a real dock heritage experience, so it was particularly nice to go to Liverpool and have someone bring this particular old dock to such vivid life.

If you are dealing with unwilling legs, there is a flight of steps with a banister to hold onto.  I forgot to count, but I would guess perhaps ten steps, down from the car park entrance into the dock area.  There is then a gantry (metal walkway) across the remaining part of the dock, with high sides to hang on to.  There is nowhere to sit, so a portable perch of some sort might be useful whilst you are listening to the talks.

I had not realized that it was the schools’ half term break.  Half-term was a poor day to visit Liverpool, and on the tour there were two completely uncontrolled young children running around and yelling their heads off.  A less child-intensive day would be better if it can be arranged.  There’s not a lot for young children to see on this walk anyway, although an older child seemed to be enjoying it very much.
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Sources

Most of the above details came from the guided tour.  I did not want to detract from that so I have not gone into greater detail here, but I did use some additional sources to check facts that I had not noted down at the time, and have provided some suggestions for further reading.

Books and Papers

Farrer, William, and Brownbill, J. (eds.) 1911. Liverpool: The docks, in “A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4,” p. 41-43. British History Online. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1911.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol4/pp41-43

Gregory, Richard A., Caroline Raynor, Mark H. Adams, Robert Philpott, Christine Howard-Davis, Nick Johnson, Vix Hughes, David A. Higgins 2014. Archaeology at the Waterfront vol 1: Liverpool Docks. Lancaster Imprints / Oxford Archaeology North

Stammers, M.K. 2007.  Ships and port management at Liverpool before the opening of the first dock in 1715.  Journal of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, vol.56.
https://www.hslc.org.uk/journal/vol-156-2007/attachment/156-3-stammers/

Stephenson, Roderick A. 1955. The Liverpool Dock System.  Transactions of the Liverpool Nautical Research Society, Volume 8 1953-55 (1955)
https://liverpoolnauticalresearchsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Article-The-Liverpool-Dock-System.pdf

Websites

National Museums Liverpool
Ten fascinating facts about Liverpool’s Old Dock
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/ten-fascinating-facts-about-liverpools-old-dock

Historic Liverpool
1846: Plan of the Liverpool Docks, by Jesse Hartley, Dock Surveyor
https://historic-liverpool.co.uk/old-maps-of-liverpool/1846-plan-liverpool-docks-jesse-hartley-dock-surveyor/#4/65.79/-74.43

The Liverpolitan
Old Dock: a different view. Wednesday, 18 November 2015
https://theliverpolitan.com/blog_old_dock_a_different_view.php

That’s How The Light Gets In blog
Liverpool Old Dock: Down to the bedrock
https://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/liverpool-old-dock-down-to-the-bedrock/

Liverpool World Heritage
LIVERPOOL MARITIME MERCANTILE CITY WORLD HERITAGE SITE MANAGEMENT PLAN 2017 – 2024. Prepared by LOCUS Consulting Ltd. Liverpool City Council
www.liverpoolworldheritage.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/pmd-486-liverpool-whs-management-plan-final-version-as-at-27-sep-2017.pdf

A Rotherhithe Blog
The Howland Great Wet Dock 1699-1807
http://russiadock.blogspot.com/2008/06/rotherhithe-heritage-2-howland-great.html

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