Heritage Photography Spring 2012

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HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY

Coat-of-arms of the City of Sheffield: a stained-glass window of 1899 See page 8 R. Keith Evans FRPS

Eric Houlder LRP S

The St Aidan's barge: excavation under way on the bed of the river Aire See The View from the Tower , page 3

SPRING 2012

Archaeology & Heritage Group Chairman R. Keith Evans FRPS 7 Grassy Lane Sevenoaks KentTN131PN

Tel 01732 743943 Secretary Rodney Thring LRPS 27 College Ride Camberley Surrey GU15 4JP Treasurer Jim Tonks ARPS Earlton 174 Chairborough Road High Wycombe Bucks HP12 3HW Committee Eric Houlder LRPS {Archaeology Editor) Martin Fletcher Ken Keen FRPS Gwil Owen ARPS Dr Mike Sasse {Webmaster)

PERSPECTIVE The year's programme has made a fine start, with a well-attended visit to the Gurdwara (Sikh temple) in Gravesend in mid-February . Only recently completed, this is the largest such building in Britain, and provided a wealth of picture opportunities for the sixteen members who took part . It will feature in an article in our next issue By the time you read this, we shall also have visited the churches in and around Kedington, in Suffolk. You will all have received our annual Programme of Events, to which I can now add a tour of Knole House including some of the rooms not normally seen by the public - on 20 August ; and to the RIBA photographic archive in London on 13 September .

I know many of you are keen recorders of industrial archaeology, and will be aware of the 'heritage at risk' reports issued by English Heritage. Industrial buildings and artefacts, particularly of the late Victorian and pre-World War 11 era, are especially vulnerable: not just the large structures, but such things as cranes, machinery , even hand tools. Many such items , of course, are preserved and displayed at our industrial heritage sites like Ironbridge and Chatham Naval Dockyard. But others are virtually forgotten . Who recalls the great smoke-houses and ice factories towering over the fish docks of Hull and Grimsby , for example?

As Eric Houlder mentions in his article opposite, almost as an aside, his picture of the St Aidan 's ship excavation was taken from 'the second oldest railway bridge in Britain ' . How many photographs of that exist, I wonder, compared to the myriad of pictures of churches , castles and stately homes ?

The textile industries of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and the metalworking industries around Sheffield and Birmingham, may still be recalled through numerous abandoned or semi-derelict buildings which, today, few local authorities can afford to maintain. In these and similar cases, our skill as photographers can be invaluable in recording and publicising these underappreciated buildings and their contents.

On a more positive note, I am gratified by the number of excellent submissions we have received for publication in Heritage Photography . This is your journal, and for some of you perhaps your only regular contact with the Group . We spend time and effort in ensuring it maintains a high standard of content and production, and we welcome further contributions from all of you .

Finally a brief reminder, for those members intending to submit work for our Group Archive and/or our summer Exhibition, that the deadline for receipt of prints is 31 March. Phone me if you have any queries. And now enjoy a summer of successful photography ...

R. Keith Evans, Chairman .

Published by the Archaeology & Heritage Group of The Royal Photographic Society, April 2012 Copyright in all text and photographs is held by the credited authors, or as otherwise stated.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form without prior written permission of the Publisher.

ISSN No. 0-904495-00-0

Knole House, Sevenoaks, will be the destination in A~st of our annual visit to a stately home.

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The View from the Tower To the general public, the scaffolding tower is the trademark, so to speak, of the site photographer's profession.

Archaeologist Eric Houlder LRPS reflects on towers he has known.

Very few of the site towers I have climbed since 1957 would pass muster in the present age of Health & Safety legislation . It is the convention that one does not use the internal ladders, but climbs up the framing on the outside. The obligatory helmet would provide little in the way of protection in this situation, and it is only in the past twenty years that we have been wearing these.

My very first tower is a good example of the makeshift genre. We were digging at a mediaeval priory and amongst the volunteers were two firemen. When the director asked them to rig a tower, they simply hammered four heavy-gauge steel pins into the ground in the shape of a square, held a ladder upright in the centre, and rigged ropes from the top to the pins.In use,oneclimbed the ladder, looped one's leg over the top rung , and took the pictures. Camera-shake was a problem .

A safer version of the same principle was in use at Sutton Hoo in 1967. 1\vo long scaffolding poles were tied together about a metre from one end, and a ladder was tied to the junction. The whole lot was then erected as a very stable triangle. One climbed the ladder and leaned over the end. As one's body was lying on the sloping ladder, it was inherently safe.

When digging in advance of the M4, we used Swindon Corporation's street-light service lift, which was much safer though the soft ground under its wheels did not inspire confidence. Time Team's cherry picker was in much the same vein, though very much higher.

A dig on a Dark Ages feature, mentioned by Michael Wood in a forthcoming paper, used a stack of hay bales as a tower. In this case the farmer stacked them for us. Shortly afterwards , I worked on a Dark Ages cemetery with a West Yorkshire Archaeological Services tower. This was quite skimpy, and wobbled in spite of being securely andmred.

My tower at the Wood Hall

HERITAGEPHOTOGRAPHY

View from the Wood Hall tower, showing the excavated gatehouse in the foreground, and the 100 year-old approach road wlwse drainage ditches helped to feed the moat.

17mm lens, Fujichrome Provia 100.

Archaeological Trust was much more substantial, though site security was not - two towers were stolen under the noses of the security guards and their dogs! A meteorological phenomenon occurred on this tower. The deputy director and I were standing on the top when a dark cloud suddenly emitted a lightning flash. There we were, on an aluminium tower, standing on the rubber-covered platform as it started to pour with rain. We debated climbing down the wet poles, or staying on the platform. Cowardice won and we got soaked - but not cooked.

One of the best high viewpoints was on the famous St Aidan's dig, for

which we won the Pitt Rivers Award.

Sunken ships were being excavated on the bed of the River Aire in advance of opencast mining.

Above Ship Four there was a railway bridge (the second oldest surviving railway bridge in Britain, and a listed monument in its own right). It provided rather an oblique view, but a spectacular one, as is evident from my picture on the front cover. That, by the way, was taken with my 35-70mm zoom on Agfachrome 100.

So towers have featured quite strongly in my archaeological photographic life. The fact that I am still here does suggest that none have let me down - yet!

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Two mediaeval Norfolk has almost 600 mediaeval eh Perpendicular period around the 15th ce such churches are describe

St Mary's church at Shelton, close to tlie Suffolk border. Tlie interior views below show the east end of the nave (left); and the west end with its coat-of-anns of King William Ill.

St Mary's, Shelton was built by Sir Ralph Shelton, who also built a large manor house in the 1480s. The manor is no more , but the church , in an attractive peaceful churchyard, is a real gem . Sir Ralph's wife was an aunt of Anne Boleyn, and after Anne 's beheading the young Princess Elizabeth was sent to Shelton for her safety. It is said that she was hidden in the tower to prevent her arrest by court conspirators.

The 14th century flint tower is all that remains of the original church . The remainder is built of red brick with stone dressings , embellished with a ' diaper ' pattern of darker bricks .

It comprises a nave with two aisles of the same length , and no projecting chancel. The porch is of two storeys. The interior is spacious and full of light , with the east window containing much 15th century glass ; Sir Ralph and his family are pictured praying, and there is also a panel showing the boar of the Boleyn family. The nine clerestory windows are a particular feature. At the west end is a superbly carved coat of arms of William Ill. St Peter and St Paul, Salle This is a large church in a small community . It was built in the perpendicular style between 1400 and 1430 by four local

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lorfolk churches ches, most of them built in the Gothic 1ry.Two outstanding - and very different here by Mike Trendell FRPS.

families with 'wool money' . Costly Barnack stone was brought from Peterborough. The families were blessed for their generosity with two feathered angels above the west door, waving censers over their coats of arms. The 111ft tower contains eight bells, two of them pre-Reformation; there is magnificent tracery in the 'sound hole' in the centre of the tower.

As at Shelton, the interior is light and spacious, high and with splendid roofs . In particular the chancel roof contains 160 angels and a set of bosses - a pair of binoculars is needed to view it properly. The seven-sacrament font still retains its original colour; its cover is lifted by a crane on the west wall.

The 15'h century wineglass pulpit also shows much of its original colour. In the early I 7'h century it was adapted as a 'three-decker', with reading and clerk's desks and a sounding board. The east window retains some original glass, and there is also interesting glass in the chancel.

The church of St Peter and St Paul at Salle, Norfolk's 'rural cathedral', was built on the wealth of the local wool trade. Notable features are the font (below left) and the wineglass pulpit.

An article on Mike Trendell's use of high dynamic range recording for the photography of church interiors appeared in our Autumn 2010 issue - Ed.

HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY

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Sunrise at Ta Prohm temple In the 70 square mile area surrounding Angkor Wat, in Cambodia, are some 100 temple complexes. David Cummings ARPS recounts an enthralling pre-dawn visit to one of them, the 800 year-old temple of Ta Prohm.

'Was that a big cat? ' Lesa asked in the darkness as we walked down the path .

'I hope not' I replied . We were using our cellphones as flashlights as we approached the Ta Prohm temple site one morning last November. It was a half-hour before sunrise and all we could hear was cicadas and monkeys in the dense jungle. There were no lights within miles . Our driver had dropped us at the temple 's entrance road and quickly left for the journey back to Siem Reap, the area's hub of tourism .

These Khmer empire temples are the largest religious sites in the world, and many have languished in mystery until recently. Though discovery and conservation began in the early 20 th century, it was decided to leave Ta Prohm largely 'as found ' . Tourism has brought people to these great sites for only the last decade or so, as Cambodia has suffered many years of civil war and the regime of Pol Pot 's Communist government. Now my wife Lesa and I wanted to photograph these places before the inevitable tourist infrastructure ruined them forever.

I was hoping that the Cambodian temples would be a good addition to my life-long series of photographs of Holy Places worldwide . We had decided to get up at 4am each day, and be at different temples as the first light gave details to the scene. The dozens of tourist buses around the hotels would arrive by nine , so our hope was to get there first each day.

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The temple of Ta Prohm Founded by the Khmer king Jayavarman VII as a Mahayana Buddhist monastery and place of learning, Ta Prohm was built in the Bayan style in the 12th and early 13th centuries. At the height of its power, it housed over 12,000 people, with many more in the surrounding villages providing food and services.

Expansion continued for around 100 years, but after the fall of the Khmer empire in the 15th century, Ta Prohm and other temples were abandoned and quickly reclaimed by the jungle.

In the past decade the Cambodian authorities have embarked on a comprehensive programme of clearing and restoring many of the hitherto 'lost' temple complexes.

Left: the inner courtyard of the complex.

This page: views of the temple site as it is steadily reclaimed by the jungle. The trees are mainly ceiba and strangler fig.

A 'cathedral'in the jungle Our path eventually reached a clearing. As we stood peering into the gloom, we could gradually see walls of grey stone, and tall trees seemingly growing out of the walls themselves .

We stood transfixed as the temple took form in the growing light. Within fifteen minutes we were busy with our cameras .

I found my way to the inner courtyard , while Lesa set up her tripod near the tall strangler fig tree that Angelina Jolie walked past in the film Tomb Raider.

Almost unaware of passing time , Lesa got great photos of the trees growing out of the walls, and detail shots of fallen leaves on the stones. She showed the age of the carvings that had been exposed to the elements for hundreds of years, noone knowing they were there. I tried to show the structures in the context of their being ancient places of worship , with the jungle overgrowth adding v~sual complexity to the scene.

I tried to capture the early morning light raking across

HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY

the stones in the same way that it dramatises the Gothic cathedrals of Europe. The huge trees actually looked like the columns of a cathedral. By shooting these ruins in the same way, I tried to show them in a 'Holy Places ' context. Just being there and recording the scene was itself a spiritual experience .

By nine o'clock, everything changed . We lost the total silence; tourists arrived by the hundreds . Busloads of Chinese climbed on the stones and took each other's photos .

No-one could take a photograph without other visitors being in the way. The sun was climbing higher and the scene had too much contrast to shoot anything but snapshots.

We sat on a rock and watched for a while, our shooting day over - there would still be ample time for breakfast back in Siem Reap. We had tears of joy in our eyes; for just a short time we had had the privilege of being in one of the last 'real places' in the world.

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A London landmark restored Much has been written recently about the restoration and re-opening of the former Midland Railway hotel at St Pancras; here we look at another impressive railway landmark, the one-time Great Central hotel at Marylebone.

behind plasterboard and grey paint, remained in restorable condition; the remarkable stained-glass windows, depicting coats-of-arms of the cities in Sir Edward Watkin's railway empire, were discovered unharmed in packing cases in the basement, and many are now back in their original settings.

Last of the main railway companies to reach London was the Great Central, linking the capital with the industrial towns and cities of Yorkshire, Lancashire and the Midlands. It was the brainchild of Sir Edward Watkin, who envisaged his London terminus at Marylebone as hub of an international rail network reaching through a Channel tunnel far into Europe.

That was never to be, of course, and the Great Central remained a small and relatively localised railway, competing with earlier lines from the north with termini at Euston, King's Cross and St Pancras. Nonetheless, in 1899 Watkin's small Marylebone station spawned an opulent 600-room hotel, the Great Central, designed by the architect Robert William Edis.

Built in the form of an open sixstorey square, the hotel's large central courtyard had impressive entrance archways leading from Marylebone Road on the south, overlooked by a tall clock-tower, and directly from the station forecourt on the north. Fine chimney-pieces, decoration and art abounded throughout the public rooms, including restaurants and a large ballroom.

Left: Coat-of-arms oftlie Great Central Railway, one of several stained-glass windows now restored.

Another appears on our front cover.

Decline and rebirth

In 1923 the GCR became part of the London & North Eastern Railway.

But its share of passenger traffic remained sparse, especially as car ownership grew in the 1920s and '30s, and the hotel soon fell out of use.

During the Second World War it was a convalescent home for military personnel, then for the next 40 years an office building - notably, as 222 Marylebone Road, HQ of the British Railways Board.

Not until 1993 did it reopen as a hotel, at first The Regent, and today, as the Landmark London, it has regained its status as one of the city's leading luxury hotels.

The open courtyard, now a glassroofed atrium, has become the Winter Garden. By good fortune"much of the decorative work, hidden for 50 years

Tlie Winter Garden in tlie former open courtyard.

Text and pi ctures: R. K. Evans FRPS.

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