Having worked at the British Museum
for many years I’ve long been fascinated by two somewhat eccentric views of the
building. Both were painted from the same vantage point in 1905 by a Danish
painter, Vilhelm Hammershøi. In
the mid-late 1990s I was very involved with the archaeology of the BM site
ahead of the building of the Great Court which opened in 2000 (see here). As
part of this we often consulted old photographs, paintings and plans of the BM
buildings, using them to piece together clues about some of the architectural
remnants we discovered. We opened up several trenches on the BM forecourt and
most of the finds made there related to Montagu House, the seventeenth century building
which preceded the current one. Eight metres below the present colonnade we
managed to dig down into the old building itself. Later consulting a set of
hand-drawn plans of Montagu House it was thrilling to see the exact step on
which I’d sat with trowel in hand, effectively sitting in the basement of the
old building which had been demolished in the 1840s (see here). We also found a
large area of cobblestone paving in front of the main steps, although I can’t
now recall if this was associated with the original courtyard of Montagu House
or the later building, designed by Sir Robert Smirke, which still stands today
– either way it had long been covered over and forgotten. Cobblestones and
basement steps might seem like strange things to be fascinated by, but it’s
often the smallest remnants which can lend a direct continuity between the past
and the present. It’s these elements of the everyday which are most often
passed over and rendered unseen. Physical archaeology, and, perhaps even moreso,
the ‘archaeology’ of images is one of our best routes to reconnect with the
past.
The British Museum, by Vilhelm Hammershøi, 1905 (Fulsang Kunstmuseum)
I’m certainly not the only one who
feels this way. Walking past the house in which Hammershøi painted these two views each day eventually piqued my
interest. I couldn’t help wondering how closely the views from those upper storey
windows today compared with his two views painted over a hundred years ago. Too
shy to just knock on the door and ask the present inhabitant if they’d let me
take a look, I decided to do a little research to see if anyone else had been
struck by the same curiosity and had done the necessary footwork before me. I
certainly wasn’t disappointed.
It seems me and “that Michael
Palin chap from the telly” have a fair few things in common. Asides from being
a big fan of Monty Python and his many entertaining and inspirational travel documentaries
it seems he and I share a fascination for this artist and these two paintings
in particular. In fact Palin used these two views as a springboard for a
fascinating documentary in which he follows Hammershøi back to his native Copenhagen, via a brief excursion to
Amsterdam en route (Michael Palin and the
Mystery of Hammershøi, BBC, 2005 – see here). In this wonderful one hour
long film Palin manages to track down many of the places, mostly interiors,
which Hammershøi painted and
delights in seeing what they look like today. He even interviews the current
occupant of the flat in Great Russell Street in which Hammershøi and his wife stayed in 1905. What
fascinates Palin the most about Hammershøi’s
paintings are the ambiguities captured there in muted tones. Simple views of
sunlight filtering into empty rooms. Half open doorways. Solitary women (often
Hammershøi’s wife, or earlier
on in his career, his sister) seen from behind, their bodies obscuring what
they might be doing – playing a piano, reading a letter, threading a needle,
or any number of activities we might care to imagine could absorb an individual
deeply ensconced in their own company. (Palin is also taken by the motif of the
woman’s exposed neck which is often repeated in many of Hammershøi’s paintings
and which I find reminiscent of Paul Delaroche’s Execution of Lady Jane Grey – a very different painting and one
which I find intensely moving). Suffused with a quiet stillness, one thing
which all of Hammershøi’s
paintings tend to evoke is the silence of a moment.
Montague Street, by Vilhelm Hammershøi, 1905 (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek)
That play of light and gloom is
something which seems peculiar to Scandinavian art. It is something which
appeals to me as much as it does to Michael Palin. As with most people, my
fascination began with the works of Edvard Munch. I remember when I was at
Sixth Form I was very taken by Munch’s famous painting of The Scream from his projected but uncompleted ‘Frieze of Life’
series of works. At the time The Scream
was temporarily on display in London. I never managed to see it myself on that
occasion, but I remember discussing it with a close friend of mine who went to
see it with the other students of her art class – she is now a highly talented
painter herself (and incidentally, there’s something about the technique of her
brushwork which I find reminiscent of Hammershøi – see here). We
were greatly shocked when, only a year or so after The Scream had been on display in London, we saw some very dramatic
CCTV footage shown on the TV News of the painting being stolen in Norway – the
thieves exiting a high window and audaciously sliding the painting down a
ladder propped against the side of the building, all done and away in a matter
of moments. That same day I painted my own version of The Scream – to temporarily ‘replace’ the one which was now
missing. Thankfully the actual Munch painting was recovered several years
later. I’ve still not seen this famous version of The Scream, although I have seen other iterations of this motif
made by Munch in different formats and different sizes in various exhibitions
both in London and in Japan.
The Scream, by Edvard Munch, 1893 (National Gallery, Norway)
My copy of Munch's The Scream, painted 12 February 1994
A few years ago I found myself
captivated by the landscape paintings of a Norwegian painter, Peder Balke. The
National Gallery in London had a small exhibition of his works, which was
accompanied by a very handsome book. Perhaps there’s something about the long
dark gloomy weather of the autumn-winter-spring seasons in these northern
latitudes which speaks to this sense of melancholy introspection reflected in
the elemental transformations of the landscape (both interior as well as
exterior), and the play of light and dark across muted surfaces which speaks to
the Northern European soul in such a distinctive way. British painters have it
too – think of the works of Whistler or Turner. Some painters, such as Van Gogh
and Gauguin, fled from it – seeking out distinctly sunnier climes in the south
of France or even as far afield as the Marquesas in the South Seas. Yet others,
like Hammershøi, Balke, Munch,
and Turner, embraced it and examined it to the full.
La Route Royale près de Gentofte, by Vilhelm Hammershøi
There are no simple answers here.
How we each fathom what these paintings are meant to depict is very much up to
us. For me, when I look at Hammershøi’s
oblique views of the British Museum, I am aware of the shift in focus. As with
many of his paintings they can seem like a momentary distraction from the main
event. An eye caught by something else passing by on the periphery. That
something might even be a momentary passing thought, entirely unconnected,
which distracts us albeit only very briefly. But another angle on these muted
views which strikes me is how much like early photographs they are. There are
no people depicted in these two canvases. Just buildings, railings, trees and
empty thoroughfares which would normally be bustling with life at any hour of
the day or night. They seem to me like those early photos in which the
prolonged length of exposure time would necessarily dissolve any figures who
were not absolutely stationary from appearing there. In that sense such early
photographs, and similarly Hammershøi’s
paintings, are like the still unchanging point of stillness itself. They embody
the elements of life which remain unchanging. They are the places and the
moments on which we can anchor, and in many senses – as Palin’s documentary
shows – they can be the things which last the longest, outlasting us, even if
they don’t quite remain exactly the same. In some senses, to me at any rate, Hammershøi’s paintings capture the unchanging
essence of transience and transition. Tempus
fugit – Time flies, even if it passes so slowly that we can’t perceive it
changing. As the philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, a contemporary of Hammershøi, famously said: “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß
man schweigen.” – “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
Interior, by Vilhelm Hammershøi, 1899 (Tate Gallery)
Photo of Michael Palin by Chris Blott, used here with kind permission of the photographer.
We were lucky with the weather. The
day before had poured with rain all day. But today’s sunrise was met by a
crisp, clear blue sky. There was an early autumn tinge to the air, although it
was still warm in the sunshine. The wind on the water would probably cancel
that warmth out though, and that was evidently why everyone waiting on the pier
was swaddled in fleeces and waterproofs, just in case. Bristling with cameras
and binoculars, all eyes were looking intently upstream, trained on the bend in
the river beyond the wind turbines, looking keenly for the Waverley – the last
sea-going Paddle Steamer still in operation.
The Waverley had set out that
morning from Tower Bridge, but we were joining her at Gravesend for a jaunt
down the river to the Thames estuary and the open sea, to visit the World War 2
era Army Fort at Red Sands. The strange four-legged constructions which rather
resemble the alien-invader’s machines described in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, or John Christopher’s
Tripods trilogy of novels. Dreamt up by British Civil Engineer, Guy Maunsell, to protect the Thames and
London, Red Sands was one of three army forts set up in the estuary (there were
others set up in the mouth of the Mersey to protect the port of Liverpool as
well). Of the other two, Great Nore Fort and Shivering Sands Fort, only the
latter still stands. Great Nore was dismantled not long after the forts were
decommissioned in the 1950s as it was deemed a hazard to shipping after it was
badly damaged in a storm and a ship, the Baalbek,
collided with two of the towers destroying guns and radar equipment as well
as causing four fatalities. Since being abandoned, Red Sands and Shivering
Sands have stood as forlorn rusting sentinels – testament to the martial ingenuity
spurred by desperate times when Britain’s sole focus was survival in the face
of all-out war and the threat of imminent invasion.
In many senses the Waverley is a
symbol of Britain’s rebirth after the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. She was
built in 1946, as a brass plaque on-board attests, to replace another ship of
the same name (built in 1899) which had been lost during the evacuation of
Dunkirk in 1940. A 693 tonne oil-fired steamer built by A. & J. Inglis of
Glasgow, Waverley provided a regular passenger service from the Craigendoran on
the Firth of Clyde up Loch Long to Arrochar. Waverley was originally owned and
operated by the (recently re-convened) London and North Eastern Railway Company
(LNER). She was transferred to the Caledonian Steam Packet Company, a
subsidiary of the national Railway Executive, when the railway system was
nationalised in 1948, which in turn later merged with the company that became
Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac). Operating in Scottish waters throughout the
1950s and 1960s until a decline in passenger demand made Waverley too costly to
maintain. Hence CalMac eventually withdrew Waverley from service in 1973.
Fortunately though the ship was sold to the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society
for the token sum of one pound (£1). A public appeal secured the funding necessary
to keep the ship in full working order, and, now operating as Waverley Excursions, the ship tours regularly up and down the British coast. Every year
in the closing months of summer Waverley visits the Thames, and living near to
the river I’ve often seen her sailing by or heard her whistle tooting in the
near distance while pottering about in my flat. Waverley is a genuinely
beautiful ship, painted in her original 1947 LNER livery colours. I’ve long
wanted to get myself on-board in order to take a proper look at this unique old
boat.
Today though I’ve managed to tick
three things off my mental wish list. Killing three birds with one stone, as it
were: First, of course, a trip on the Waverley. Second, sailing out to one of
the old Maunsell Army Forts. And third, a visit to St George’s Church in
Gravesend, where Rebecca Rolfe, better known perhaps as Pocahontas, is buried.
Bonuses to the day’s trip were also getting glimpses of Tilbury Fort, which I’m
planning on properly visiting itself one day (and no doubt a blog post on the
same will follow on from that), and also glimpsing the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery. Sadly we didn’t
get to see the sunken remains of a WW2 Mulberry floating harbour near to
Southend, but an additional unexpected find with a China connection (I’m not
sure how, but these things have an uncanny knack of happening) was the
discovery that General Gordon used to be a Sunday school teacher in Gravesend,
in a building which still stands not too far from the pier where we boarded
Waverley (I’ve written previously about General Gordon on Waymarkshere).
When the Waverley finally appeared,
rounding the bend of the river in the far distance she was moving at a steady
clip and it wasn’t long before she was pulling into the pier. It was fascinating
to watch her crew and the pier attendants expertly guiding the ship into place
alongside. She’s not an easily manoeuvrable ship due to the fact that her
paddles are locked on a single crankshaft and so cannot be made to turn
independently. This means she has a very wide turning arc and so she often
needs the assistance of tugs if she has to pivot a full 180 degrees when in the
narrower stretches of the river. A gangplank was pushed across the starboard
paddle-wheelhouse to the pier, enabling a large group of passengers to
disembark before a larger fresh intake (including me and my parents) boarded.
My parents had already been on the Waverley once before, travelling the stretch
of river the Waverley had just navigated, hence they “knew the drill” and so
following their lead we rapidly made our way to the rear of the Waverley and
climbed up the steps to the top deck where we got ourselves a spot on one of
the port-side benches. This turned out to be an excellent and unexpectedly
fortuitous choice as when the Waverley reached Red Sands she rounded the fort
with the towers on her port-side, hence we got ringside seats for the day’s
main event.
I say the forts were the main
event, but really the whole Waverley experience was the main event in itself.
For the journey out I stayed on deck watching the sights as they passed by
(catching occasional snatches of the commentary coming from the tannoy speaker mounted
on the nearby mast) – Firstly, on the opposite bank to Gravesend
we could see Tilbury Fort, originally built in the reign of Henry VIII and kept in use
right up to the end of WW2; then passing by an early radar installation,
designed to look like a water tower; followed by Tilbury Docks – with sea
containers being loaded from towering mobile mechanical gantries onto massive
ships. I’d always imagined Tilbury Docks to be bigger and was surprised at how
small it was compared to some of the ports I’d seen in other parts of the
world, such as on the Huangpu in Shanghai (see here) or Busan in South Korea. Dotted all
along the river there are the remnants of several forts built as part of the
defences against invasion during the Napoleonic wars in the early 19th
century, often set in pairs on opposing sides of the river, and more often than
not topped with crumbling concrete additions from WW2.
Waverley made a final stop, tying
up briefly alongside the end of Southend Pier, where a large portion of the
passengers lined up to disembark. We could hear lots of talk amongst those
departing about going for fish and chips on the promenade, whereas basking in
the midday sunshine we decided this was the best moment to unpack our Thermos
flask and sandwiches. It wasn’t long before the ship cast off again and
turning a great arc from the pier in order to head back out to sea, we began to
steam off towards the open expanse of the horizon. Crossing over the width of
the channel we began to make out two sets of fuzzy dots on the horizon. Those
furthest away were the towers of Shivering Sands, and those which we were now
bearing a straight course towards were the towers of Red Sands Fort.
Each of the Maunsell Army Forts
consist of a set of seven towers which were all originally connected by
bridge-like walkways. A central control tower (which also contained the
accommodation quarters) was set in the middle surrounded by a semi-circle of
four towers, each mounted with anti-aircraft guns on top, a sixth tower stood to
the rear of the control tower, on top of which was mounted a larger
anti-aircraft gun, and a seventh tower, positioned to one side of the gun
towers a little further out, had a searchlight mounted on top. The towers of
the Thames Army Forts were originally built at Gravesend and floated out to the
estuary where their feet were flooded and the towers sunk into position. In all,
during the war, the forts shot down 22 enemy aircraft and some 30 or so V1 Doodlebug flying bombs.
Shivering Sands Fort now has only
six towers after a ship, the Ribersborg,
collided with one of them in fog and it collapsed in 1963. In 2005 the artist Stephen
Turner spent six weeks living alone in the searchlight tower of Shivering Sands
as part of “an artistic exploration of
isolation” – I saw the resulting artwork, a 30 minute twin-screen
slideshow, when it was displayed at the Museum of London Docklands in 2013 (see
here). Both Shivering Sands and Red Sands originally stood in ‘international
waters’ until the three-mile limit was later extended to twelve miles. It was
prior to this change that Red Sands and Shivering Sands were occupied by
the so-called pirate radio stations, such as Radio Caroline. I remember my
sister and I tuning in to listen to Radio Caroline in the early-1980s, but by
then it had transferred to a ship anchored further out beyond the twelve mile
limit, outside British legal jurisdiction. One of the Maunsell Navy Fort
platforms further up the coast, Roughs Tower, was originally occupied as a
pirate radio platform in 1966. It is still inhabited, and, claiming it was
effectively terra nullius, standing
just outside UK territorial waters, its inhabitants, the Bates family, have even declared
de facto independence from the UK – it is now known as the Principality of
Sealand (see here).
As the Waverley neared the towers
of the Red Sand Fort a huge flock of cormorants took wing from the top of one
of the towers. The Waverley’s engines dropped down to half-speed and the drop
in sound level as Waverley seemed to glide round the fort accentuated the
stillness on the water, the hubbub of conversation on deck seemed to drop away
entirely and everyone seemed to stand, mesmerised by the strange and slightly
unreal view of these rusting metal giants passing serenely by. I took several
still shots with my camera but forgot entirely to shoot any moving film until
we were well out of range.
As the engines shifted back up into
full speed I decided it was time to explore the ship, so I went for a walk all
around the decks and then down inside, where the most amazing sight to see are
the three great pistons driving the paddle wheels. Built by the Rankin &
Blackmore Eagle Foundry in Greenock, it is a real treat to see this powerful
steam engine in motion. Feeling the warmth of the boilers, smelling the scent
of hot grease and oil, watching the shining flash of polished steel as the
pistons slide smoothly back and forth, is satisfyingly hypnotic. A porthole in
the wheel house enables you to see the paddle wheel outside churning through
the water, propelling the Waverley on its way.
Heading back up on deck I was just
in time to catch a distant glimpse of the three black and ominous masts of the
wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery
sticking out of the water, now on our portside.
The SS Richard Montgomery was an America Liberty ship built during WW2.
The ship ran aground at low tide on the Nore sandbank near Sheerness in 1944.
It was hoped that she would lift herself off the sand on the next high tide but
the ship broke her back instead, probably due to the heavy weight of her cargo.
That cargo was a deadly one too, she was packed with munitions. A salvage
operation was swiftly got underway but the ship began to break-up even more,
flooding several cargo holds such that the operation had to be abandoned before
all of the munitions had been recovered. What remains is approximately 1,400
tonnes of ordnance – TNT high explosive. As such the ship poses a real and
ever-present danger to shipping and to the built-up regions of the surrounding
shoreline. A large exclusion zone has been set up around the wreck, marked by
buoys, it is watched permanently both visually and by radar, in order to remain
vigilant against any disaster.
Periodically navy divers are sent
down to assess the state of the explosives. This is dangerous in itself due to
the poor visibility in the silty waters which means the divers often have to
work by touch. So far the cargo has remained stable enough that no action has
been taken, but the wreck is effectively a ticking time bomb. If conditions
deteriorate the bombs within could explode spontaneously. The Maritime and
Coastguard Agency currently believe this risk is very remote, but a recent TV News report estimated that if the wreck were to explode it would cause major damage
and serious flooding to the immediate surrounding area. A ship with a similar
cargo, the Kielce, which sank in
deeper water and further from the coast near Folkestone in 1946 exploded with a
force which was equivalent to a 4.5 magnitude earthquake.
Return journeys always seem oddly
quicker than outward bound ones, but it was also a chance for us to take in all
the things we’d not seen on the opposite bank, the last remnants of riverine
industries that have long used the river as a highway. The sun was getting low
now and it put me in mind of Turner’s famous painting of the ghostly Fighting Temeraire being pulled by that fateful
little steam tug to the breaker’s yard at Rotherhithe. The old yielding place
to the new. It also made me recall the evocative closing passages in Joseph Conrad’s
novels, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’
and The Rover, in which he describes
the experience of standing on the decks of old sailing ships gliding up the
Thames estuary and the network of mudflats and tidal channels threaded through
the saltmarshes of the Kent and Essex coast. A low and level landscape
well-suited to gloaming skies. You can’t help but think of all the remarkable
and all the ordinary journeys throughout innumerable centuries which either
began or ended in these tidal reaches. The comings and goings of an age of
slower travel now flung up into the silent contrails of airliners passing sleekly
overhead; modern time-machines that stretch or compress time in shrinking
distances, effectively miniaturising the globe.
A day spent on the Waverley gives
you a real taste of living breathing history, as unlike other vessels, steam
powered machines seem to be animated by a life-force of their own. By
comparison the modern machines of today seem to be bland and identikit
facsimiles of one another. It seems a shame we no longer build things quite so
beautiful or so well-crafted in every detail as the Waverley. It’s a wonderful
thing that she is still in operation, doing exactly what she was designed to do
as a passenger steamer. And given the high number of passengers on-board
throughout the day, it is good to see she is so genuinely well-loved and
supported, even if it can feel a little crowded. We left the Waverley at
Gravesend, but later caught up with her again at Limehouse after the sun had
gone down. Where I managed to catch a final farewell in filming her steaming up
the now placid millpond of the river, disappearing into a gorgeous red and
purple sunset, heading back up to Tower Bridge at the end of a fabulously
eccentric and thoroughly British day out.
