Exhibition open

We should have had a raffle, but Friday nights private view was a fun evening with the comb and paper orchestra entertainment, Steve Lewis who had done the found sound for the animation,  worked with Sam and Ben on milling songs using voice, comb and paper. They produced some good sounds and those musical enough to name the  tune  joined in.

There has been so much to do along the way on this project that I have neglected to write this blog at times feeling that getting the book copy to Alan or making the sets for the animation were more pressing. Now we have had the opening and had a very positive response from many people it all seems worth the slog.
Along the way one event that I should have mentioned was held on the site of Stainton Woollen Mill. Stella Adams Schofield an artist whose focus is the process itself has a rich knowledge of the textile processes from fleece to woven cloth. On a sunny day  a group of interested people came and enjoyed the washing of fleece in the river, carding, spinning and the weaving of  the yarn into cloth all accompanied by Stellas' interesting facts about processes and what the mill may have been like. All this took place in the field that the mill site now is, within the marked  plan of the mill site which Stella and I had marked out the day before with bamboo canes and warning tape with the message 'The mills of God grind slowly'. Being on the actual site made the event much more meaningful.

Stella cards the washed fleece in the background is the former mill house.

Time

I had always thought of time as a horizontal line, but now that I have observed the layers of  time, that nature has put, between the past and the present,  I also see it as vertical.
This last few weeks as I have been working on the book content- to get it to print and the sets for the animation which Adam Clarke is now filming in the barn, I feel  time has been  concertinad as I seek to get everything to a point of completion for the exhibition.

Book cover

A river runs through it - the book content has been selected  over the year from research, photographs old and new, images and old maps gathered from many sources and  with invited contributions from artists and writers. My overall selection I took down to Manchester where designer Alan Ward at Axis Graphics has made sense and order out of the content and seen it through to the printer in Antwerp. Today a heavy envelope thudded onto the step, the folded copy had arrived from the printer - it feels and looks good- so I am now looking forward to seeing it hard backed and that will be when it arrives by carrier in the next 2 weeks at Heron Corn Mill.

Developing characters

Sets for the animation have grown in number and detail over the weeks - it has been so enjoyable to get back to some hands on work without the camera. Using hand made paper and collage techniques with water colour -yes water colour and taking the tools in  Heron Corn mill as inspiration for there anthropomorphic qualities a story line has evolved and who knows where it will end ? Films to edit and collections to shelf - suddenly the year seems to have gone quickly and I have learnt so much, the River Bela and its tributaries has got under my skin I  will continue the journey.........

Salt in the Air

The final walk in the series 'Source to the Sea' and the sun has obliged, but first we take a look inside Heron  Corn Mill the river Bela's only working water mill and sustainable site. After last weeks visit to the long silent Milton Mill the gentle rumblings and rhythms, different on every floor, brought  Heron Corn Mill to life.

The avenue of millenium trees took us up the hill into Dallam Park, warm sun, contented barrel shaped  sheep and white woolly lambs leaping around on long legs with small bodies and faces with large brown eyes. Over the brow of the hill, we see the deer are down by the river, the sunlight is catching that hint of fresh light bright green as leaf burst takes over these huge trees the deer park was designed and planted on a grand scale.  We make for Haverbrack, when named was 'a slope where oats are grown', now it is open fields and on the headland a wonderful wood of tall, tall trees of beech tower above us as we follow the footpath round and out we come with a view of the lakes and the estuary.
We talk of mud and silt and changing channels due to the building of the viaduct at Arnside [the advent of the railway was the beginning of the end for the port of Milnthorpe], how different life would have been before the advent of the viaduct when sailing ships were beached on the mud and cargoes like buffalo horn were  off loaded onto horse drawn carts and delivered to the appropriate mill in that instance Bela Mill where hand cut horn combs were made.
Haverbracks' path drops down to the Dixies- the nearest point to Milnthorpe that bigger ships could get-now a modern light industrial unit reminiscent in shape to the hull of a ship occupies the roadside site. It is said that some smaller ships could get up the river to the Strand.
We sat on the old Railway line viewing the estuary, eating our  picnics and drinking in the landscape, bird and marsh life.

Dejeuner  sur l'herbe

Our route takes us to the banks of the Bela as it nears the sea, we follow it up stream  back into the park, walking the bank the route of the old  road to Arnside, the bridge over the river into the park was once the lowest bridging point.

Dallam Park

 

 

 

 

 

Now you want my lunch?

The river skirts the cricket pitch and recreation ground, tall trees let dappled sunlight filter through  onto small islands and  shallow pools, a lovely place for kids to discover river life.
Roger Bingham has done a great job in composing and placing historical information plates at strategic and relevant points along the riverside where many mills once turned and  as Milnthorpes' name implies it was a place of many Mills.

Bela Comb Mill-the only remaining mill in Milnthorpe

The weir at Bela Mill

 Hornwork, rope, twine and canvas, flax spinners, bed ticking, bag and sails, sacking and paper were all once manufactured here, we are talking outside Bela Mill and are invited in to see the wheel -twice as wide as HCM's we observe the stillness of the neglected wheel and hear the water rushing below. Where once horn combs were cut by hand some plastic combs are moulded and packed but also imported from China and distributed. Our trail along the river for traces of mill life takes us up Mill lane and back along the noisy A6 south  to Beetham.
Billerud formerly Henry Cooke is a modern paper manufacturing plant, pulp is imported from Sweden but water from the Bela is used in the process and HCM's turbine generates electricity which contributes to Billeruds green credentials, for 330 years at least paper has been manufactured on this site, there was also a fulling mill here which no longer exists. Over the bridge and we are back at HCM where water is used by the mill and the turbine, it would seem that this is the Bela's hotspot for water use activity.
These walks have been  a sharing experience for those who have taken part, for me it has been great to benefit from the knowledge of others and share what I have learned so far on this project.

100, 250 and 400 metre races

It's late April and the wind had a cold penetrating edge on it for Wednesdays  walk. Undeterred we left cars at Crooklands  and descended narrow stone steps to the canal bank world, of tall trees overhanging the quiet water, away from the heavy traffic of the A65. The 'black and white' canal so called because coal came in and limestone went out, was built to take the water  from the specially dammed Killington Lake to supply Glasson Dock it could then remain open for ships to dock 24 hrs a day: the lakes outfall Peasey Beck feeds the canal at Crooklands.
We  walked a landscape  that had in recent years been cut and overrun by the motorway and bypass up to Kendal but we were looking for traces of earlier industrial interventions  the tramway from Gatebeck Gunpowder Works and head and tail races to various mills on Peasey Beck.

1930's life

Left former Millers house and warehousing, right converted mill

Millness Mill like many others has little trace of its former life and is now two houses their twee names reflecting the buildings former life, we on walked to Milton Mill and farmhouse steeped in the past  and overshadowed by the whirring ever present elevated road- 'it broke fathers heart cutting the mill field in half and so his heart gave up' Buttie told us this, his youngest daughter, who has lived and farmed all her life at Milton.

Mill Wheel at rest!

Shovels for turning the grain

Spanners for the works

I can only describe Milton Mill as in a state of 'living decay', the mill has not turned since the late 1950's but occasionally there has been a torrential flood through the mill due to high rainfall. The atmosphere is still and quiet, on each floor those with me stood quietly absorbing and interpreting the assembled memorabilia of past years, tools for milling and repairs, a boat for the millpond, ice skates, big sack scales, containers sitting on window sills, tools for farming some organised some here and there. All the while Buttie told with great warmth stories of her early years, walking to school in Endmoor, swimming in the millpond in summer and skating on it in winter and all year round learning and looking after the animals. My fellow walkers wondered what it would have been like with sound and Buttie gave us a clue. We lingered long enjoying the reminiscing and the delight in stepping out of the real world for a short time.

 Back out in the bracing wind we walked the lanes and canal bank up to Crookland's Mill Garage which was formally a bobbin mill - few traces remain, bricks in a back wall where the head race came through, infront of this MOT's take place where the waterwheel once turned.

Barbed wire and cobwebs on back window

Head race came through back wall, men would be in front of waterwheel

 We walked up the field behind following a ridge peppered with large limestones that once edged the long long headrace down to the mill. Peasey is a fast flowing beck now free to tumble to the sea for there are no mills to turn. Further up we see the line of the old tramway, from the Gatebeck Gunpowder Works down to Milnthorpe Station, now  two ridges of green alongside the hedge. We turn at Challon Hall where monks once rested before or after they had walked to Shap, Preston, Furness or Cartmel.

Painting of Kaker Mill 1950's

Down the road Kaker Mill has also succumbed to housing apparently able to sleep 14,  its millstones now resting in the back garden of Kaker Mill Farmhouse. We detour and look through the windows of the Friends meeting house and talk of mills, morality, religion and gunpowder.
The cold and biting wind has been licking round our faces and limbs  all day so a welcome cup of tea warms us through in the Old Schoolroom whilst we discuss the day then part for home.
Join me next Wednesday for talk of the sea, mills and views from Haverbrack 10 am meet at Heron Corn Mill

100,250 & 400 metres races

Source to the Sea

Last Wednesday the first of the guided walks ' I see no ships' took place along the footpaths, lanes and bridleways of Stainton  and Hutton.

Walking through Bleasehall wood

Before leaving the mill some of the group saw the Heron breakfasting on small fish unsuspectingly swimming in the turbines supply tank, that was the start of the bird watching.

Breakfast -easy pickings

 We saw a buzzard at close range,  a Woodpecker high up in the trees and as we picnicked below the road level at Blaystone Bridge to be  out of the wind the first swallows of summer swooped above us.
St Sunday's delightful tumbling beck hosted blackthorn trees frothing with fresh blossoms then in the small Bleasehall Wood it was carpeted with delicate wood anemones  and bluebells not yet flowering but green and fresh.  We rounded  Low Bleaze hamlet and followed Peasey Beck up to Blaystone Bridge. Freshly sown fields were crossed, fields with cows just turned out of winter quarters  and others with horses or sheep with lambs afoot.
Stone stiles,  wooden stiles, footbridges, gates with various fastenings many with surfaces polished by human hands as they passed over, everyone commented on the delight of local footpaths-walks that are on our doorsteps but had not been discovered until now.
At sites of mills I read Somervell's notes and we talked over changes and imagined the past.

Ghost of Halfpenny millthrough the trees

Halfpenny Mill had a colourful life flax mill, dye works, manure mill, paper and paper bag mill, cocoa matting manufactory and sugar boiling, now  the stone long gone to make other houses, is now a woodland site  full of birdsong.  The surprise of a waterfall at Beckside gave rise to talk of turbines past and present.

Waterfall at Beckside

Our final stop Millersbeck for tea and homemade biscuits to see the late Ian Dunn's humorous representational drawings of mill life when he was a lad and the sad tale of the Millers daughter who took rat poisoning and died, which she had bought for 2d, when she mistakenly thought the millers helper was not interested in her anymore.

The rain poured  so to  Fisher Tarn we did not go to view the distant sea.
    Join us this Wednesday 10 am at Heron Corn Mill to roam the byways of Milton, Millness, Crooklands and Preston Patrick.
Ring  015395 64271 to book a place.

You are Here

'You are here' is a creative thinking mapping project for primary children, delivered to 6 schools as part of 'A river runs through it.'

 The brief was to redesign their village, without mains gas and electric for heating and lighting or  petrol and diesel for transport, their new ideas should include the production of food, shelter, warmth and work for people.

Puzzled faces and questions follow for children with 10 or 11 years experience of life it is hard for them to comprehend what would not be as available. Many are well aware of sustainable methods which exist and can include them in there plan, what is harder for them to visualize is that other things may not be as available.

Every childs immediate experience i.e. there parents occupations and life style are fundamentally influential  as to what are necessities for life and what is an essential job -so children who live on farms - immediately see that the growing of food for local  consumption would be essential and yet another child suggested a bureau de change and hotel for that was his experience - discussion ensued -maybe a bed and breakfast for visitors  was the general consensus.

Some children have a greater awareness of community and the differing needs of the age groups which life naturally divides itself into. It was interesting that many realised that disposal of the dead was something that should be included and it was through that route that they included churches although one group had a Buddhist centre.

Wind turbines are the most visual of sustainable alternative sources and therefore children were most aware of them closely followed by solar panels, one child new about bio-mass boilers and then it transpired that his father sold them, with a little embarrassment poo powered cars were muted and then included. 
What is difficult for children is to understand the inter-relationship of essential elements,  cause and effect or sequence and ordering but that comes with life experience.

From Gunpowder to Greggy the Scrap

This project has many tributaries and keeping up with the flow on an even basis is proving to be a difficult one.  Over the last 3 /4 weeks I seem to have been following threads through research, snippets of information, contacts and interviews with people. The amount of information available and its relevance has to be assessed, do I only collect information useful and interesting to me or what might be potentially interesting to others and what is that........??
Reflecting at this point, my starting point was Somervell's book 'Water powered mills of South Westmorland' and therefore I am making an assessment of 'then and now,' what most interests me is what is to be found on the ground - out in the landscape, as it is now, looking for clues and alongside that the information I continue to learn about what a rural but industrial landscape it was compared with the tidied attractive presentation that now prevails for it has become a part of the tourist industry. Through half closed eyes I see what is hear now and also what was formally there during that period of local production from the 18th to early 20th century and at its height Victorian values, philanthropy, Quaker businessmen and Wars for which food, gunpowder and clothing were all produced locally by water powered engineering. Traces on the ground are supported by the research and conversation with those who have a great deal more knowledge than I.

Mill buildings that still exist as working buildings - the changes within those buildings and what they produce now, in some cases it bears no connection and in others it has evolved for instance the Bela Mills still produce combs but instead of horn they are plastic now, and yet at Abbey Horn Works in Holme Mills, they relocated there some years ago from Kendal, and are still working horn in  traditional ways- I will film there in the New Year.

Stuart and I visited Greggy's this last Wednesday, formally Gatebeck Gunpowder works. Brian Gregg the quietly spoken owner gave us his time and enjoyed the reminiscence of his Grandfathers days at the Gunpowder works-tales of accidents and the vastness of the complex works. His office was also the office of the Gunpowder works and much of the yard was given over to the cooperage -wooden barrels in which the gunpowder was transported and the tramway - horsedrawn carts running on metal rails from Gatebeck to Milnthorpe Station. 

The tramway from Gatebeck to Milnthorpe Station

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Man in the Moon -gunpowder wrapper

Greggy had some photos and on Friday I gleaned more information of labels and wrappers for cakes of gunpowder when I visited Norri to view some of Mike Davies Shiel's archive. Ian Tyler's talk  at HCM yesterday and the discovery that he had written an extensively researched and illustrated book on the gunpowder mills supplies valuable information for which I have not got the time and as Grayson Perry commented on his exhibition after a 2 year residency at the British Museum -'don't look to deep I am an artist not a historian'.
My plan is to visit every site that Somervell named and photograph what is there now and as such I am  about half way through this task.
What struck me about about Greggy's was the order and organisation of the scrap,  alongside Peasey Beck cars in the process of being disemboweled, regimented and silent as they rest on bald rubber towers, autumn leaves falling about and hens scratting here and there. Inside what was part of the cooperage works his living archive of radiators, headlamps, batteries etc etc wait on ordered shelves for the next phase of their useful life.
Gunpowder was used for fog lamps on the railway and supplied Standard fireworks now from this same site engines and parts for European cars are exported to Poland and Hungary on a regular basis.