Transitions and ENSFC

There are six students involved in the exciting Transitions project.  We have been to the Great Yarmouth archives and have selected artworks/images that will inspire our responses to the contemporary view of the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston area.  Several students have already identified areas of interest and Enya and Ellen have interviewed members of the public in Great Yarmouth to gain their views on the area. Enya is interested in looking at the contrast between the natural environment and the built environment while looking at and being inspired by the local artist Anthony Aimies. If anyone has any background information of him please add a comment.

  Jack is intersted in textiles and fashion and has made an appointment at Carrow House to look at the collection.  At the moment Jack is interested in Victorian costumes.

Hannah is interested in the equipment and clothing worn by lifeboat men in the past and the present day. 

Charlotte is intersted in beach huts and textured wood.  We are interested in learning what type of belongings people keep in their beach huts.

Ellen is looking for found objects – found on the beach or are marine related for an installation.  Any one with any artefacts or driftwood etc would be appreciated.

Alissa is interested in photographs and local trades and trades people.  How traditional trades compare with modern trades.

Anyone with any comments or images that they can share with us to help us with our research would be greatly appreciated.  Please contact us by comemnt.  Thank you.

Vauxhall Bridge, Great Yarmouth

   2010

Mrs. Kiki, who has run the famous Seafood Restaurant on North Quay with her husband Chris for 30 years, has managed a brave campaign for the last nine years to save Vauxhall Bridge, a Grade II Listed Building of Architectural and Historic Interest.   Her property looks over the bridge and she is acutely aware of its heritage and potential aesthetic value.   She believes it should be preserved and smartened up as a proud testament to Great Yarmouth’s industrial past and a unique historical welcome to visitors on their arrival at the station.

Yarmouth Vauxhall Station, now Great Yarmouth Station, served the line to Norwich through Reedham opened up by the Norfolk Railway in 1844, one of the first railways in the county to open. The station was separated from the two other stations in the town by the River Bure. Vauxhall Bridge was opened in 1852, seven years after the fatal collapse of a former suspension bridge across the River Bure, when 79 people, mostly children, drowned.

The new iron bridge was a Fairbairn-type box girder construction. The box girder is the structure at body level as you walk across the footbridge. Fairbairn was involved with Robert Stephenson, son of the locomotive pioneer George Stephenson, and Eaton Hodgkinson in the design of the Britannia Railway Bridge over the Menai Straits. His innovative work on that bridge led to the introduction of the box girder for railway bridges, most from that period now demolished as loadings have increased or lines been closed. The Vauxhall Bridge in Great Yarmouth is a rare survivor. It was built in two sections, one side for the tramway run by Yarmouth Union Railway as a one mile long connecting line to the other stations and the fish wharfs on South Quay, and the other for foot passengers and horse drawn traffic.

   1985

A further claim to fame is that it is one of only two such bridges to be strengthened by alteration to its structural form in the 19th Century. Arched ribs were added in 1886 rising above the box girders for added strength, with vertical iron rods supporting the girders from the arches. These elegant bows strengthened the bridge for locomotives run by the Great Eastern Railway in the 1880s. The design and erection of the new structure around the old one would have been very innovative and challenging at the time. The other strengthened bridge was a suspension bridge in Erith in Cambridgeshire, which was converted to a lenticular truss but has since been demolished.

As Vauxhall Bridge is the only one of its kind now existing in this country, it is of real historical importance as an outstanding piece of industrial architecture. It is Grade II listed and registered at the Institute of Civil Engineers as historical engineering work 0391. Peter Cross-Rudkin, author and civil engineer, who is writing a book on Civil Engineering Heritage in East Anglia, has described it as a monument of the 1st rank.

In 1976 the railway line from the station to North and South Quays was closed but people could still drive over until 22nd February 1988, when it was closed to vehicle access. It has since been used as a footbridge only to Great Yarmouth station from North Quay.

The bridge is now owned by Railway Paths, a sister charity to Sustrans, the sustainable transport charity (www.sustrans.org.uk). Sustrans were asked to produce structural survey when the Civic Trust, Great Yarmouth Town Centre Strategy Report “Station Gateway” was being compiled in 2001. There is no mention of the bridge in its East of England Strategic Plan for 2009-13, however Sustrans says it is keen to support redevelopment of the area, though “there is still much to be done”.

The Station Gateway proposal warned against failure to attend to the structural instability of the current bridge. It was foreseen that there was a risk of the station becoming isolated from the town centre. By the time that the GYBC Runham Vauxhall Regeneration Project reported on the station gateway the bridge was seen to pose a low level hazard to sailing vessels as well as pedestrians (an eight berth boat became wedged under the Grade II listed structure close to Yarmouth yacht station at 11am after trying to negotiate it during high tides on the 13th May 2010). Another factor mitigating against preservation of the bridge is that Box girder structures are difficult to maintain, because of the need for access to a confined space inside the box. A workman in 1910 working inside the box was overcome by fumes and had to be cut out.

However, Philip Watkins, Chief Executive of 1st East, pledged his support for the restoration of the bridge, describing it as a “little gem that needs polishing”. The bridge now forms an important part of the plans to link the station with a regenerated North Quay and town centre. Regarding improvements to the area around the station in the Great Yarmouth URC Area Action Plan, Preferred Option, 2007, it states “Pedestrian and cycle linkages need to be upgraded, to provide new, enhanced links to the Conge and the Market Place, ideally through the restoration of the old railway bridge.”

See http://www.1steast.co.uk/downloads/GreatYarmouthAAPJan.pdf

Thanks to Mrs. Kiki, David Wardale, Norfolk County Council Project Engineer, was introduced to the plight of the bridge and he has secured £300,000 funding from the Lottery Fair Share Trust, ringfenced until this year. There is yet much work to do however to secure the bridge for the future and to improve the landscape around the site.

Living Streets, a charity which represents pedestrians, is now also backing the campaign:  see http://www.eastcoastlive.co.uk/news/info.php?refnum=2234

Anybody able or willing to offer support for this campaign to save the bridge, please email here. Comments very welcome (click on “comments” in title bar and comments box will open).

References

EDP Wed 2.12.09

EDP Thur 3.9.10

EDP Frid 30.10.09

EDP 25.01.10

Great Yarmouth Mercury 07.05.10

http://www.berneyarms.co.uk/html/yarmouth/rail/quay/quay.htm

Showtime: Great Yarmouth’s Circus Story

Time and Tide, 27 March – 31 October 2010

You may be familiar with Great Yarmouth’s maritime history, but did you know that it also has a long history as a circus town, and is home to a world-renowned circus building?

The first circus came to town in 1845, though the event is best remembered for tragedy. Nelson the Clown was performing a publicity stunt, sailing down the river Bure in a bathtub pulled by four geese, when the surge of the crowds gathered on the bridge caused it to collapse; 79 people, mainly children, were drowned.

Several circuses passed through the town throughout the 1800s, performing in wooden buildings constructed for the purpose, until in 1903 a permanent building was opened. The Hippodrome on St Georges Street was built for George Gilbert, who had turned to circus management after an injury meant he could no longer perform. The Hippodrome is still a working circus today, the only circus building in the UK to still be used for its intended purpose, and one of only four across the globe to feature a ring which can sink to be flooded for spectacular, water-based finales.

Showtime: Great Yarmouth ’s Circus Story at Time and Tide celebrates the town’s rich circus heritage. It features paintings, posters, props and costumes from two local collectors, as well as from the museum’s own collections. Peter Jay , who has run the Hippodrome since 1978 is lending props from his own backstage museum. The town is also home to Don Stacey, who over a lifetime of involvement with the industry, has amassed the largest private collection of circus memorabilia in the UK .

Also on display are a new series of paintings by Katherine Hamilton, based on a recent residency at the Hippodrome.

Showtime Events

Friday Talks Last Friday of the Month, 11.30am

Museums at Night Saturday 15 May, 6 – 10pm

Rollo’s Circus Skills Workshops Mondays 26 July – 30 August

Circus Sunday 8 August, 10am – 5pm

Admission: Monday – Sunday 10am – 5pm

Adults £4.50

Conc. £3.80

Young Person (4-16) £3.30

Time and Tide, Museum of Great Yarmouth Life, Blackfriars Road, Great Yarmouth, NR30 3BX01493 743930  www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk

Medieval Norfolk’s relationship with North Sea

‘Norfolk and its North Sea World in the Late Middle Ages’ will open at the Norfolk Record Office in Norwich on Tuesday (13 April). The exhibition tells the story of the county’s relationship with the North Sea and the countries bordering it, with items relating to international trade, exchange of ideas, naval affairs, defence and war on show.

Documents written in Latin, French, English, Dutch and Low German all feature in the exhibition and demonstrate that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries – the period covered by the exhibition – Norfolk was a vital and significant link between England and the continent.

The exhibition is being held to coincide with a major international conference at the University of East Anglia, ‘East Anglia and its North Sea world’, which runs from Tuesday, 13 to Thursday, 15 April. The conference will include contributions from scholars working in Iceland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, together with those based in the UK.

Trade and commerce with the Low Countries, Scandinavia and particularly with the German Hanse trade association are explained through numerous documents from King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth. For example, there are sumptuously decorated letters patent of Henry VI, issued in 1428, confirming Henry IV’s grant, made in 1404, of powers of self-government to English merchants in Prussia, Scandinavia and the Hanseatic regions.

Another important document is the Great Yarmouth customs account for 1379-80, which shows a port heaving with vessels from the Baltic, Germany and the Low Countries. The Yarmouth accounts are significant as being one of only three series of English local customs accounts which survive locally, and they are by far the most extensive and complete.

‘Norfolk and its North Sea World in the Late Middle Ages’ will open on Tuesday and run until Tuesday, 13 July at the Norfolk Record Office, located in the Archive Centre on the County Hall site in Norwich. Admission to the exhibition and centre is free, for more information and centre opening hours, visit www.archives.norfolk.gov.uk.

Dawson Turner (1775-1858)

After attending Dr. Andrew Moore’s talk about Dawson Turner (1775-1858) delivered on the 5th February 2010, one of the excellent series of Friday talks at the Time and Tide Museum, I borrowed the book he referred to from the reference section in the Central Library: ‘Dawson Turner, A Norfolk Antiquary and his Remarkable Family’, edited by Nigel Goodman, Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 2007.

Yarmouth Priory by John Sell Cotman, commissioned by Dawson Turner

I am a great admirer of John Sell Cotman and was familiar with the name of Dawson Turner as a significant patron, but was nevertheless amazed to hear about the quality of the art collection he accumulated at Bank House (now Barclays Bank) on Hall Plain. Turner, a partner at the Turner Gurney Bank set up in Yarmouth in 1781, first won renown as a botanist. He was a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, (founded in 1788 by the Norwich botanist James Edward Smith). Of his large collection of botanical drawings, many were by William Jackson Hooker, a protégé who went on to marry Maria, the eldest daughter.  It is interesting to see the important role female botanists were able to contribute in these early days of collecting and classifying. Turner prized the drawings of Ellen Hitchins, for example, whom he greatly admired.

Once Turner began to collect works of art, he proved to have an impressive eye for quality. He was in advance of his time in prizing the beautiful Bellini in his possession, Mother and Child Enthroned with St. Peter and St. Paul and a Donor, 1505, now in the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. He acquired an exquisite Poussin landscape painting, View of Tivoli, and another lovely landscape painting by Hobbema, which was his favourite. Dutch and Flemish masters featured strongly as would be expected, given the close trading and cultural links that existed. As well as the wonderful Christening Feast by Jan Steen, Turner had examples of Gerrit Dou and Aelbert Cuyp amongst many other artists from across the North Sea. He also had a portrait of Catherine Parr by Holbein, a Canaletto, a studio sketch by Rubens and work attributed to Van Dyke and Titian. Of the English masters, he had two paintings by Sir David Wilkie, a landscape by Richard Wilson, family portraits commissioned from Thomas Phillips RA, and works by Crome and Cotman, the last three being friends, with Cotman and Crome employed consecutively as drawing tutors to Turner’s talented daughters.

Not only that, Turner accumulated an amazing collection of manuscripts, folios, autographed letters, illustrations and books of all sorts. He was a most unusual pioneer in collecting contemporary ephemera – newspaper cuttings, advertisements, shop bills, railway tickets, lottery notices and such. He had all his collections beautifully bound in calf or Russian leather by Yarmouth bookbinders of whom he said “that Yarmouth yields only to London in the excellence of its binders”. I could happily create a long list of items in his collection which excite me, but it would be an indulgence. I will only mention Book of Job (1825) by William Blake and correspondence with that unique genius, Turner’s Liber Studorium which he bought from J.M.W. Turner himself and a 15th Century Flemish Book of Hours – what a privilege for his many distinguished guests to be able to browse such a collection!

Dawson Turner was supported in all this work by his most congenial and accomplished wife Mary Palgrave of Coltishall. Eight out of their eleven children survived, six of which were daughters. These were all taught drawing, etching and lithography, not only by Cotman and Crome but also the likes of James Heath ARA and John Varley who visited Bank House. Drawings and prints produced by Mary and her daughters were used to illustrate Dawson Turner’s publications, including catalogues of his collections, works on Medieval architecture in Norfolk and Normandy, portraits to accompany letters which he also collected and bound, and so on. It was very unusual for women to be engaged so industriously on work destined for publication, one of the many features of this fascinating family.

Bank House now and Bank House then, a watercolour created by Father Stephen Horton, specially for this article, from an original print (see note below). 

Mary died after 54 years of marriage, and one year later, in 1851 and much to everybody’s amazement, Dawson Turner, aged 76, eloped with a widow called Rosamund Matilda Duff, who was thirty five years his junior and of humble origins. They married in Gretna Green and moved to London to avoid the disapproval of family, friends and colleagues. Sadly his collections were sold after 1852 when he faced financial difficulties.

Whenever I now cross Haven Bridge towards Barclays,  I take great pleasure in thinking about the Turner family and what they were able to achieve in the early 19th Century .

Note:   For more information about Stephen Horton’s work, have a look at the gallery on the Prinknash Abbey website by clicking here.

Priory Gallery Group visit to Art Collection

Members of the Priory Gallery Group, led by Mary Spragg, were the first to take part in the Transitions Project, with a visit to the Art Collection Store on the 26th March, 2010.  The visit was supervised by Emma Davison, Curator at the Great Yarmouth Museums Service (NMAS).  Jean Fisher, Susan Hacon, Kathleen Hewitt, Gillian Southgate,  Jean Stacey and Mary met up with Bridget Heriz and Emma in the Charles Dickens room at the Central Library to discuss the project and to learn about the art collection and were then able to enjoy perusing rarely seen works at close quarters.  Everybody found something to inspire them and will go on to develop some work of their own towards the exhibition which will take place in November 2010. 

The Priory Gallery Group came together two years ago when the National Gallery offered an outreach programme offering access to the collection and talks to members of the community in Great Yarmouth.  Those people who took advantage of this wonderful opportunity have now stayed together to form a group which meets on a monthly basis to share their interest.  A number will be able to study further with the National Gallery programme later this year.

TRANSITIONS

Transitions: past meets future!

Great Yarmouth arts group ARC, is delighted to announce an Awards for All grant to run Transitions. This project will enable old and young to delve into the Borough Archive and the Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service’s permanent art collection housed at the Central Library in Great Yarmouth. Looking into the past, participants can seek connections with, or comparisons to, the present and use new media to share their findings with local people. The project will run workshops to look at cultural life in the Borough and bring the town’s creative past into the light. Who knows what might be discovered?

The aim of the project is to raise the profile of the vital grassroots culture in the Borough, past and present. There is a long and distinguished cultural history in the locality but much has been buried and not celebrated. Transitions intends to bring it to life and to cast an optimistic eye on the future thanks to the all the talent currently demonstrated amongst the young people, especially in music, dance and drama.

Rupert Mallin, the lead artist on Transitions, says “With this touchstone to the past, participants will be able to pursue their own cultural response – in any medium – to the present and the future. Captured online at East Coast Net, the work will form a record which others can explore and/or add to in the future. It is a very exciting project.”

Transitions will conclude with an exhibition at the Central Library in November 2010. EastCoastNet will be used throughout the project to gather and share materials and as a focus for discussion as the project develops.

In collaboration with Great Yarmouth Library Service and