On a sunny Sunday in late September I was joined by Mark Loos from Medway Swale Estuary Partnership and a group of 12 walkers on a walk with sketchbooks and clay.
We had plotted a walk along the shoreline at Riverside Country Park, Gillingham, a linear stretch of accessible coastline following the southern shore of the Medway estuary. The walk also took in a small peninsular which leads to the strangely named Horrid Hill. Horrid Hill is the site of an old clay works, where clay was gathered at Low tide from boats by Muddies for use in the cement factory. The shore at Horrid Hill is still a mass of clinker, where the furnaces have left their slag.
The shore line is rich foraging territory; from the tall & distant industrial buildings of the power station on the northern shore, to the small finds of worked flint and broken pottery shards at our feet.
This area of the estuarine coast has been much changed in recent years, becoming silted up and encroached upon by marsh grass. It is now the permanent resting place for metal hulled barges, and the odd wooden ribbed wreck.
Armed with cameras, sketchbooks and clay tablets we set off on a meandering route, stopping for conversations, observations, and stories.
The walkers were each given 3 small tablets of clay with which to gather impressions of things that they found interesting along the way. Worn wood, rusted rivets and samphire were some of the things captured in the clay.
I was taken with the riveted surface of an old barge, and have returned to take a large imprint of it for use at a later date.
The clay tablets will be fired to 1000 degrees C, and will then be used in a workshop that will accompany the final exhibition of this project, Mud & Clinker.
