Matlock is a former spa town that once had 20 hydros in its heyday. Today it is a family tourist attraction on weekdays and biker orientated meeting place at weekends and bank holidays. It has the feel of a seaside town with cable cars. I’m here today with my friend Sue who knows Derbyshire better than most.
Both the Derby Porcelain artists came here and both painted versions of Matlock High Tor so we head along the road looking for it. A few years ago the High Tor was an imposing sight rising up from the river. Not so much now that the trees have grown. Another few years and the top won’t even be visible! Thomas ‘Jockey’ Hill painted another couple of Matlock scenes that also look very sparse and scrubbed compared to the foliage carpeted area that I can now see.
I take the photos and we head for a cafe. It takes us a while to find one amonst the many fish and chip shops and ice cream parlours. The pseudo Victorian cafe looks best. Inside we are greeted with plastic flowers, plastic tablecloths and other things from the far east. There seems to be a museum in there too. Mercifully it is closed or I might be tempted to go in.
On the way back we stop in Belper and I get out my ‘Near Belper’ picture. It’s a house, high on the riverbank and there appears to be several trees or bushes strung across the river in front of it. We stand on the bridge near Strutts Mill and I can see a house up on the hill. It’s been modernised a lot but looking back down to the river I can see it becomes shallower there and some islands of shrubbery have formed.
I haven’t even searched for this but I doubt I’ll find a more convincing scene. On the picture the viewpoint is from the back of the house so I walk up the steep hill towards it. Unfortunately it is not photographer friendly with high fences, gates and dense trees shielding the property. I realise I’m looking like some sort of prowler. I wouldn’t want to see someone lurking in the bushes outside my house with a camera. There’s no way I’m getting the photo so I draw a line under this one.
Kedleston Park was an easy three mile walk from the Nottingham Road factory where Derby Porcelain was based. When George Robertson arrived circa 1797 he sat down on this riverbank and sketched the Robert Adam designed bridge. He would have good cause to come here. It’s likely that the Curzon family who had Kedleston Hall built in 1760 (and still own it today) would have been patrons of Derby Porcelain. The house was a showcase for paintings and sculpture and a place of lavish entertainment.
Including the local stately homes would have been a smart marketing move on behalf of the company when the finished work was up for sale.
The bridge looks exactly the same today from where I’m standing. The young oak tree in the foreground of the picture may be around 30 years old. It’s a very mature tree now, with leaves touching the water.
I stand on the bridge watching the swans swim back and forth and wrestle with thoughts about my art and how it may be percieved by others if I include swans. I remind myself that what I’m doing is conceptual and I need to show each place as it is now. Come to think about it I’ve seen swans everywhere. They are part of the landscape. I decide to take a leaf out of the swans’ book and go with the flow.
So, swans are in the film. Then I start on the shadows under the trees. There’s endless enjoyment/entertainment in shadows for me. I put it down to spending a lot of time on my own as a child.
I’ve been here twice in the last few weeks. The first time it was late morning and the light was harsh and the photos looked washed out. I’ve still only got one out of the three landscape pictures I wanted but I can’t find the others in the 820 acres of parkland. It’s not even that something is blocking the view. I can’t find them at all. My feet are sore. I make do with what I’ve got for today.
The morning I arrive in Curbar in the Peak. It has been raining heavily. I walk with my partner, Gareth, through the campsite near the river and see a small tent surrounded by a moat. The campers look sadly on.
We know this area well and within a few minutes find the spot to take the photo. I line it up with the picture. Curbar Edge is in the distance but it’s altered a lot and is now covered in trees. I’m finding the same everywhere I go and decide to find out why.
We currently have 13% forest cover in the country. 2% more and we will be back to level of trees we had 1000 years ago! Forestation declined rapidly from the 1600s because of shipbuilding. Enclosure saw quite a few off. Everyone needed wood for fuel, furniture and house constuction causing the levels to recede to 5.2% by 1905.
Back to the picture. The artist, if he were standing here today would not paint the scene I see. There is no variety in the composition regarding colour or form. It’s a distant shot of indefinable trees merging into grass and is without shadow. However, by a stroke of luck I need two figures walking into the distance and there they are. Tiny, but they will do.
The people in the picture (and the real people) are going towards a gate. We follow and have a good look at it. The gatepost looks like it has stood in this spot for centuries.
After the rain the river is a raging torrent. Milk chocolate in colour it is flowing downsteam over the weir at breakneck speed. I’ve seen many flowing rivers on my walks and all are beautiful in their own way but this one keeps us rooted to the spot and mesmerised for some time.
The weir would not have been there in the artist’s day. They were built during the Industrial Revolution. Did people then have a love/hate relationship with new technology introduced into the landscape? The rushing water makes me think of cooling towers. I like the disused ones, they are iconic giants in the landscape. I have visited a working one and it’s a frightening place. Entering the control room was like being in a stage set of a 1960s science fiction film, dials everywhere!
At the base of the weir a yellow inflatable is being held and buffeted about in the water. It holds me too, fascinated.
I’m now at the halfway stage of the Lincoln residency.
Everything is going to plan. The best photographs are in a folder according to location. These will eventually be made into a film between five and ten minutes long. Each has been sorted, graded and flagged. I have a title; ‘Place Setting’. I have so many different folders that could indicate other work. Ideas keep coming to me for additional work but then I do have that installation mentality.
I’m still not totally happy with some of my photos and one place that I keep returning to is near Spondon.
The picture I have to find is of a ploughed field. There are many fields around Spondon, few have been ploughed at this time of the year so that’s not helping. There are other clues; a hill, a horse and some bushes. Plenty of those in Spondon too! In desperation I try to convince myself that the ploughed field is actually a muddy lake … This takes me to Locko Park. It looks like a big park but it’s a footpath. If you deviate from it the farmer will kindly direct you back.
What sort of a word is ‘Locko’? It’s a weird one. I look up the history and I’m astonished to find that in 1180 this place was a leper hospital. The patients were cared for by Monks and ‘Locko’ is French for rags or bandages.
I start looking at things differently. The entrance to the place was strange. This was because leper hopitals were required to be on crossroads. In the lake I start seeing rags (or at least bags) in the mud plus other ominous looking things.
There is nothing left of the the original buildings. Everything was distroyed in 1340 in the Great Fire of Spondon. Just four houses were left standing in the village. A nearby lane has a strange name too. Lousie Greaves Lane was formally Lousy Graves Lane. Well no one would want to live there would they?
I remind myself about the field and walk on. I’m not going to say where but I stumble across a small area of ancient woodland. I know it’s ancient because I’ve just read Ancient Woodland. History,Industry And Crafts by Ian D Roberts. Mature trees had once been coppiced down to the ground here. As I’m looking at the ground I start to find pieces of pottery everywhere. They are from all different ages. There must have been a tip here. There’s even a piece of hand-painted porcelain, what a coincidence! I’m filling my pockets when it starts to rain. I shall have to go back again.
The search for the field continues …
Had I gone to Ingleby to sketch in 1797, I imagine I would have chosen the Anchor Church caves as my subject matter. Maybe this seemed too ‘old school’ for the artists of the enlightenment, because they’re not on my list.
George Robertson chose this footpath and sat on this hill, overlooking the River Trent and sketched what he saw. It was a glimpse of the river and a field with a horse in it. Oak trees lining the path look like they have been doing battle with the elements for at least 200 years. I keep asking myself why the artists chose to paint the scenes they did. Faced with any scenery they seemed to find beauty in it. Their depictions were realistic with none of the sentimentality that was to come in the mid 1800s.
It reminds me of contemporary artist George Shaw’s paintings of Coventry council houses, garages and play areas. He seeks out the most overlooked places. On the council estate of his youth he finds beauty.
I walk on to the caves. The terrain is not easy. Himalayan Balsam is taking over the path, pushing the walker ever closer to the river. Then the narrow path rises up to a vertiginous height and the view opens up for miles into the distance. I notice the cooling towers have got in on the act again!
The Anchor Church caves were hacked out of sandstone and they are thought to have been used since the 6th or 7th Century. Once, they were damp homes to hermits and even had windows and doors.
Now I see they are part-time homes for graffiti artists.
