MAY 2019
HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY
CONTENTS HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY
EDITORIAL
Journal of the Archaeology and Heritage Group
3-4 Perspective
May 2019 Editor David Bryson heritage.editor@rps.org Advisory Editor Eric Houlder LRPS
DAVID BRYSON
What is the heritage of photography and photographers?
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Gwil’s rant . . . GWIL OWEN ARPS
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Advertising enquiries David Bryson heritage.editor@rps.org
A matter of accuracy ERIC HOULDER LRPS
Archaeology & Heritage Group Committee Members
EVENTS & GALLERIES
Gwil Owen ARPS Chair heritagechair@rps.org George Backshall LRPS Secretary heritagesec@rps.org Richard K Evans FRPS Treasurer David Bryson Heritage Photography editor heritage.editor@rps.org Rodney Thring LRPS Published by the Archaeology and Heritage Group of the Royal Photographic Society, May 2019. Copyright in all text and photographs is held by the credited authors, or as otherwise stated. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form without prior written permission of the Publisher.
Setts, cobbles and cobles.
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Members’ print day and galleries.
FEATURES 10-17 Thomas Tanfield, Heritage Photographer RICHARD K. EVANS FRPS
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Here his grandson recalls Thomas Tanfield’s life and work.
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Mercie Lack ARPS and the end of the Immediate Processing Concept. ERIC HOULDER LRPS
Changes in film processing practices in archaeological photography.
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Print ISSN 0958-0565 Online ISSN 2632-3346
Before the barrage DAVID BRYSON
Cover photograph The launching of the Larchwold, by Thomas Tanfield, courtesy of Richard K. Evans.
THEN & NOW
Printed by Lakeside Printing, Tonbridge, Kent, UK.
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Views of Cardiff Bay area before the barrage.
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22-23 The High Street, Lindfield, Sussex. GEORGE BACKSHALL LRPS
An old photograph of Lindfield High Street led to this comparison.
NOTICES 24 Future events and facebook page.
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EDITORIAL
Perspective What is the heritage of photography and photographers? DAVID BRYSON
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here is a link between heritage photography and the heritage of photography and photographers. Many of our photographs stand on their own as records, testimonials to what we see and photograph in the world around us. Our knowledge of past events relies on our memories and photographs. When it comes to events and understanding the past, in other words our heritage, we may only have photographs or before photography drawings and illustrations to tell us what happened and what things looked like. In this issue we have a range of editorials and features that look at our heritage through the eyes of photographers past and present. Gwil in his rant asks us to think about what kind of photographer we are, using the metaphor of footballers and styles of play. Then Eric asks us to take a look at how accurate we are in describing and captioning our photographs, exemplified by the naming of setts, cobbles and cobles. There follows a series of features. The idea of styles and ways of looking at the world comes to life through the work of Richard Evans’ grandfather Thomas Tanfield, which has captured the social life and features of Beverley and its surroundings in East Yorkshire, from local industries to the county’s great houses and the fox hunts that gathered there. Eric Houlder highlights the changes in photography that took place in Archaeology from on site processing of film to the use of two cameras, black and white and colour, exemplified by the work of Mercie Lack, a school mistress who got involved in the photography and filming of the Sutton Hoo excavations. David Bryson then shows how relatively more recent photographs can have a value in illustrating stories about our heritage. George Backshall in a “Then & Now” shows the before and after of the High Street, Lindfield in Sussex. I found most interesting the bow fronted window on the left side of the picture which looks by style to be old but is a modern adaptation to the Georgian fronted building seen from the 1865 photograph. However, our investigation and research as photographers should go further to look at linking what we are photographing and what others have photographed before us with how they help us understand more about our heritage.
The launch of the S.S. Larchwold The cover photograph is a section of the large image, see page 14. This photograph graphically shows the launching of the trawler Larchwold at Beverley shipyard. This photograph has enough detail to find out more using additional archives. “Shipbuilding at Beverley — Since Saturday three iron steamers have been launched at Beverley, and the shipbuilding yards are full of orders. Henry Scarr launched a tug on Saturday for North Sea Towing and Messrs Cochrane and Cooper launched on Tuesday and Wednesday iron steam trawlers classed 100 A1 at Lloyd’s, and nearly 100ft. long.” Yorkshire Gazette - Saturday 2nd May 1896 More details can be found in Lloyd’s List: “Larchwold – on April 29 Messrs Cochrane and Cooper launched at Grovehill, Beverley, for the Northwold Steam Fishing Company Limited of Grimsby, a steam trawler of the undermentioned measurements: Length 93ft, breadth 20ft 6 inches, depth of hold 11ft. She was named Larchwold. Messrs Amos and Smith of Hull will supply the main engine of 350 horse power.” So we can now tie down more about the photograph, including the date April 29th 1896. As one ship was already afloat, this was the second, launched a day later on the Wednesday. This was confirmed using a day-of-the-week calculator (https://www.calculator.net/day-of-the-weekcalculator.html). “TRAWLER’S TRIAL TRIP. Another addition has just been made to the Grimsby Steam Trawling fleet in the S.S. Larchwold, built to the order of the Northwold Steam Fishing Company, Limited, by Messrs Cochrane and Cooper, of Beverley. The machinery was built and fitted by Messrs Amos and Smith, of Hull. The Larchwold left Hull on Monday last for Grimsby, where her fishing gear was put on board, and Wednesday she took out a large party of the Northwold Company’s directors and friends for a run in the North Sea. A capital trip was made, during which a trial was given to the new trawling gear, which includes Amos and Smith’s patent trawl warp fairleader. Both the trawl and machinery worked to the best advantage.” Hull Daily Mail - Thursday 11th June 1896 Improvements in Trawl-warp Fairleaders for Steam 3
and other Fishing Vessels. https://patents.google. com/patent/GB189602850A/ This could be relevant today as ecological surveys are undertaken and old techniques compared with modern technologies. Further information about the history of the Larchwold can be found online through the British National Newspaper Archives (https://www. britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) and the Bosun’s Watch (http://www.fleetwood-trawlers.info/index. php/2014/05/s-t-larchwold-gy68/) a website dedicated to Fleetwood Steam and Sailing Trawlers. The Larchwold fished from Fleetwood up to the end of 1913, when her tonnage was altered to 53.44 net and her home port moved Milford Haven. “On Thursday there was a welcome visitor in the steam trawler Larchwold of Grimsby, which landed a good catch, including about 12 trunks of soles. We hear she is likely to run to Milford for a time, under the management of Mr. Brand and Co.” Haverfordwest & Milford Haven Telegraph of Wednesday 16th April 1913. The Larchwold, Grimsby-reg GY.68, was requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1917 for the Fishery Reserve, commissioned and flew the white ensign. As an inshore vessel, near-water trawler between 300 and 600 hp compared to deepwater vessels around 1200-2200hp, the Larchwold continued commercial fishing under naval control. “By 1917 the commercial fishing trawler fleet was a quarter of its pre-war size - the rest being requisitioned by the Admiralty. Trawler losses were high, fish catches down, and prices inflated. To prevent the industry collapsing, the remaining trawler fleet (and some smaller fishing vessels) was requisitioned and placed in a Fishery Reserve of the Trawler Section under Admiralty control. The scheme was not extended to sailing trawlers and steam drifters.” (https://www.naval-history.net/ WW1NavyBritishShips-Dittmar4AP.htm#fishery%20 reserve) Commercial fishing was certainly safer compared to other trawlers that were requisitioned as minesweepers (http://humberfirstworldwar. co.uk/1914/fishing-trawlers-requisitioned-asminesweepers/). New trawlers were also built between 1914 and 1918 with 371 trawlers from the Humber shipyards and almost all of them were taken up by the Navy and used as minesweepers, submarine spotters and coastal patrol boats. The Humber area provided over 880 vessels and 9,000 men volunteered from the fishing industry to support the war effort.
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MyLearning: Minesweeping during the first world war. The Larchwold continued fishing from Milford Haven till July 1922. Finally she was sold for breaking up in November 1924.
Photographic heritage We understand the value of photographs as part of our own heritage but need to also think of the wider use of photographs to tell stories about our heritage. As a maritime nation we have always had a close relationship with the sea. A photograph like the launching of the Larchwold by Thomas Tanfield can take us beyond a simple historical narrative to allow us to start to tell a wider story and see how photographs and other artefacts can bring us closer to people and places, our heritage. The role of heritage photographs leads also to their importance in education and learning bringing what are often dry facts to life. MyLearning uses photographs, videos and documents to bring to life the role of trawlermen of the Humber in supporting the mine clearance service (https://www.mylearning. org/stories/minesweeping-during-the-first-worldwar/resources). Looking through your heritage photographs what stories could they tell? Even the simplest of photographs can tell a story. Why not put together a sequence of photographs with a story for publication in future issues of Heritage Photography?
DAVID BRYSON heritage.editor@rps.org
EDITORIAL
Gwil’s rant . . . . . Chair of the Archaeology and Heritage Group. GWIL OWEN ARPS.
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ast month the group held its AGM - as usual in the Leatherhead Institute - in conjunction with a members’ print day. Attendance was poor - no surprise there, then - but the essential business was dealt with, allowing your committee to act on your behalf. We said goodbye as committee members to Ken Keen, Jim Tonks, Garry Bisshopp and Eric Houlder. All have been mainstays of the group for many years. Much well deserved appreciation for their contributions was expressed by those present.
those activities, unnecessary for our continued existence, that give us pleasure and help us sort out our place in the world. In its practice football can have its moments of beauty. Take the Cruyff turn; a series of subtle, balletic movements leading to an unexpected but perfect result. It can have its moments expressing the dark side of our society. Look up for yourselves the stories, not all of which are apocryphal, about past defenders such as “Chopper” Harris or Skinner Normanton.
The current committee as elected is now short of members. We have room for, and need, at least two new faces. Volunteers? Help!
In addition to “what is the art of football” we can ask why do people play football. Take but three motivations. There are those who just love to kick a ball about and chase after it. Pure selfish pleasure, no goalposts needed, no formal structure. Then there are those who aim to be absolutely wonderful and perfect in the act of kicking the ball. Consider “keepy uppy” - technical perfection. Then there are many others who do appreciate the activity and the expertise but prefer it to be used for a formal end, with some commonly agreed restrictions, leading to a socially valuable activity.
My formal report started with the comment that nothing much had changed during the year. Feedback from the membership, which declines slowly, is minimal. However the committee is hopeful that this trend will be reversed as our journal continues to be thrice yearly, and David our editor is hard at work improving both style and content. Also offering hope for the future has been a small increase in the informal group outings that members organise. If you have suggestions for visits within your local area do get in touch with George, our secretary, or myself. Following the principle of hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, the meeting approved a motion that the committee is authorised to make a small increase in the group subscription at the end of this year, should it be necessary. By the end of the year we should have reduced the costs of our journal. Our solvency depends on this, and on increasing membership numbers.
Now if I ask, broadly speaking, what sort of footballing photographer are you? You will probably say bit of each. That’s the easy answer. But why not examine yourself more severely? Why not ask that question at the moment of pressing the shutter every time you press the shutter? Self critique is difficult and disturbing, but well worthwhile. Have fun.
GWIL OWEN ARPS
I cannot emphasise too much that we rely greatly on individual members coming up with ideas for how the group should operate, both in general terms and for local activities. My plea for this year, then, is much the same as it was after last year’s AGM. Join in to express your opinions and hopes - phone, email, snail mail, any way you like. Summer is nearly upon us, cameras are being dusted off, and it occurs to me that now is a good time to ask ourselves why we do what we do. What is the essence of this form of art that we call photography? One way of exploring the question is to analyse what goes on in other art forms. So I thought I would talk about football. No, don’t get all hot and bothered, I’m being serious. Football qualifies easily for inclusion as an art. It’s one of 5
EDITORIAL
A matter of accuracy Like most, if not all photographers who are involved in scientific record, I hate inaccurate definitions and statements. This extends to books, papers, articles, picture captions, and even media programmes. ERIC HOULDER LRPS.
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embers may have seen a letter of mine (April 2019) to Outdoor Photography magazine deploring the recent tendency to misappropriate the term ‘fine art photographer.’ We all know that it means someone who photographs fine art, whether sculpture, paintings, etchings, etc. My letter pointed out that if an archaeological photographer depicts archaeology, a landscape photographer shoots landscapes, then a fine art photographer photographs fine art. The title should not be miss-appropriated by pretentious individuals who believe that their own - often banal or blurred pictures - constitute fine art, but it does seem to be used by such people to an increasing extent. The letter won me a pair of excellent Austrian walking poles, which I intend to make full use of. However, it also reminded me of previous arguments in print, often in the world’s largest-
Foster Beck mill, Nidderdale, now re-used as dwellings. Clearly these are well worn setts in an area of once heavy usage. Lumix G7, 14-45mm lens. 6
circulation regional magazine, The Dalesman, to which I am an irregular, if at times controversial, contributor. These involved my pet hate, the confusion of two road-surfacing materials, namely cobbles and setts. Both were used in areas of heavy wear, and also to give draught animals extra traction on gradients. As almost every county in our islands has a wealth of both, those of us who feel strongly about accurate captions and descriptions must speak up to deplore the confusion. For example, a recent television news programme about the re-paving of Stamford market place, in Lincolnshire, described it as cobbled, and went on to illustrate several areas covered in setts, with not a cobble in sight. The forthcoming major cycle race - at the time of writing the signage is just going up - often climbs the main street of Hawarth, of Brontë sisters fame. This too is setted, but invariably a commentator will describe it as cobbled.
Cobbles in Grassington, Wharfedale. Lumix G7, 14-45mm lens.
A setted street in Pontefract, well-known to the author, and demolished shortly after the picture was taken in 1962. Aires Penta, 50mm Q-Coral, Perutz C 18.
Another area of confusion is an increasing tendency to call ships “boats”. It was much easier in the later sailing ship days when a ship was defined as a three-masted vessel carrying square sails on all masts, to avoid confusion with barques (O.E. barks, which carry fore-and-aft rig on the mizzen mast), barquentines, schooners and even brigs. Today all large vessels (other than fishing craft, ferries, and submarines which are all boats) tend to be classed as ships. Northumbrian and Yorkshire cobles – with one ‘b’ are definitely boats, though the Yorkshire variety are pronounced as in roadmaking cobbles, whilst the Northumbrian cobles are pronounced as in ‘Coburg.’ Both related types are the last surviving clinker-built descendents of Viking longships and earlier Anglian vessels like the Sutton Hoo ship.
A Yorkshire coble under construction, c1975, at Runswick Bay. Note the clinker – overlapping strakes – construction. Minolta SRT101, 55mm f1.7 Rokkor, Agfachrome Professional.
It seems ironic that our East Coast, originally the recipient of the raids by Saxon and later Viking ships, now hosts the survivors of the same clinker tradition of boat-building. We all know that the Vikings used beautifully-built longships, constructed by sewing together the clinker strakes to produce a flexible, but responsive hull. Yet even these distinctive vessels are increasingly confused with longboats, much smaller rowing boats carried on sailing warships for shore raids, towing, etc. May I therefore ask members to think carefully when captioning pictures, and to be critical of others who do not adhere to the same high standard.
ERIC HOULDER LRPS.
A Northumbrian coble at Beadnell. Lumix G1, 14-45mm lens.
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EVENTS
Members’ print day Alongside the group’s AGM some members shared their prints of recent and older work.
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GALLERIES
Members’ galleries Have you looked at the Archaeology and Group Section of the RPS website we now have over 58 galleries of members’ photographs? http://rps.org/special-interest-groups/archaeology-and-heritage/galleries
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FEATURES
Thomas Tanfield, Heritage Photographer Born in 1863 in Beverley, Yorkshire, Thomas Tanfield became a pre-eminent amateur photographer in the era of glass plates and large field or stand cameras. As well as archaeology and architecture, most importantly he recorded the everyday life of East Yorkshire, in rural villages and in stately homes. Here his grandson, A & H Group member Richard K. Evans, recalls Thomas Tanfield’s life and work.
The unusual five-sailed whiting mill at Hessle, on the river Humber. It ground chalk from the adjacent quarry, which was then shipped in barges from wharves on the foreshore. Powdered chalk was widely used in agriculture to neutralise soil acidity. Detail from 14 x 5-inch sepia print made about 1900.
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ur living heritage, and the recording of past life and times, is as important as are the stones and timbers of our built heritage. This was my maternal grandfather’s major contribution to “heritage photography”, and though we may justly admire his glass-plate negatives and prints of such structures as Beverley Minster, Furness Abbey and Bolton Castle, it is for his carefully composed pictures of day-by-day activities in the East Riding of Yorkshire that he is best remembered. Thomas Tanfield was born in May 1863 in the market town of Beverley. It was here that in his late 20s he established what was to become a thriving
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dealership in bicycles and, later, motor-cycles. This was his lifetime career. But the 1880s and ‘90s were also the decades in which for the first time the craft of photography opened up to the public at large. It was in 1880 that George Eastman began producing dry-emulsion glass plates in his loft in Rochester, New York; until then most sensitised materials had required the photographer to coat his own glass plates, then expose and process them while still wet or at the best semi-dry. Within a few years, amateur photographers could buy ready-coated sensitive plates, and a wide variety of cameras in which to expose them.
Gathering seabirds’ eggs from the cliffs at Flamborough Head, photographed in the late 1890s. Half-plate cut-film negative.
Hounds and horses - a Hunt meet at Bishop Burton, near Beverley. Quarter-plate glass negative. 11
Carter on a wintry road near Walkington. In a severe winter Wolds farms and villages could be isolated for weeks at a time. Quarter-plate glass negative.
The circus arrives in Beverley in the summer of 1896, parading from the station and through Wednesday Market Place on the way to its regular site on Beverley Westwood. Part of Thomas Tanfield’s cycle dealership can be seen on the left. Quarter-plate glass negative. 12
HMS Southampton and local vessels, off Corporation Pier, Hull. Possibly a visit in connection with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Quarter-plate glass negative.
Washing and watering horses, Long Lane, Beverley. Quarter-plate glass negative.
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Saturday Market Place, Beverley. Quarter-plate glass negative.
Launch of the steam trawler Larchwold at Beverley Shipyard. Vessels built here were launched sideways into the River Hull, then towed downriver some 8 miles to Princes Dock, Hull, where they were engined and fitted out. Quarter-plate glass negative. 14
Volunteer troops of the East Yorkshire Regiment, the Duke of York’s Own, prepare for inspection on Beverley Westwood. The 2nd Battalion was stationed at the Regimental HQ, Victoria Barracks in Beverley, between 1888 and November 1894, when it was deployed to Ireland. This picture was made during that time. Quarter-plate glass negative.
Londesborough Park, near Pocklington, in 1899. The original Elizabethan Hall, home of the Earls of Cumberland, was demolished in 1819 and replaced by this Victorian country house. Quarter-plate glass negative. 15
Beverley Minster, view to the altar and east window. Half-plate glass negative, 1906.
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Thomas Tanfield purchased his first camera in 1886, when he was 23. It was a single-extension, wholeplate (8½ x 6½ inch) Lancaster, one of just three cameras he was to own during the next 30 years. Like all such instruments of its size, it called for a hefty and heavy wooden tripod, and within a few years he bought two smaller cameras, half-plate and quarter-plate respectively – a Thornton-Pickard and a second Lancaster. He also set up a darkroom, making contact prints from the larger camera and printing enlargements from the others. I recall as a child standing on a chair, head under the essential black cloth, while my grandfather explained the inverted, veiled image before my eyes on the whole-plate focussing screen. These were, I believe, the only cameras he ever owned. All three survived for his entire lifetime; they were inherited by my parents after his death, and in 1968 my father consigned the cameras and five lenses to Christies’ auction house in South Kensington, where they realised a total of just over £900. But, importantly, my parents retained his surviving glass plates, cut-film negatives and a few prints – as a competent photographer himself, my father appreciated their possible value to historians and donated many of them to the Ferens Museum and Art Gallery in Hull. He kept about 40; these I inherited and have used to make the illustrations accompanying this article.
Tomb of Lady Eleanor Percy in Beverley Minster. The Purbeck marble tomb and ornate canopy date from 1340. Half-plate glass negative, 1906.
Recording country life Thomas Tanfield never owned a car. But not surprisingly, as a bicycle retailer, he cycled widely throughout East Yorkshire and further afield – notably to the Lake District, a 100-mile journey which both he and his daughter (Margery Irene, my mother) undertook on a number of occasions. He took many photographs of Beverley Minster, exterior and interior; an article which he wrote and illustrated for the Yorkshire Archaeological Society in 1918 describes the Minster’s carved misericord seats. But it was rural life and industries which interested him most, and these I hope are typified by the pictures I have chosen to show here. As far as I can ascertain, Thomas Tanfield ceased his photography by the outbreak of the First War, concentrating on his business interests. In the early 1930s, following the death of his wife Ida Jane, he moved to the village of Hessle, on the river Humber a few miles south of Beverley, and lived there contentedly until his peaceful death at home in 1950, at the age of 86. Thomas Tanfield - a studio portrait made about 1914.
RICHARD K. EVANS
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FEATURES
Mercie Lack ARPS and the end of the Immediate Processing Concept BY ERIC HOULDER LRPS, Supervisor under Paul Ashbee and Dr R BruceMitford during the final excavation of the Mound One ship. This article is reprinted from Saxon, the journal of the the Sutton Hoo Society (Issue No 68), with the permission of the Editor, Dr Caryl Dane.
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ercie Lack was the Sutton Hoo photographer who unwittingly began a process which eventually ended the archaeological tyranny of immediate development and printing of excavation photographs, promulgated by Maurice Cookson in his lectures, writings, and in his book, Photography for Archaeologists, London, 1954. In his time, and for twenty years afterwards few realised this freedom which they had been granted, and right through into the 1950s the concept was perpetuated by a gradually reducing minority. Cookson had been a commercial photographer before he was taken on by (Sir) Mortimer Wheeler. He had learned his photography by practising it, estimating exposure and developing his negatives by inspection. His brown fingers on both hands bore testimony to both his cigarette addiction and his digital manipulation (in the original meaning of the phrase) of negative materials during development, as recollected to the author many years ago by Peggy Wilson, 1911-2004. For more information about Peggy, see https://trowelblazers. com/peggy-wilson/. Such methods are only possible using single plates or sheets of slow, orthochromatic emulsion, and leave many possibilities for contamination, physical damage and light ingress. The more reliable method of carefully measuring exposure, and strict time and temperature development in sealed tanks was known to him. However, in his writing he shows a preference for the older method, hence his insistence on immediate development and printing. Wheeler, finding the excellent results produced by Cookson to be better than anyone else was creating at the time, unwittingly perpetuated this rather haphazard methodology. It must also be
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Cookson’s book, published London 1954. Note that the author has digitally ‘tidied up’ the cover photograph.
remembered that Cookson was an absolute master of the techniques of preparation for photography; a talent that enabled him to produce superb images in spite of, rather than because of the obsolete
hardly noted for generous budgets, so even with the forceful personality of Wheeler behind it, the system was bound to come under fire. What Lack did at Sutton Hoo in 1939, was simply to take colour photographs at the same time as monochrome ones. There is no necessity for the colour and monochrome pictures to be even taken by the same person. However, with the equipment of the time, and until the widespread adoption of digital methods, this necessitated two cameras. (The writer is aware that some precision cameras, even pre-war, had interchangeable backs; these were prohibitively expensive. However, he cannot remember having met anyone who actually used such instruments on site.) Indeed, as film types proliferated, two cameras became the absolute minimum required on any dig. The writer, as Chief Photographer to the Wood Hall Archaeological Trust and later the St Aidan’s Sunken Ships Project in the ‘90s and ‘00s, had available camera bodies for standard monochrome records, colour reversal (slides), colour negative for prints, as well as ‘exotic’ emulsions like monochrome slides, monochrome ultra-violet, and colour infrared. All these bodies only needed one set of lenses, one set of filters, two or three flashguns, a few reflectors, scales and one tripod, but even so, the boot of a large estate car (a Granada Scorpio) was well filled. Then, of course, the different film stocks required careful climate-controlled storage, i.e. a coolbag with ice packs, and this was for a dig close to civilised amenities. Peggy Wilson, the author’s informant and friend, pictured working on a site in Yorkshire in 1960. She too was a real expert in ‘preparation for photography’, learned from Cookson himself. The author acknowledges her expertise and contribution to his own knowledge. Peggy too dug at Sutton Hoo for two seasons. Picture on E2 Ektachrome by the author.
equipment and techniques used to record the subject. In its favour, the system of immediate development and printing pointed up, eliminated, or compensated for faulty equipment or spoiled materials. Every photographer at some time in their career has had a defective shutter, which usually gives a slower speed, leading to over-exposure. Films may have been unwittingly left in the sun, or worse still inside a car in the sun. Then there are hazards like flooding or even physical damage, not to mention mis-reading of an exposure meter or poor framing. With immediate development and printing all these problems can be quickly identified and eventually eliminated.
Once dig photographs were taken on more than one camera, the risk that a picture would not ‘come out’ was immeasurably reduced, making immediate processing a costly luxury. In 1939 Miss Lack probably did not envisage the plethora of emulsions later to be utilised in archaeology, but the fact that she normalised the parallel use of colour and monochrome in precision cameras set the tone for post-war archaeological photography. The fact that a minority of directors continued to insist on obsolete equipment and methods is a tribute more to the power of Wheeler’s loyalty to an old friend and colleague, and his talent for publicity than to any inherent superiority of the older system.
ERIC HOULDER LRPS
However, the sheer labour and expense of creating a make-shift darkroom and laying on an electricity supply and clean water must take a large bite out of even a generous budget. Archaeology is 19
FEATURES
Before the barrage The Cardiff Bay Barrage opened in 2001; these photographs taken from 19791981 show the bay as it was before being covered by water. DAVID BRYSON
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hilst studying Clinical Photography at the University Hospital of Wales from 1979-1981, now Medical School at Cardiff University, as an Anatomist I was fine on the medical side but needed to learn far more about photography so I often spent time in and around Cardiff taking photographs using infrared and trying out films and afterwards high acutance developers.
algae in some dock areas despite remediation works.
Subsequently with the completion of the Cardiff Bay Barrage in 1999 and opening to the public in 2001 these photographs have become part of my memories of Cardiff but also records of the mudflats and other activities taking place in and around the bay before the 200 hectares (480 acres) became covered with freshwater.
The remaining original features were rescued, including the pulpit, one side-window, the chandelier and the model-ship; these were returned to the church which was re-opened in 1992. It is now the Norwegian Church Arts Centre. (https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Church,_Cardiff)
There has been an ecological impact with the loss of habitat for wading birds including the common shelduck and shorebirds as well as the displacement of common redshanks, an invasion of zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) and some areas of toxic
The Norwegian Church was dismantled in 1987 and reconstructed as part of the bay redevelopment. Following developments in Cardiff Bay in the late 1980s, and the proposed building of new roads around Atlantic Wharf, the derelict and vandalised church was threatened with total destruction.
These photographs were shown as part of the Members’ showcase in October 2017.
DAVID BRYSON
Fishing trawlers and pleasure boats resting in the mudflats, Cardiff Bay. 20
Captains’ cottages, Cardiff Bay.
Norwegian Church, Cardiff Bay before being vandalised, dismantled and re-sited. 21
THEN & NOW
The High Street, Lindfield, Sussex An inherited photograph from c1865, likely to have been taken by William Durrant a known local photographer, led to these before and after photographs. GEORGE BACKSHALL LRPS
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The Toll House, Lindfield, High Street.
he village of Lindfield is in central Sussex and believed to have to Saxon origins. The old photograph shows the Toll Gate in the High Street in c1865, likely to have been taken by William Durrant a known local photographer. I inherited the photograph from an uncle who was from a Lindfield family. It is likely to be a first-generation print and measures 9 ½ x 7 ¼ inches. The buildings are externally the same today: the first shop on the left has a barber’s pole, I have always remembered this as a hairdressers; standing outside the Standup Pub, which still exists plus the remains of a brewery behind, are ladies with crinoline dresses and a gent in top hat; the man in the road looks to be holding a pint glass of beer; next is a brick faced building with a Horsham Stone roof and always called “Durrant’s shop”; the baker’s boy with tray on his head has just come from
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the bakers which still exists next to the toll gate. Opposite is the Red Lion pub, which still thrives, then a timbered building dating from 1630 and now named The Toll House and quite recognisable in the old photograph on the right side. The Toll Gate was erected in 1770 and removed in October 1884, local legend holds it was burnt in the High Street during the village 5th of November Bonfire Celebrations that year. The village still has an active Bonfire Society with a torchlight procession down the high street to the common with bonfire and fireworks display, plus charitable collections. The main visible differences in the street now are a surfaced road, street furniture, cars, people’s modern clothing. Trees have also come and gone.
GEORGE BACKSHALL LRPS
Photograph of Lindfield High Street c1865 taken by William Durrant
Photograph of Lindfield, High Street in April 2019. 23
NOTICES VISIT TO WEALD AND DOWNLAND LIVING MUSEUM
ARCHAEOLOGY & HERITAGE GROUP MEMBERS’ SHOWCASE
12 September 2019 10:30 - 18:00
12 October 2019 10:00 - 16:00
Join Rodney Thring to explore this site with other members of the A&H Group.
Leatherhead Institute, Room G6 67 High Street Leatherhead United Kingdom KT22 8AH
This open-air museum is at Singleton in West Sussex and there is a café and car parking on site. The museum is made up of over 50 buildings varying from medieval houses like Bayleaf to Whittaker’s Cottages built in the 1860’s. There are also a number of working and farm buildings, all of which have been saved from destruction by moving them to this site. The buildings are laid out in 40 acres beautiful countryside with some of the houses having authentic period gardens. There is also a wide collection of artefacts, many on display within buildings associated with countryside trades. Please contact Rodney in advance, meet up at the reception area at 10.30.
This is advanced notice of this event for your diaries, further details will be announced once event planning is complete.
G BACKSHALL Email the event organiser heritagesec@rps.com For further details about events please go to the group’s web pages on the RPS site at http://rps. org/Home/Special Interest Groups/Archaeology and Heritage.
RODNEY THRING
Email the event organiser rodney.thring@btinternet.com
JOIN THE RPS A&H GROUP FACEBOOK PAGE https://www.facebook.com/groups/rpsah/
