Lecture Résumés 2016-2017 | King's Lynn Society of Arts and Sciences

Résumé of "Medieval Graffiti: The Lost Voices Of England’s Churches" lecture

After the conclusion of the A.G.M., our chairman welcomed the speaker, Matthew Champion, archaeologist and author, and one of the few people who study graffiti.

His project, begun on a small scale, grew out of the study of wall paintings, when graffiti was observed. Now a volunteer group spending 250,000 hours, and armed with digital cameras, has surveyed over 850 churches, 1 cathedral and 3 castles in Norfolk and Suffolk.

Our speaker asked ‘Why study graffiti?’ His reply was that graffiti are early inscriptions by common people, while monuments are records only of the wealthy. He pointed out that only since the middle of the 19th century have graffiti been considered as a form of vandalism.

Graffiti can be allegorical, or, sometimes, protection marks intended to ward off evil. These latter include compass circles and crosses, some of which occur in the church porch, in previous centuries an important part of the building. There are also rebuses, faces and animals, and heraldic graffiti, as well as ships. Both St. Nicholas’ chapel and Blakeney have examples of these.

At Binham the architect’s working drawings from the 13th century are still visible. Sometimes designs can be found on the back of rood screens.

Though inscriptions are now difficult to see, originally, since internal walls of churches were painted, graffiti would have been clearly visible.

In conclusion, Mr. Champion said that the study of graffiti is changing our perception of medieval people.

He ably answered questions including one about dating which can only be estimated from the style.

Our speaker was thanked for a very informative talk.

Lynda Jones

Résumé of "Fabric Of The Nation — The Care And Conservation Of Textiles Within The National Trust" lecture

On 9th November 2016, Ksynia Marko, National Trust Textile Conservation Advisor, gave the second talk of the Society’s one hundred and fourth season when she outlined the work of the Trust’s Textile Conservation Studio situated on the Blickling Estate in Norfolk.

The historic houses of the NT are, she said, ‘theatres of memory’ and the period textiles that visitors see are as much a part of that memory as are the paintings, architecture, sculpture and other artefacts. Textiles in particular have unique context in being made for the homes where they are displayed — unlike the objects in museum collections.

Textiles contain information that can be read at several levels. They are representative of a part of society and remind us what sort of people they were and how they lived. They tell of status and wealth and can be an expression of culture and gender. Textiles can be indicative of changes in artistic style and taste as well as the history of their design and the way different materials were used for particular purposes — and serve as examples of advances in technology. In other words, they are an historical palimpsest.

Conservation has been described as the ‘careful management of change’ and the NT undertakes to ‘preserve for ever and everyone’ within its own ethic of ‘all treatments should be reversible’. A tall order given the age of the material (some state beds date from the 1600s and tapestries from the 1700s) and the events that have befallen some of the great houses in the past: fire and water damage, warfare (particularly, the tsarist summer palaces in Russia) and earlier attempts at conservation.

Drawing on her years of experience Ksynia recalled some of the notable conservation work of the Studio and the techniques employed in caring for the Trust’s nearly 100,000 items, including 700 woven tapestries and 20 state beds. Not the least of the problems is the extra work caused by visitors to the collections due to wear and raised dust levels.

The Chairman closed the evening by thanking Ms Marko for giving us a fascinating insight into what it is necessary to do behind the scenes in order to keep these historic homes available to us all as near as is possible in their original state.

Roger Hailey

Résumé of "The Capability Men: Lancelot Brown In Context" lecture

In this tercentennial year of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s birth, Professor Tom Williamson of UEA gave the Society a lively insight into the way Brown’s altered landscapes reflected the social and economic changes that characterised the eighteenth-century that Brown (1716 – 1783) lived through.

As the eighteenth-century progressed the geometry that had dominated the landscape around country houses, designed for formal parties and where the layout of the building was reflected by the garden outside, gave way to serpentine features with water and tree belts and then open parkland. The agricultural and industrial revolutions changed society as the Empire and population expanded. Social encounters became more relaxed and less hierarchical with a rising class of merchants and landed gentry — gardens become more like outdoor rooms.

Brown did not only open up landscapes by leaving standing trees and removing hedges. He did gardens, drainage and architecture; describing himself as a ‘placemaker’ he moved from house to house, at the top of the market looking for commissions and supplying the package — he was a brand! Water management and manipulation became crucial — water had to be in the right place! Wetland and field drainage, dam construction and bridge building were germane to the lakes that we associate with a Capability Brown parkland.

Perhaps the most important and least studied aspect of landscape design is that it cannot be understood without understanding the architecture of the houses, in particular the layout of the rooms. In the early eighteenth-century, rooms followed a linear sequence. As ‘polite society’ develops, this changed to a circuit where visitors could be taken around the house from room to room to admire the furnishings and artwork. It therefore no longer made sense to have a geometric landscape or straight-line approaches that show the house straight on. Brown’s drives approached the houses at an angle, directing the eye around the house and there are no static views. Also, his landscapes were based on movement as roads were improving, canals were extending and travel became more pleasurable.

Brown’s landscape and garden designs reflect the wider context of the lives of the people who commissioned them and how those lives were changing.

Finally, Professor Williamson reminded the audience that it can all be found in his book Lancelot Brown and the Capability Men: Landscape Design in Eighteenth Century England, Reaktion Books.

The Chairman thanked Professor Williamson for an informative, enlightening and entertaining talk.

Roger Hailey

Résumé of 'The Rose: A Plant With A Past'

Drawing upon her many years experience as a garden advisor and lecturer in garden history and gardening, Shelagh Ashe gave a polished presentation on the history of the nation’s favourite garden flowering plant, the rose.

Known from fossils from 35 million years ago and described by Sappho in 600 BCE as ‘queen of flowers’ the rose has had a presence, both political and cultural, in the northern hemisphere, east and west, for most of historic time. It is associated with passion on St Valentine’s day and remembrance, featuring in memorial gardens and planted between war graves.

The rose had political significance in medieval times. After the battle of Bosworth in 1485, the Tudors cleverly conflated the white rose of the house of York with the Lancastrian red rose to give the Tudor rose that gave legitimacy to Henry VII’s claim to the throne. And again in the reign of Elizabeth II, she was depicted in the famous ‘pelican dress’ which was also covered in roses. The pelican being known for its sacrificial protection of its young, the image was meant to confirm a similar commitment by the monarch to the the nation.

Throughout history, the rose has been celebrated in poetry where lovers quested for the perfect rose (though not perhaps in Blake’s ‘O rose that art sick, the invisible worm….’), in many flower paintings and for its perceived medicinal properties when families had to fall back upon their own resources in times of illness.

During the rose’s long history as a garden plant its various forms have been used to great effect. From the English Landscape Movement‘s use of them against the circuit wall of the house to being grown to show them at their best on supports in the ‘gardenesque’ manner — the best example of which is local to Lynn at Peckover House in Wisbech. But perhaps the finest example of a garden that does roses romantically is at Ninfa, south of Rome, where plants have been allowed to reclaim the ruins of an abandoned garden — so much so that Monty Don said it has “about as much beauty as a garden can take, it really annihilates you”.

The talk finished on how roses were named. In the west it is commonly after people; in the USA several Republican presidents have been named for a rose but only three Democrats. The most memorable rose name that comes to mind is the Peace rose, after the fall of Berlin in 1945 and voted the world’s favourite in 1976.

Can we look forward to Rosa trumpii in the future?

Roger Hailey

Résumé of "The West Runton Mammoth"

It is twenty seven years since the excitement of the discovery of freshly exposed parts of a mammoth skeleton in the Cromer Beds at the bottom of the cliffs at West Runton, after a storm had loosened material in 1990. Using media that included drone footage and video, Peter Sibbons of Poppyland Publishing, Cromer, gave the Society a comprehensive overview of how the remains were excavated over five years, as well as reconstructing the possible environment of the period and how this mammoth lived and died there.

This mammoth isn’t the better known woolly variety of later glaciations but a much larger species, Mammuthus trogontherii, which at 9-10 tonnes and 4m at the shoulder was considerably larger. The remains date from around 700,000 years ago. Pollen analysis of core samples from the site suggest that the temperature then was similar to how it is today. The environment the mammoth knew would have had a nearby river and similar flora and landscape features to that found at Upwell Fen today. The fauna would also be recognisable but with the addition of bears, rhino, hippo, spotted hyena, sabre-toothed cat and others. The Cromer Beds, which lie between Weybourne and Happisburgh where bones and shells have been found for nearly 200 years, were subsequently overlain by outwash from later glaciers which left them at the bottom of today’s cliffs.

Excavations in 1992 and 1995 showed the skeleton to be incomplete and scattered. Using methods of reconstructive archaeology and observations from current elephant and hyena behaviour, it is suggested that the remains had been trampled by other group members and scavenged by predators, as the bones were smashed in distinctive ways; teeth marks and coprolites indicate hyena activity. Also, the left knee showed pathology consistent with injury which may have weakened it.

The bones were all secured in plaster of Paris and removed from site. The remains have not been put on display yet, although the Castle Museum at Norwich is their likely destination. It is planned to launch the Deep History Coast Project this April and there will eventually be fourteen information points between Weybourne and Happisburgh. A DVD of the discovery and excavation of the mammoth based on about sixty hours of video taken at the time is to be produced in the future.

Roger Hailey

Résumé of "Whales, Mountains and Meteor Trails – A Year on South Georgia with the British Antarctic Survey"

There was a full house for this talk. Ray Thirkettle was welcomed by our chairman.

He began by updating us on the Halley Research Station. This has been moved, by towing the buildings over the ice, to a safer place, as alarming cracks on the ice shelf have been observed.

South Georgia is bleak and inhospitable, approachable only by sea, since mountains prevent safe landing by air. The research station is situated on a narrow strip, and contains houses, including government buildings, and laboratories. There are no permanent inhabitants, but only administrative staff and scientists. Survey numbers are usually ten, though increased by visitors in the summer. Power is by hydroelectricity with water supplied from a mountain lake.

The use of boats is necessary. The island is surrounded by cold Icelandic waters where icebergs up to fifteen kilometres long float. The scenery including ice cliffs is dramatic. Skiing is the usual means of moving on land where, in winter, snowdrifts can be three metres deep.

The whaling station at King Edward Point is now dilapidated, the old building taken over by seals. Shackleton’s burial place remains.

Tourists visit, but numbers are controlled. The fishing industry is strictly regulated, both to prevent over fishing, and protect wildlife.

Scientific checks are made on animals, including penguins which are counted, caught and weighed, and albatrosses which are monitored. The British Geological Society has magnetometers in place, which monitor the strength and orientation of the earth’s magnetic poles.

Our speaker afterwards answered several questions, before being thanked for such an interesting talk.

Lynda Jones

Résumé of "Spirals In Time: Exploring The Secret Life And Curious Afterlife Of Seashells"

Dr Scales’ based her informative talk on her latest book Spirals in Time, the secret life and curious afterlife of seashells. Bloomsbury, 2015.

Seashells are the homes of molluscs, some of the most ancient and successful animals on Earth. She charted the course of shells through history, from their use by some societies as jewellery and currency through to their uses as symbols for sex, death, prestige and war — as well as an important food source. More sinisterly, shells have been traded for human lives, whilst beneficially, there is expanding research into the compounds they contain that are useful in medicine.

These creatures have a multitude of lifestyles and their many forms reflect the adaptation to the environment they inhabit. Despite the apparent diversity of shell shape it appears they are all based upon the same logarithmic spiral. Remarkably, it was the work of David Raup of John Hopkins University, Maryland in the 1960s that discovered that, by varying the relative degree of only three variables: whorl expansion rate (becoming more clam-like), translation rate (getting taller) and distance from axis (becoming more worm-like), all possible shell shapes, from the giant clam to the 5mm micromollusc, can be predicted.

Inevitably, molluscs are under threat from human agency and are indicators of our impact on the world, they risk overfishing, poisoning by polluted seas and dissolution through acidification due to climate change.

Dr Scales’ enthusiastic presentation brought insights into the lives of the creatures that once inhabited the empty shells that we are so familiar with along our nearby coast.

Roger Hailey

Résumé of "The Many Lives of Matthew Arnold" & his Poem "Dover Beach"

Dr. Kate Campbell, our speaker, from U.E.A., was welcomed by our chairman.

M. Arnold, claimed Dr. Campbell, is now largely neglected, but deserves to be better known. Though some are aware of his poetry, fewer know of his work either as a schools’ inspector, or as a cultural critic.

The son of Thomas Arnold, head of Rugby School, he was born in 1822 and died in 1888. His best poetry, including ‘Dover Beach’ was written from 1843-53. In 1851 he became an inspector of elementary schools, his main employment for the next thirty five years. Arnold himself said that 1853 was a turning point in his life, considering much of his earlier poetry not of a high enough quality. For the next fifty years he was known as a critic. ‘Culture and Anarchy’, published in 1869, was popular, but controversial.

Some, including W. H. Auden, considered Arnold’s life was over once he had shut out poetry.

‘And thrust his gift in prison’ is how Auden expressed his feeling. Arnold, however, seemed to adjust well in society after relinquishing poetry. He was influential, both as a literary critic and journalist, and adroit at marketing his ideas, while his job as an inspector made him aware of the working classes and their problems. He was critical of the ‘Gradgrind’ mode of education which he often found, feeling that literature should talk to the soul and imagination.

Our speaker encouraged us to consider Arnold a man of several parts, poet, critic and school inspector.

After answering several questions, Dr. Campbell was thanked by our chairman.

Lynda Jones

Dover Beach
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Résumé of "A Talk on Writing, Including Poetry" by Louis de Bernieres

The speaker was welcomed by our chairman. Mr de Bernieres started by saying that he hoped to convert any scientists in the audience to poetry. He stated that most people don’t know how, or why poetry works. His idea of poetry is that it is language made musical. He pointed out that, in the west, poetry was, initially recited to a lyre, as in Greece. Thus poetry and music were one.

In England poetry and music coincided in ballads of seven to nine syllables. In the eighteenth century it was possible to buy ballads on contemporary topics which could be sung to old tunes.

At the end of the twentieth century some poets felt constrained by conventions such as rhyming. G.M.Hopkins, for example, used ‘sprung rhythm’ to catch the mood of poetry.

Mr. De Bernieres talked of the different types of metre used in poetry. He added that rhyme, though not an integral part of poetry, nevertheless makes a poem easier to remember.

Alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds) was used heavily by Anglo-Saxons. Assonance (recurring vowel sounds) can also be used. Tennyson’s ‘The Eagle’ uses both.

Since English, unlike Italian or Spanish, suffers from a lack of rhyming words, that is a good reason not to rhyme. Our speaker said he was unable to give a definition of poetry.

He answered with panache several interesting questions such as ‘How do you know when a poem is finished?’ Reply — ‘When it’s published!’ He concluded by stating that, in composing poetry, it is useful to know what rules poets have used, but you can then disobey them. Poetry must mean something, as well as being pleasant to the ear.

Our speaker was warmly thanked for the stimulating talk.

Lynda Jones