The Custodians of Time

The Custodians: Some people have a rather idealised view

I have remarked before on the heritage custodian’s role in preserving the property of the past, suggesting that its main task is to bring about a kind stasis should a heritage site fall into its hands. However, in my last post I hinted at the difficulties of this role: “…. it has fallen to the National Trust to carry out the difficult task, Canute like, of doing its best to halt the eroding seas of time and preserve the country’s treasures.” At the time of writing little did I know just what these NT King Canutes are up against.

Recently I was privileged to get an insight into these difficulties when a curator of a heritage organization expressed the imponderables of his job using as an illustration a particular property in his care.

The story is this. Between the wars “the Lord of the Manor” was well into politics. This and, his devotion to Christian Science, may have tempered his interest in his home. The upshot is that he furnished his home comfortably but not extravagantly with medium quality contents. He also did away with the heavy and fussy Victorian décor and restored the Georgian 18th century interior makeover, a style probably more sympathetic to the first stirrings of modernism seen between the wars.

It was in this state that the heritage custodians eventually acquired the house. According to the curator we must appreciate that a house with its collection of items is not just a house plus a collection. As the curator made clear, the configuration of the contents is itself an exhibit because that configuration tells us how its original occupants lived.

OK then, the custodian takes possession of the house and puts it into “deep freeze”. Job done; history for that property has come to an end, and it now awaits judgment day. Or has it ended? Seemingly not. To cut a long story short let me express it in abstracts: Like the random walk of Brownian motion a heritage site is constantly being perturbed this way and that by a myriad causes. These numerous perturbations, over a period of time, add up to something significant, something in fact that we call history. Blow the custodians, history is intent on moving forward.

Heritage custodians are up against the engine of history and that engine has the ability to completely transform all that it finds in its path. Ironically, as it turns out, the custodians are themselves the main agent of change, if unwittingly. When a prodigy house owner hands over his home to a heritage custodian the owner may take away some of the contents thus leaving a rather inappropriate arrangement. This arrangement can only be made good by rearranging the remaining contents. Thus, the configuration of the exhibits starts to shift as soon as the custodian takes control. Moreover, certain items may have to be moved for environmental reasons. The custodian has to decorate from time to time and decoration may not capture exactly what was there before. If décor and content restoration become too fussy the house then becomes a fanciful simulacrum. (Hever castle?) Priceless decor may have been covered up by later owners of a house. Thus depending on the aims of the custodian the question arises as to whether this anachronistic decor should be uncovered. In fact in the particular connection in point a ceiling became water damaged and had to be removed. Underneath a richly decorated ceiling from an earlier period was discovered. But now there was an unconformity between the ceiling and the 18th century style of the room. Should the custodian cover the old ceiling in order to produce a style consistency? And occasionally the forces of time itself step in directly and bring unstoppable change; flood and fire damage being the main culprits.

However as I have already remarked, one of the biggest causes of change is probably the custodian himself and this is a consequence of the custodians changing and uncertain goal posts. Should the custodian do a straight “deep freeze” or should he also rearrange and modify a property on the basis of ambiance, artistic taste, bringing to the fore any material that is of particular historical interest? The dilemmas resulting of these competing criteria means that their resolution is likely to vary as successive custodians are influenced by changing phases of knowledge, opinion and fashion. Changing opinions and fashion? But isn’t that one of the major engines of history? Yes it is; the custodian, then, isn’t just the preserver of history but like everyone else the maker of history as well. There will come a day when the custodians activity is far back enough in time to for it to attract an aura of nostalgia and thus will be of historical interest itself. The custodian’s history will then become history.

The Custodians: This is more like it; watch what you're doing with that broom handle mate or those exhibits will be history.

Symbolism at Blickling Hall

The following post is based on my notes taken at a lecture at Blickling Hall delivered by Dr Vic Morgan of the University Of East Anglia (UEA) on 25/11/09. The lecture was entitled “Symbolism at Blickling Hall”. These notes are only an approximate transcript of the lecture because I have interpreted much of Dr. Morgan’s material, and supplemented it with interpolations. Therefore please approach these notes with caution. However, many thanks to Dr Morgan for an intriguing and stimulating lecture without which the following expanded commentary could not have got off the ground.



Introduction
The prodigy houses of the renaissance and Jacobean period were social spaces intended to convey status and meaning via architectural configuration and the trappings of decor. The symbolism inherent in the arrangement of space and use of decor were derived from a pervasive set of contemporary values and symbolic language. These values and symbols were European wide and constituted a guiding set of principles understood by all. This commonality of thought amongst Europeans meant that these values and their reification in architecture were implicitly understood by the people of the day, especially the aristocracy who were the peer group the owner of a prodigy house was trying to impress.

The residual medieval notion of everyone having their station in society and their respective work space was reflected in the layout of the house. The multitude of tasks demanded by the day to day running of the hall necessitated some complex layouts.

The corridor was absent in the houses of this time and only later introduced when there was a greater premium on personal privacy. The prodigy houses came out of the mediaeval period, a period when the great hall was the main focus, living area and banqueting room of the house. It was a very public space, being frequented by a Lord’s subjects and peer group (in mediaeval times invited guests may even have slept in the hall). This was to change in the course of the next 200 years from 1600 as society became more commercial, instrumental and individualised. In due course the hall of the house became vestigial, serving the purpose of a grand ante-chamber to the main action which was situated elsewhere in the building.

Each age is inextricably joined to its historical precursors and this is reflected in vestigial practices and artefacts that are not entirely lost in later stages of history. For example the medieval lord’s hall probably had its roots in the traditions of the Bronze Age and Iron Age, times when chieftains would occupy the largest structure in a village surrounded by their lieutenants and cohorts; the latter would frequent the chieftain’s one room house in order to receive instructions. In the more socially integrated and intimate societies of ancient times the chieftain achieved privacy in his relatively public living space by means of niches and screens. In short, the Bronze Age chieftain’s large round house is the precursor of the prodigy house.

The building of prodigy houses was driven by two key human motivations: Aggrandisement and emulation. The monarchies of European countries endeavoured to set themselves both apart and above the rank and file nobility, thus fuelling the drive to create buildings that made overwhelming statements about the high status, wealth and power of the monarch. In turn the nobility sought to emulate these high status buildings.

The countries of Europe where linked by a diplomatic service and a flow of printed material. In particular printing made available relatively cheap architectural images (Printing was first used in Europe in the mid fifteenth century). These features facilitated communication, freeing up the flow of ideas and fashions in architecture. The diplomatic service kept alive interest in what one’s neighbours were up to, thus leading to an aristocratic version of keeping up with the Joneses.

Architectural features common to houses of the Renaissance period were: 1. The Piano Nobile, 2. The Escalier, 3. The Enfilade, and 4. The King’s side and Queen’s side. (The latter is not dealt with in these notes)

The Piano Nobile.
This was the floor on which the prestige rooms were situated. These rooms were usually to be found on the first floor (or at least found on a raised basement above ground level; my own observations suggests that “raised floor” is the generic concept covering most cases), thus employing all the symbolic connotations of height. This floor was distinguished by larger windows and decorative embellishments. Even some 20th century prestige buildings have their main living space above ground level.

For its day Blickling hall is somewhat retrograde in its design (unlike the earlier Elizabethan Hardwick hall). The layout of the hall is reminiscent of a castle. This may have had something to do with the fact that the hall had to fit on the footprint of the old house and was thus constrained by the moat. The principle room (i.e. the great hall) is on the ground floor. At yet in having a raised piano nobile the ground floor location of the great hall creates a fitting tension between the passing medieval ethos and the later taste for raised floor living. Blickling hall looks both forward and backward. A much less equivocal treatment of raised floor living can be found at the 18th century Palladian structure of Holkham hall. Blickling was built at the same time Inigo Jones was carrying out his first essays in the use of a very systematic application of classical elements that was to become the Palladian style of the 1720 ~ 1760 period. In fashionable terms, then, Blickling hall was moving into obsolescence as soon as it was built. But its haphazard collection of classical features was soon to receive an internal makeover when the 18th century neo-classicists moved in and took the obsession with system and symmetry to new heights.

The Escalier
The escalier is the staircase required to reach the raised piano nobile. Grandeur in the design of the escalier was used to the full in order to convey the status of the home owner. These stairs may be external or internal. They were used for the reception of ambassadors and visitors and crafted around the theatre of diplomacy. The willingness of the home owner to deign to meet a diplomat or visitor could be signalled in how far the owner was prepared to go in his condescension of the escalier. The original escalier of Blickling at the east end of the great hall was established within these traditions. Only later in the 18th century did the architect Thomas Ivory design and build a symmetrical staircase that made a more obviously superlative statement with the purpose of awing the visitor. By then lords no longer lived at the dais end of the great hall, but somewhere “up there” in a nether world beyond the grand staircase.

The Enfilade
The enfilade is a linear suite of rooms whereby access to each room could only be achieved by walking through the preceding rooms. The rooms became more private as one moved through the sequence. The doors of the rooms were lined up so that it was possible to look down the entire suite, thus showing off the dimension of the range to full effect. The prodigy houses follow this principle. The sequencing proceeds from the most public rooms to the most private rooms and roughly follows the order below.

Hall: The main focus and social centre of the building, later to become an impressive antechamber to the rooms where the real action took place.

Parlour: A smaller more intimate room than the hall allowing for the entertainment and private conversation with selected guests.

Great Chamber: Of medieval origin this room is where the owner of the house dinned and slept.

Drawing Room: As the grandeur of the great chamber evolved it lost its privacy and intimacy. In order to restore the latter, rooms of greater privacy budded off. These more private spaces were preceded by an ante chamber that became the drawing room. In later times it became a private sitting room.

State Bedroom(s): As the great chamber lost its privacy and intimacy the state bedroom eventually became the sleeping quarter of the house.

Closet: Once again increasing public encroachment forced the budding off of even more private rooms for dressing and preparation etc.

Long Gallery: A large well lit walking and recreation area for all guests and visitors.

At Blickling (circa 1620) Sir Henry Hobart’s architect Robert Lyminge had to work around the constraints of the site, most notably the moat of the original house which imposed a short side view of the hall from the south. Lyminge also incorporated the older structures of the original house on the north and west sides of his design, finishing off the early Tudor west range with a tower in order to give an integrated appearance. Later in the 18th century Georgian architect Thomas Ivory, in an act of sympathetic retro styling, remodelled the west wing making it look more Jacobean, thus effectively finishing off Lyminge’s concept. (However, in my opinion the clean elegance, system and symmetry of the Georgian taste has produced a rather austere range that doesn’t go well with the more fussy Jacobean style.) The plaster work in the ceiling of the northeast tower may reflect the original pattern of the parterre garden. Lyminge was immersed in European wide fashions and styles and incorporated these styles and fashions into the building of Blickling, thus signalling its prodigy house status.

(click to enlarge)

This schematic shows how access to the rooms of the house is sequenced. Using an even more abbreviated schematic this sequencing could be represented with a system of concentric circles, where a visitor’s distance from the centre of the system is an indication of the level of privilege bestowed on the visitor. This concentric pattern of access privilege is very general and is particularly clear in the design of temples and religious monuments. It is as applicable today as it was then.

Query/Puzzle: Compare the above diagram with Page 11 of the 1978 Blickling Hall guide which states: “The arrangement was unusual by Elizabethan standards, since the entrance to the hall was placed in the centre, rather than at one end leading into a screens passage”

Some houses are “time capsule” houses; that is, they are frozen relics of the time in which they are built. Blickling hall on the other hand is a “palimpsest” house in that it has been reused and overlaid again and again. It effectively embodies and tracks the evolution of changes in the fashions of human society. It is not a snap shot in time, but rather an accretion of layers; an object smeared out over a long period of time. I personally find these “palimpsest” houses more interesting than those frozen in time: They embody subtle and sometimes enigmatic clues as to their history; quirks of design that only make sense in the light of their evolution. For example, citing an historical reference and also the partitioning of the Long Gallery wall at Blickling, Dr. Morgan suggested that a much deeper and more elaborate frieze once existed in the Long Gallery than is now seen. These teasing clues hinting at a hard to get mystery hold a greater fascination than that which is clearly presented.

Symbolic Decoration.
Sir Henry Hobart and his architect Lyminge were also into esoteric symbolism, a symbolism understood by the intellectual elite of the day whose centre was London. Many of the great houses copied features and symbols from London houses which have long since been demolished. Sir Henry Hobart moved in these central intellectual circles which included Ben Johnson. Lavish use of symbolism is most prolific in the public areas of the house. The symbols where not intended to be glanced at, but their meanings contemplated. These symbols often carried moral messages. There was also a linkage of hall and garden patterns that is now lost, of course.

The Jacobeans abhorred blank spaces and filled them with symbols. Many of the symbols were copied from printed pattern books which where adapted across Europe. Hence the symbols used at Blickling often look suspiciously like those found in European prints (See the front door “bondage” figure for example. See also Serlios “Five books of architecture”). Some of the patterns used are whimsical. One particular pattern at Blickling shows a wood structure realised in stone work. The stonework retains a representation of the nail that held the wooden parts together. Thus at Blickling a artisan’s prosaic necessity becomes a decoration. This is reminiscent of ancient Egyptian practices of creating mock structures in stone, such as pillars made from bunches of reeds.

The Jacobean use of symbolism was very piece meal, ad-hoc and fussy; unlike the later English Palladian movement which was very systematic and frugal in the use of pattern.

Also to be found in renaissance houses was personal symbolism which was used by the owner to convey his values; see for example the personifications of Justice and prudence at the entrance of Blickling hall. Also on the west side Dutch ends we find the mythical figures of Atlas bearing the burdens of the world and Hercules. These where well known parts of the symbolic dictionary of the day and were used by home owners to make a statement about themselves.

Remarks, Observations and Reflections
1. Status, fashion and style were and are huge motivators. Materialism is much less a case of hoarding creature comforts to oneself than about them being a form of symbolism that make statements about one’s place in the social scheme of things; what others think about you is very important, and if you are rich enough to take control of that thinking by means of status symbols, then overstatement and extravagance are likely outcomes. But ‘more’ is not necessarily ‘more’ and sometimes subtler statements that allude to one’s culture and learning are also called for; in particular symbolism that indicates one’s initiation into select and elite communities may be sought for. Mind you, there is, however, a dilemma to manage here. In boasting one’s status there goes along with it the risk of appearing to be playing above one’s station in one’s target peer group. It’s another version of the prisoner’s dilemma; either one swings in with one’s supportive peer group or defects by sending out signals of superiority and the desire to get one over on them.

2. Blickling hall is a bit like a piece of Geology; in some areas time has completely erased older layers to be replaced by newer layers. In other places old structures are still present but have been layered on top by later periods. In some places relict layers have been recovered. All told Blickling hall is a testament to changes in fashion, human thinking and the forward march of a history; a march that seldom leaves things unchanged. In the wake of this change enigmatic clues are left for the clever interpreter to understand. And yet it has fallen to the National Trust to carry out the difficult task, Canute like, of doing its best to halt the eroding seas of time and preserve the country’s treasures. For the NT the motivation is no longer status, but heritage.


3. For me personally one interesting if not significant fact is that Blickling hall was built not long after Kepler had published his 3 laws of planetary motion. Kepler, like Blickling hall itself, looked both back to the past and forward to the future. In line with the renaissance ethos of the day for Kepler preferred to think of symbols not just as pretty patterns, but deeply meaningful signs. It is therefore not surprising to find that Kepler’s first published attempt at understanding the planetary configuration employed esoteric symbolism. This attempt dates to 1596 (predating his three laws) with the publication of his “The Mystery of the Universe”. In this publication he propounded the notion that the proportions of the orbits of the five known planets could be derived from an elegant concentric nesting of the five regular solids. Today this layout seems a fluky mathematical curio but to Kepler, who was imbued with renaissance ideas of the symbolic and mystical significance of the five regular solids in all their mathematical perfection, this scheme pointed to a divine plan. For Kepler this apparent concentric cosmic “ground plan” must have signalled something about the character of the Divine sentience behind it, just as the symbols of a renaissance house told something of its owner. In renaissance Europe minds met in the appreciation of mystical symbols. Thus for Kepler his scheme was a meeting of the minds of God and man.

4. It is perhaps not surprising that “The Mystery of the Universe” made Kepler’s name because it readily connected with the renaissance mind. Needless to say, today we remember Kepler less for his concentro-symbolic solar system than for his three laws. Kepler, however, must have been puzzled when he discovered these laws, laws which employed not esoteric symbolism but eccentricity and ellipses. In due time they proved to be the better device for joining the dots of observation than his initial mathematical symbolism. Kepler’s laws portended the future of science, but if these laws had any meaning it must have eluded Kepler. It was the first indication that tracking down the divine plan wasn’t going to be found in obvious symbols plastered across the cosmos and that plan was going to turn out to be a much more slippery customer altogether. In short the cosmos was going to prove to be no renaissance house writ large. Still, it’s just as well; if Kepler had cleared the board in 1596 what mystery would we have to ponder on today? If anything, since late renaissance times, the mystery of the cosmos has deepened.

3D Ground plan of the Cosmic Enfilade: Science and the renaissance taste for mystical and deeply meaningful symbolism came together briefly at the end of the sixteenth century, with the publication of Kepler’s “The Mystery of the Universe” in 1596.

An Englishman's Home: A visit to Bodiam Castle.

Moated Manor House or True Castle?

A visit to Bodiam castle is undoubtedly a requirement for all those who want to get as near as they can to the touch and feel of a pivotal time in English history – the late 14th century. When Edward Dalyngrigge built the castle in 1385 (needless to say it was his social inferiors that actually built it) the English aristocracy was in the middle of the hundred years war with their French counterparts over the disputed French crown. Thus, as far as aristocracy was concerned the late 14th was business as usual; fighting over land inheritance and making sure serfs did their part in their Lord’s battles and in the tilling of his land. Dalyngrigge returned from France rich with the spoils of war and further enhanced his social position by marrying into wealth. He got too big for his manor house (and probably for his boots as well) and applied to the King for a license to crenellate his relatively pokey manor house; as the license says:

“…he [Dalyngrigge] may strengthen with a wall of stone and lime and crenellate and may construct and make into a castle his manor house of Bodyham…”

Somehow the ambitious Darlyngrigge managed wangle it so that the Kings permission became a license to build an entirely new castle, which he did further down the valley.

But times were changing. The Black Death in the mid fourteenth century had begun to make it a suppliers market for serf labour and this eventually led to the rise of a middle class of yeoman farmers who started to work in the service of profit rather than the service of noble masters. The peasant’s revolt of 1383 used startlingly modern slogans about the equality of man, and was among the first signs that feudalism was on the wane. But obviously Darlyngrigge, who played his part in the suppression of the revolt, didn’t think so. It is likely that in his mind his new castle was as much a deterrent to an upstart peasantry (or a rising middle class of yeomen) as it was to the French aristocracy.

The best ideas in defense

Bodiam castle is a monument to the fag end of the mediaeval period. There have been remarks to the effect that in the building of the castle Darlyngrigge’s taste for style, statement and comfort compromised its strength; the last of the castles and the first of the stately homes. The castle, situated in its wide moat, certainly conveys a sense of both romance and strength. Its structure incorporated all the best ideas in defense, but it is clear that Darlygrigge wanted to show it off to full effect and visitors coming from the east were taken on a circuitous “best views” sight-seeing tour round the castle before entry could be made. If an appearance of strength acts as a deterrent then Darlygrigge’s eye for theatre could be construed as a psychological defensive measure in itself.

Darlyngrigge, however, really had little time to enjoy that status symbol and fashion statement that was his castle – he died a few years after its completion leaving the legacy of an iconic building for future generations to savor the fancied air of chivalrous nostalgia and mystery. Dalygrigge is a fine example of that well known historical phenomenon whereby those in changing times seem to have no inkling whatever of the direction of historical drift or even that their times are fundamentally changing. From our modern perspective, with as much detachment as we survey his castle, we can survey the sweep of history that swept past Dalyngrigge leaving his castle a romantic and nostalgic ruin. But like many a high flier before and after him Dalyngrigge was a man jealous of his dignity, pride and status, which in turn meant that his emotions, motives and values were very much bound up with the cultural expressions of his day. In spite of his opinion of himself Dalyngrigge, to us, seems an unconscious play thing of history; a man who, in the final analysis, didn’t make history but who was in the rearguard of a culture that history was sweeping away.

And yet in spite of changing times the castle at Bodiam remained a home for aristocrats for more than 200 years – a period of time which measured backwards from our day takes us right back to the first stages of the industrial revolution, and which suggests that times in renaissance England were in, one sense at least, relatively settled. But is history ever settled? I fancy I see cusps of change and turning points everywhere in history, and so I wonder if history ever passes through settled times, times when it is just more of the same. Whatever the answer to that question, it is clear, however, that Dalyngrigge was so taken up with the ephemeral values and ambitions of his times as to be unaware of the greater context that ultimately passes final judgment on his (and our) doings. But far greater dignity and honour comes to those for whom immediate status and position is something they are not enslaved to.

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)

We think of the medieval world as imbued through and through with Christian religious values – and so it was. And yet the kernel of the Christian message, a message expressed in terms of servant hood, humility, sacrifice and grace was difficult to spot.

Status, style and comfort; but that was then

Autumn Holiday

After our holiday in the Isle of Wight here are some of the places the wife and I visited:

Mottisfont Abbey, Romsey:

This is not in fact an abbey but a stately home built on the site of an abbey. The abbey dates from the 13th century, but after the dissolution the abbey estate was given by Henry VIII to one of his cronies, Lord Sandys. Sandys didn’t demolish the abbey, but built his house around it using the old walls as the basis of his Tudor mansion. Later in the mid 18th Century the Tudor house was given a Georgian makeover. Today, therefore, the visitor is confronted with a Georgian facade that from the front betrays little sign of the ecclesiastical bones under the surface of the building. In fact the concept of a convincing façade permeates the whole building; from the mock painted “faux marbling” of the long gallery, through the extremely clever trick perspective artwork of the dining room, to the stunning trompe l’oeil effects of the Whistler room; these are just some of the amazing spectacles that make a visit well worth it. But peel away the two-dimensional veneer and a more ancient history is revealed: In the Yellow room some of the original abbey walls with their heavy early gothic stone work have been exposed, looking very incongruous in the Georgian setting. For the post dissolution builders the original abbey no longer held any sacred authority or sense of fearful holiness; it was a bygone that could be covered up and forgotten.

The Sediments of time: Georgian window layered on Gothic arch

In Georgian times English society was morphing into something completely different; an industrialised culture. But like Mottisfont house itself with its gothic vaulted undercroft, one still finds here and there the signs of a strange medieval ethos at the foundation of our civilization. One marvels at how society can so radically change its rationale and philosophy.

Bembridge Mill, Isle of Wight:

This mill was built at about the same time as the Georgian alterations were being made to Mottisfont abbey. A mill is one of those early non-miniaturized machines that one can actually get inside of and walk round; it is full of wheels, shafts and cogs. Bembridge mill wasn’t just about brute power, it was also about the control of power; it had a centrifugal regulator governing the separation of its grinding stones. The mill “reads out” the information from the relatively delicate regulator via a serious of levers that effectively acted as transducers; the lever arms increase in thickness as they get closer to their job of having to raise a ½ ton grinding stone.


The aristocratic background of Mottisfont abbey contrasts with the lower class of millers who understood and operated the mill. Conceptually speaking the mill was a precursor and symbol of the industrialised world to come. It is ironic that this lower class of millers were totally unaware that they were dealing with the basic concepts of mechanism, energy, power and control that were eventually to dominate the rationale of an industrialized and instrumentalist society. I was reminded of the fact that my schoolboy introduction to physics was via pulleys cogs, and levers.

Compton Bay, Isle of Wight.

Compton bay has strata that straddle a good part of the cretaceous period, and it seems to be a good place for fossil hunting. (We were there looking for fossils until nearly sunset) The thickness of strata are measured in thousands of feet and I always marvel at the depth of time they represent as evidenced by the very different conditions under which the strata formed, sometimes separated by periods of uplift, folding, tilting and erosion. And here’s the peculiar part: If physics is fundamental those prosaic looking principles derived from levers, cogs and pulleys are reckoned to be sufficient to describe the prehistory of the changing face of our planet.

A Lower Cretaceous fossil we found in Compton bay (to me it looks like a form of coral[?])

The Thursford Collection

Tawdry, garish, ostentatious, baroque and loud, but there is much more to the fairground organ than meets the eye or ear. *

For the August bank holiday the wife and I visited the Thursford collection, a private museum of yesteryear farm and fairground machinery; traction engines, steam engines, carousels and organs.

As I have always been interested in machinery I thought I would be especially interested in the traction engines – well I was, but as am not a musical person I was surprised to find that I was even more interested in the fairground organs. The loud and gaudy exterior of these machines, usually to found in the raucous environment of the fairground has always been a put off for me, but on a second harder look within the subdued light and tranquility of the Thursford environment, however, these machines proved fascinating and their complex reality readily connected with my interest in computers.

The technology of mechanically reproducing sounds of all qualities simply from the vibration modes of a single surface recieving input from some kind of recording medium was not developed enough in the latter half of the nineteenth century to provide fairground music of sufficient body and quality. The fairground organ solves this problem by hiding behind its ostentatious exterior what is effectively a real orchestra: a large ensemble of wind and percussion instruments operated by compressed air. In the machines at Thursford this mechanical unmanned orchestra is programmed by books of punched card. The picture below was taken behind the ornate façade and you can see the racks of punched cards on the left. Also visible is the card reader as well as the pump supplying the compressed air.


Fairground organs are a fine example of a machine that can be programmed with a next to infinite combination of possibilities and this quasi-universality is, of course, very reminiscent of computers. It follows, therefore, that fairground organ music can be digitally analyzed into a set of punched hole instructions. Everything that happens during the playing of one of these wonderful machines is tokenized in the formal patterns on the cards. And yet if one didn’t know otherwise this reductive analysis gives no hint at all of the astounding holistic experience of standing in front of one of these organs as the whole show is powered up and its complicated rhythms, patterns, and harmonies fill the airwaves. That in the main fairground organs have been reserved for catchy popular music so easily reproduced on their tireless mechanics has unfortunately cheapened the experience. Moreover, association with the ungenteel and flamboyant culture of traveling fairground folk unconnected with the values of landed society have not helped place fairground organ music into the realm of fashionable high culture.

But as time moves on the associations of fairground organs with low culture will recede and the beauty and cleverness of these machines may be better appreciated. Call me musically naive but if one pays attention to the music generated by a fairground organ one hears a veritable wall of sound perfectly blending the rhythms and harmonies of its large ensemble of instruments. into a seamless whole. Give the machine another set of punched cards and a new wall of sound seems to come from nowhere, tirelessly and faultlessly reproduced.

As one stands in the front of one of these performing machines sight and sound all meld into one facade, but behind the scenes analysis and reductionism holds sway. The fairground organ is, needless to say, a fine metaphor of the experience vs. mechanism dichotomy. It all may start with an initial taking for granted of an experience that seems integrated to the point of indivisibility, but when curiosity kicks in there is a desire to look behind the scenes, to undress nature, to view its back end as it were and analyse it. In the case of a fairground organ, however, it’s a short walk round to the back of the machine to see how the show really works. But the sharp contrast between experience and underlying mechanism remains. On one level, everything one experiences is explicable in terms of mechanism; there is nothing that happens in a fairground organ performance that cannot be described without reference to the formalities of the punched cards and the model of computation model represented by the mechanical hardware. And yet although the sound is analyzable into an carefully orchestrated ensemble in the final analysis this formality of structure fails to capture the experience itself; formality is a good predictor of structure but a poor predictor of quality.

We must thank the private collector George Cushing who has left us with such a fascinating and beautiful legacy.

George Cushing 1904-2003
https://www.thursford.com/default.aspx

* footnote
The times on my photos look dodgy; I was supposed to be at work at that time. The explanation? The clock on my camera is 2-3 hours slow. The proof? The Thursford collection doesn't open until 12 o'clock mid day!

A History of History

During our yearly visits to London escorting her Spanish english language students the wife and I get a chance to visit a museum or two with them. (Usually the British Museum). Yesterday we spent some time in the Enlightenment gallery of the BM. The two photos below tell a strange story about the Enlightenment; unlike the other histories depicted in the museum European Enlightenment history is in part a history of the European’s view of history. The Enlightenment was a time of increasing self-awareness.

The Artifacts of the Enlightenment; somebody else's history. Basically it's a museum in a museum

The accompanying legend: A meta view of religion can threaten a parochial religion. (click to enlarge)

The Wars of the Enlightenment: We try not to mention Trafalgar to this lot, but if you're taking them round London it's difficult.

Pending Position Statement

As a result of direct inquiries I intend to produce, at some stage, a position statement regarding my views on Christianity. However, I am currently absorbed with one two other matters that I am following up; hence this promissory note.