The Time and Tide Bell
Project background and history and why Mablethorpe North End
I first became interested in bells at the end of the Foot
and Mouth epidemic in my Parish in 2001, when the movement restrictions were
lifted and we could leave our farms for the first time in six months. My neighbour, the captain of the tower, went
up to the church and rang the church bells all day. I hadn't noticed that this sound had been
missing all that time. I was drawn up
the hill to the church where he showed me the bells in the bell tower. I was amazed to discover these enormous
bronze sculptures secreted away in my small rural parish.
I was asked by, and made with, the residents of my village
of Highampton, a commemoration of the hardship endured by the people in the
parish, and the terrible slaughter of the animals during the Foot and Mouth
epidemic. We made what is thought to be
the first public access bell in the UK. In
order to create a democratic bell that could be rung by anyone, there were many
legal and social obstacles that were successfully overcome. The bell now celebrates the community's survival
and strength, and is rung by many people, for their own reasons.
This bell was cast at Whitechapel Bell Foundry, where bells
have been cast in essentially the same way on the same site for 600 years. While I was watching the tuning process of
this bell the seed was sown for this present work. I used new computer modelling techniques for
understanding wave-form and vibration in materials to invent a new bell form
with new notes and harmonies within the bell. In exploring a new bell sound I explore a shape,
and in a shape a sound.
The new bell and choice of installation sites draw a
different map of our island. Each site
brings something particular and unique to the whole group. Bells tell stories of the past very easily,
but it is not the intention of this project to only mark and connect historic
events, but also to look forward. Narrow
horizons and short time frames are always misleading and make it difficult to understand
the dramatic changes we have seen over the last few years and whether they will
lead to chaos or a better future. These
bells are designed to work for a long time. For me the character of each site, both in the
people and their stories and the movement of the water, are directly related
to, and are results of, the shape of the land. Although we are shaped by our land, we also shape it.
The first bell installation was Appledore, in North Devon,
on the Taw and Torridge estuary. Appledore has some of the world’s highest
tides; this ancient shipbuilding port has connections to the west, through
export of domestic ceramic wares to the West Indies during the slave trade, and
to the east with ball clays which are still regularly being shipped through the
Baltic to Russia. The estuary is
surrounded by fertile green fields with hedges and livestock. Each day up to 9 metres of water flood
into and out of the estuary. This rhythm
is echoed by the dairy cows in the fields as they are milked twice daily. The bell sounds when the water is over the
sand bar at the mouth of the estuary and the cargo ships and fishing boats may
leave or enter the estuary.
The next site was Great Bernera in the Outer Hebrides. The island largely consists of Lewisian gneiss,
it is some of the oldest rock and land on earth, which has been resisting the
ravages of the sea for approximately 3000 million years, before the fossil
record began. There is no sand on the
beach, only crushed sea shells. There is
barely a tree now left on the island. Even
without knowing the age of the rock you feel the primitive power of this
landscape. This seems reflected somehow
in the people on the island; a place that has a long and complex history of
courage and independence in the face of hardship and resource depletion. Where the bell is on Bosta Beach has been the
point of arrival and departure for many different groups and cultures from the
Vikings to the Clearances. Paradoxically, islands seem to be made larger by the sea that surrounds
them. The element that might reduce
them, which might be thought to besiege them, has the opposite effect. The sea elevates a few acres into something
they would never be if hidden in the mass of the mainland. They become gardens in the world of water.
One possible function of this bell is as a time-piece or
time-marker, both in the way the bell is rung daily by the movement of the sea
at high tide, and as a long time marker of sea levels and present shoreline. The bell at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London, was installed
on the embankment wall of the Thames, 28 seconds east of the prime
meridian. Trinity Buoy Wharf now is an
interesting development in urban planning, combining living accommodation, arts
and creative industries, and business. Historically,
at this wharf Michael Faraday built a lighthouse to conduct experiments with
electric lights for lighthouses, lighthouse keepers were trained, and
navigation buoys were made. Here is the
junction of the Lea and the Thames, both of which twist and turn through grassy
banks and fields, between walls and embankments, through factories and houses,
as they wind their way to the sea from the central heart of England through the
capital, out past the further control of the Thames Barrier.
Aberdyfi, Wales, where the fourth bell was installed,
contrasts with the constantly reshaped and controlled landscape of the
Thames. Here is one of the oldest
legends of bells under the sea. Aberdyfi
is referred to in ancient Gaelic legend and song about the kingdom of Cantre’r
Gwaelod, a kingdom now submerged beneath Cardigan Bay. The origins of the legend are lost in the
mists of time, but perhaps the ancient Gaelic legend refers to ice melt at the
end of the last ice age, the inundation of the land, and the formation of the Bay. It is said that its bells can be heard
ringing beneath the water. At low tide
sometimes the tree stumps of ancient forests are revealed, radio-carbon dating
suggests that these trees died around 3500 BC. On one side of the estuary are dunes, on the other, Snowdonia. The historic river Dovey, carves down Aran
Mawddwy and flows into Cardigan Bay. Locals
call The Dovey the dividing line between north and south Wales, but it also connects
them.
The fifth bell in Cemaes Bay, is on the north coast of Anglesey. This is an area of outstanding natural
beauty, and some of the most geologically complex shoreline in Britain, whose
significance has recently been recognized internationally by UNESCO as a Geopark. Here in Cemaes Bay there is a long history and
varied history of land use evident, with signs of farming, industry, and mining
and, more recently, wind farms and a nuclear power station visible. Standing beside the bell one can see and
consider our relationship to our environment and also the connections across
the water; Dublin is closer than Cardiff, and local legend insists that St
Patrick was shipwrecked on Ynys Badrig, where he founded a church in 440 AD.
Mablethorpe North End Beach, Lincolnshire, is critical in
the constellation of the Bells, and brings something unique and particular to
the whole project. Most of the west
coast of Britain is unchanging stone cliffs and estuaries, whereas this stretch
of Eastern coastline is some of the fastest changing coastline in Britain. Here people have been dealing with changes in
sea level for hundreds, even thousands
of years, and have much to offer as the rest of us begin to confront these
problems. Now in some places near
Theddlethorpe and Mablethorpe the land behind the sea defences is 3 m below sea
level at high tide, and in others the old sea defences have already been
allowed to be breached and the sea reclaimed some of the land in front of new
defences built further back. The tide
peaking at different places at different times of day, means that when the other
bells are silent the one at Mablethorpe North End will be ringing.
In the places where the Time and Tide Bell has been
installed it has become a way for residents and visitors to connect with their
own history and environment, as an instrument of measurement, as a musical
instrument, as a sculpture. It has also
become a focus for music, events, exchanges, etc., both locally and between the
different Bell sites. Every Bell has its
own inscription on the wave catcher, written by the community around the Bell;
in this way the bell says what those who experience it regularly want it to
say. Bells speak in celebration and in
loss; they are a mouth piece for our culture. I would like to thank all those people in the communities where the Time
and Tide Bell has been, or is going to be installed. Without their support,
vision, and enthusiasm no Time and Tide bells would have been installed.
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