Durham in Six Seconds

A long held ambition was finally fulfilled on an evening in late August when I was in the right place at the right time to photograph the view of the city from Durham Viaduct through the window of a passing train. After a day of persistent rain in Newcastle the sky cleared as the train approached Durham and a much anticipated opportunity opened up as it left the station. Six photos in six seconds of the castle and cathedral commanding the south eastern skyline in a jumbled sea of rooftops and foliage. An Asian restaurant, a Methodist Church and a domed Clock Tower exit left as a bus station and a cluster of back-to-back terraces are revealed. The eleven arch viaduct was built in 1857 by the North Eastern Railway and carries the East Coast Mainline between Edinburgh and King’s Cross. Its importance is recognised with a Grade II* listing by Historic England.  The appeal of the elevated viewpoint is well known - a moment when everything is reduced to manageable proportions, unusual patterns and formations are suddenly visible, and an unnaturally expanded breadth of vision breeds a delusionary sense of omnipotence.  Model makers toil for a lifetime to reproduce these effects on a diminished scale for the reward of having seized a segment of reality, taken control of it and cut it down to size.

 

Behind the Curtain – Beamish

I approve of museums that take the trouble to offer public access to some of the treasures that would otherwise lie buried in their vaults. At Beamish there’s a building that holds a reserve store of accumulated items that have yet to be deployed on public display. It’s open to visitors and contains a fascinating miscellany of uncelebrated objects, for the most part arranged thematically but allowing for some strange and bizarre juxtapositions. These are the raw materials of future projects, destined for a set-dressing role but, for now at least, allowed to speak for themselves and available for singular contemplation. The totality of the Beamish experience – the colliery village, the North Country main street, and the period-costumed staff, is rather more problematic and raises all sorts of issues around conservation, authenticity and the dignity of labour. To be addressed in a future post.