Holme Fell, the place, is one of Alfred Wainwright’s two hundred plus Lake District fells, located a few miles north of Coniston, Cumbria. The lower slopes, cloaked in woodland, mask an industrial heritage: reservoirs re-wilded, the yawning chasm of Hodge Close, an archaeology of slate quarrying. Ascending the fell, trees give way to open hillside topped by rocky outcrops, and a panoramic vista is revealed. The Langdale Pikes dominate a skyline which brims with Lakeland’s finest peaks.
Holme Fell: A Sample of Landscapes is the title of the collaboration between myself and Trev Eales, based on, coming out of, springboarding from, his photographs of the Lake District: Holme Fell in particular, and Hodge Close, the old quarry, as its central node or focus. I am blogging one poem and photograph (and maybe more) every few weeks, as the project progresses and draws towards its completion and its becoming, or being made, public, that is: appearing as a book, which is nearly ready now. Reveals on the way! Watch this space!
But for this blogpost sampling of this ‘sample of landscapes’ we shall present poems and images that relate quite closely together.
Here is a piece from the middle of the sequence and an image to accompany it. There is a sort of 'poem within the poem' that is named and numbered 'Hodge Close' that focusses upon the quarry and its past activities and takes on a distinct post-industrial feel. Hence the use of found list material, and quotation from a nineteenth century source.
Tilberthwaite, Coniston
13½ miles [22 km] WNW of Kendal
Owners:
1900s - James Stephenson & Co.
1910s - Tilberthwaite Green Slate Co. Ltd.
1940s - Buttermere Green Slate Quarries Ltd.
Output:
1896 - Slate.
1897 - Slate.
1900 - Slate.
1902 - Slate.
1905 - Roofing slate.
1915 - Slate.
1921 - Slate.
1922 - Slate.
1923 - Slate.
1924 - Slate.
1925 - Slate.
1929 - Slate.
1930 - Slate.
1935 - Slate.
1945 - Slate.
The water’s a mirror
with no depth; surface is all
we’ve got down here, inversion,
bouncing the
view back on itself
Scree has vomited to the water’s edge
and back up again. Formed
from the rumour of explosions:
crashed slate,
sheeny walls rising from isolated firs to
a dishwater sky
and jagged rock torn from the earth
hanging over its own reflection
‘… as you approach Hodgeclose, you pass one or two very awful-looking chasms, yawning in close proximity to the road. These are slate-quarries, which have, for many years, been placed upon the superannuated list. At Hodgeclose, you must turn from the road, pass through the farm-yard and a wood-girdled field or two, to inspect an adjacent slate-quarry, in which inspection you will find the proprietor an intelligent and obliging cicerone. He will first conduct you by a subterranean passage two hundred yards long, to the principal quarry, where the men are busy boring and blasting, and loading the carts with masses of slate metal, technically called clogs. It is in truth a strange looking spot this same quarry, being about eighty yards long and twenty wide, with perpendicular walls of living rock rising to a height of, at least, fifty yards, fringed at the top by low trees and bushes, the circumscribed portion of white clouds and blue sky appearing, from below, to rest upon the tree tops. The only exit is by the level through which you entered…
Alexander Craig Gibson, The Old Man; or Ravings and Ramblings Round Conistone, 1849.
Trev Eales is a photographer specialising in landscape photography and rock concerts and festivals, based in south Cumbria. He and I met at university in Norwich in October 1974, over half a century ago, and we’ve been in touch over those years. We meet up regularly in Lancaster for discussions and entertainment.
During autumn and winter, if the weather is interesting, he is
often found wandering the fells hoping that the changing light and colours will
present a photographic opportunity.
He has a website here: Trev
Eales Photography. You could spend hours lost in his back-catalogue. Here’s
an interview with him about his work: Capturing
the Festival Spirit with Trev Eales · Lomography. All good things come in
threes, so here’s a third site: Articles by Trev Eales’s
Profile | eFestivals.co.uk Journalist | Muck Rack. This is a list of links
to Trev’s reviews of festivals and gigs for Louder than War, via the Muck Rack
site.
