York St Mary's - Five Sisters Installation

York St Mary's serves as an exhibition space for which the York Museums Trust regularly commissions site-specific artworks. The medieval parish church was deconsecrated in 1958.

Today was my last full day in York, a chance to catch up on a few last details of fieldwork before sending myself back towards London tomorrow morning. I made sure to drop by York St Mary's during a lunch break to photograph their current installation: Five Sisters.

The exhibition caught my eye because it uses the same nickname given to the towering transept facade inside the city's cathedral, York Minster. The artists Emma Biggs and Matthew Collings drew on the aesthetics of these five lancets to create their composition in mosaic and canvas painting. At the Minster, these soaring fields of glass were not decorated with representations of stories or saints, instead a mostly monochromatic scheme of grisaille glass was used to create geometric arrangements.

The glass in the so-called "Five Sisters" windows at York Minster was probably installed around 1250.

A detail of the "Five Sisters" glass patterns (via Traditional Building). Thirteenth-century stained glass compositions generally limited the use of saturated fields of red and blue compared to earlier Gothic tastes. Lighter colors and clearer glass admitted more light.

The mosaic along the nave of the church uses local fragments of pottery from the thirteenth and fourteenth century for tesserae. The homage to the Middle Ages becomes explicit, and the reuse of these shards calls attention to how succeeding generations treat objects of the past. These potsherds come from the York Museums Trust, and I assume that their collection has a surfeit of such remnants. Most preservation institutions are awash with historical bric-a-brac, only a small fraction of which could be put on display, only a fraction of which would interest the visiting public.

Emma Biggs & Matthew Collings, Five Sisters, 2009. Monochromatic paintings are placed at either end of the mosaic.

Detail of the tesserae in Emma Biggs & Matthew Collings, Five Sisters, 2009.

So what is a museum to do with all these shards? Similarly, how is a city like York supposed to manage its past after 2,000 years of continuous history? This installation allows artifacts to be both used and seen, and the venue itself, a decommissioned thirteenth-century parish church, came about through parallel circumstances. York has 19 surviving medieval parish churches, a more than adequate supply for the population's present Anglican needs. For artists, creative expressions and materials and techniques always arise out of earlier ideas and labor, and these creations must always contend with the "greats" of the past. In this case, Biggs and Collings place their borrowings front and center for everyone to consider.

National Railway Museum, York

The Great Hall of the National Railway Museum holds train engines from Britain, Japan, and China. Some of the rolling stock hails from the nineteenth century.

During previous visits to York, I have always been too busy with research to stop in to the National Railway Museum, despite all the good press it receives. Fortunately, one of my stays here finally included a Sunday, which forces me to take a break from church visits (I was raised much too properly to wander the aisles staring upwards and scrutinizing the profiles of vault ribs as a vicar delivers his homily). I decided instead to apply my medieval mind to something much more modern.

Despite the obvious hypocrisy, this art historian find train enthusiasts to be very boring creatures overly concerned about defunct institutions and outdated technology. However, the museum takes care to tell how the history of train travel in Britain, and worldwide, changed leisure, trade, politics, and industry. Railroads opened up all sorts of opportunities and their historical course includes sites for everyone's interests. That and the place is full of huge locomotives that are big, heavy, expensive, powerful, and go faster and faster and faster. I admit I handed control of my afternoon over to childish enthusiasms, but I condoned my glee by reminding myself that I was tech-gawking at rolling stock, not high-powered war machines. Below are some photos. It's a little heavy on boy material (locomotives), but I assure everyone that I did take the time to see the beautifully appointed Royal carriages dating back to Queen Victoria.

The National Railway museum sits behind York's passenger terminal in what used to be the York Freight Depot Goods Warehouse for the Northeastern Railway Company.

The Duchess of Holland was built in 1938 and streamlined with ultra-sleek cladding, but all of its style was removed during World War II. Its shape and colors were only restored this year.

The NRM collection continues to expand. Here in "The Workshop" conservators labor to return the famous Flying Scotsman steam engine to working order.

The Mallard set the current world speed record for a steam-powered train in 1938: 126 mph.

The electric turntable at the center of the Great Hall helped trains at York station turn around from 1954 until the end of steam service in 1968. The museum holds daily demonstrations.

The Staffordshire Hoard

An especially deep plowing is suspected to have brought the buried treasure close to the surface this year.

An unemployed man with a metal detector in July unearthed the largest cache of Anglo-Saxon artifacts ever found in Britain. The lucky strike includes over 1500 objects, mostly of precious metals and gemstones, probably buried around AD 700 for safekeeping. Word of the discovery only went out today with an unveiling at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Since Terry Herbert first notified the portable antiquities scheme professional archaeologists have been working covertly in the field where the objects were found to try uncover more information about what took place there 1300 years ago. The exact location still remains secret and the Home Office is overseeing the excavations to keep out would-be looters.

Many of the precious objects were used to decorate swords, probably the spoils of warfare around the Midlands kingdom of Mercia. (from the BMAG flickr stream)

The overwhelming collection has been designated as "treasure" and thus belongs to the State. However, British museums will bid to take possession of the hoard. The final price will be divided between Mr. Herbert and the farmer who owns the field in which the find was made. These objects will keep curators, archaeologists, and art historians busy for years conserving and inspecting each piece for new historical insights into the so-called Dark Ages. The museum has great images of some of the treasure on flickr. The Guardian also has a slideshow, as does The Times.

The twisted state of this cross decorated with interlace lead researchers to surmise it was plundered as gold booty. I assume the item was removed from the cover of a gospelbook.

Small, precious items allowed the ruling classes of Europe to carry and secrete their wealth (from the BMAG flickr stream).

York Beer & Cider Festival

Today was my first full day in York. Fortunately, my time in the North coincides with the York Food and Drink Festival. This weekend CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) held a gathering at the racecourse. A serious crowd gathered around the grounds and inside the tents to taste beers and ciders from all over Britain.

My samplings from this afternoon from Yorkshire outfits included Ryedale Best by Cropton brewery, Sabbatic Ale from Great Heck, and Muston Scarecrow made by East Coast Brewing Co. in Filey. Another personal highlight was the Copy Lane Stout offered by Stables in County Durham. Plus, the festival featured a choice handful of food vendors to explore.

The three words every man longs to hear, "Fresh Pork Scratchings."

Then, up from among the carnival rides next door came six hot-air balloons in time for a sunset voyage.

Another high-flying venture from Sir Richard Branson.

Hard to beat.

Euston Arch Trust

The Euston Arch, designed by Philip Hardwick and enginneered by Charles Fox, welcomed visitors to the station for nearly 125 years.

Wednesday featured a visit to an event promoting the Euston Arch Trust. The organization is gathering support to rebuild the monumental entrance that marked the London terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway since 1837. The Greek Revival propylaeum stood to the north of Euston Road until 1961, when it was unfortunately demolished. An iconic London building was lost, but the outrage that ensued galvanized modern efforts to preserve Britain's architectural treasures. The grand Victorian edifice of St Pancras Station next door was one of the principal beneficiaries. The course of New York's preservation movement led down a very similar valley with the loss of the Penn Station providing the impetus needed to retain Grand Central Terminal.

A column fragment from the Euston Arch was removed from the Prescott Channel in 1994 for the BBC television show One Foot in the Past.

Interestingly, the remains of the destroyed arch were finally rediscovered in 1994 at the bottom of the Prescott Channel, an industrial canal in East London. Historian Bob Cruickshank managed to unwind the story of how Bob Cotton, an engineer at British Waterways, procured the stone from the demolition site to patch a hole at the bottom of the canal. About thirty pieces of stone have now been retrieved.

Efforts to rebuild the arch have waxed and waned for years, but interest has gathered since National Rail announced a major redevelopment of Euston Station in 2007. The trust is now campaigning to make the arch the landmark feature of the new facility.

Joe Robson created this rendering of the proposed arch on its new location along Euston Road.

Society of Antiquaries, London

The two galleries high above the main room can make finding books an adventure.

Today has been a work day using the library at the Society of Antiquaries. Founded in 1707, the society studies the remains of Britain's, and sometimes the wider world's, past. Its quarters off of Piccadilly and inside Burlington House, also home of the Royal Academy of Arts, are frequented by (mostly) men interested in archaeology, architectural history, genealogy, numismatic, and other arcane pursuits. The scholars may look as dusty as the books, but the atmosphere is warm, and the collection is outstanding. Many of the books date to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The stately setting and the vast expanses of shelves make the library a great place to read and explore. I took these pictures a couple years ago, but I assure you the place has not changed.

The main room of the library.

The spiral staircase in the corner leads from the first gallery up to the second.

The Society's rooms overlook the courtyard of Burlington House. In 2006 Damien Hirst's 35-foot bronze Virgin Mother welcomed visitors to the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition.

Anniversary, Rottingdean

The town of Rottingdean lies in a valley where the South Downs meet the English Channel.

The Passengers have been married a whole year now, plus a few weeks spent getting around to finishing this post and loading the photos. For our paper anniversary we made a pilgrimage back to the south coast of England where we were married at St. Margaret's church in Rottingdean. We spent two nights in this postcard village where Rudyard Kipling (and H's grandmother) used to live. The day included a walk across the south downs overlooking the sea and a very relaxed dinner of fresh scallops and langoustines at Riddle & Finns in nearby Brighton. Here are some images to show what makes the village such a pleasant retreat.

St. Margaret's church in the center of the village. Parts of the building pre-date William the Conqueror. The house immediately in front of the church was Kipling's home, The Elms.

Overlooking the downs.

A Tudor-era (16th Century) cottage near the village green.

The Kipling Gardens were created in 1983 as a means to preserve part of the village's historic core.

Pub Lunch in Farringdon

The Passengers took H's parents for an enjoyable outing in London last week. We wandered the streets around Farringdon Station and Smithfield Market. I'll provide more photos later of the area's architectural delights. The highlight of the day was lunch at the Fox & Anchor, an impeccably equipped gastropub off Charterhouse Square run by the boutique hoteliers responsible for the nearby Malmaison Hotel. The snug dining nooks inside the pub have been clad in dark wood and warm lights glint off the pewter beer tankards. Add oysters, homemade pork pies, and a syllabub dessert and you have a classic of British hospitality and cuisine. Also I love the historic art deco building.

The Fox & Anchor is also an inn with six rooms available.

Drinkers have long benches and all the day's papers at the bar.

Diners sit in the back rooms and contemplate the pie of the day.

Lantau Buddha, Hong Kong

All is still crazy in Passenger Land. We landed yesterday at Heathrow for about 10 days of R&R at H's family home. While she sleeps off the flight and the stress of closing down our New York apartment, I will provide more belated images from Hong Kong.

The Passengers ventured off Hong Kong Island on a journey to the Po Lin monastery on Lantau, one of the many islands in the Pearl River Delta within the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Despite the July heat and soaring hills, the journey was not difficult thanks to a load of technological wizardy. The Tung Chung terminus of the rapid, efficient MTR brings visitors to the brand-new Ngong Ping cable car.

The gondolas wind up and over a sweeping landscape of rugged, iconic hills rising out of the South China Sea. I would love to come back with hiking boots and a picnic for another trip. The ride brings thousands of tourists and locals up to a recreated Chinese village, built by the cable car company and filled with mulitmedia exhibits, souvenir stands, and a Starbucks. The Po Lin monastery nearby hosts the real attraction: a 112-foot bronze sculpture of the Buddha seated on a lotus throne. This is not an historical attraction. The statue was finished in 1993, and the two locations enjoy a mutualistic, capitalist relationship. The monastery welcomes devotees and lures pilgrims with its gigantic statue, while the Ngong Ping provides spectacular transportation and attends to visitors' more base desires with tchotchkes and gelato in the village. Win-win.

Weekenders use parasols to ward off the sun as they walk from the village to the monastery.

Warning: crowds and stairs ahead. The flag of Hong Kong SAR appears at left.

A statue of a devotee making an offering.

The walkways around the Buddha statue provide stunning views of the South China Sea. High-speed ferries can be seen streaking west to Macau. The former Portugese trading post is now a gambling/party mecca.