Cromer Church 1835 (Norfolk Museums)
Sand scraping
Sediments (detail of 32 bottles)
A walk from Weybourne to Lowestoft
Detail of sample
Detail of sample
Cart Gap
Sea Palling
Overstrand
The sands of time
200 years of a changing coastline
Inspired by my great (x3) grandfather James Stark a Norwich School painter who produced such an extraordinary record of the Norfolk coast from Weybourne to Lowestoft in the 1830s. When I look at his work (much of it in the Norwich Castle Museum, the V&A and the British Museum) I feel a sense of connection, and when I started this particular project Stark was in some ways my guide and his drawings were my markers.
I decided to revisit the sites with the help of Andrew Watkinson, a UEA Climate scientist, to research the stretch from Weybourne to Lowestoft known scientifically as Sub-cell 3b, to assess the changes. Stark's natural coastline had gone, altered by the interference of the post 1953 hard and brutal cement defences and wooden revetments.
Rather than chronicling the project in paint and film I started ‘cliff scraping’, using a flat piece of wood to reveal layers of time within the sand. I learnt to ‘read’ the astonishing strata embedded in the cliffs, memories that go back to the Anglian glaciation, nearly half a million years ago ,storms and tides slowly pushing back the line.
The resulting work is very different to Stark’s ‘picturesque ‘ landscapes but I think in its own way provides a faithful graphic portrayal of the same narrative that fascinated him: the process of a changing coastline.
200 years of a changing coastline
Inspired by my great (x3) grandfather James Stark a Norwich School painter who produced such an extraordinary record of the Norfolk coast from Weybourne to Lowestoft in the 1830s. When I look at his work (much of it in the Norwich Castle Museum, the V&A and the British Museum) I feel a sense of connection, and when I started this particular project Stark was in some ways my guide and his drawings were my markers.
I decided to revisit the sites with the help of Andrew Watkinson, a UEA Climate scientist, to research the stretch from Weybourne to Lowestoft known scientifically as Sub-cell 3b, to assess the changes. Stark's natural coastline had gone, altered by the interference of the post 1953 hard and brutal cement defences and wooden revetments.
Rather than chronicling the project in paint and film I started ‘cliff scraping’, using a flat piece of wood to reveal layers of time within the sand. I learnt to ‘read’ the astonishing strata embedded in the cliffs, memories that go back to the Anglian glaciation, nearly half a million years ago ,storms and tides slowly pushing back the line.
The resulting work is very different to Stark’s ‘picturesque ‘ landscapes but I think in its own way provides a faithful graphic portrayal of the same narrative that fascinated him: the process of a changing coastline.