The Cambridge Map Project Episode 4: F5, Reality Checkpoint

I met R at the top of Castle Mound, the agreed starting point for a Sunday afternoon random perambulation. 

On the way, I had passed Heavy Metal Bike Man near Christ's Pieces and Disco Kenny in the car park next to Castle Mound. Bike Man was parked up in a side street across the road, partially obscured from the view of the pedestrians crossing between the Grafton and the Pieces. I'd never seen him static before. I guessed he was summoning the energy for his ride. Preparing to keep the demons out of the city, using the power of tinny distorted heavy metal blasted from a plastic bag on his handlebars. I wondered if he took a pre-ordained route, one which mapped out an occult pattern connecting sites of important psychogeographic significance. Meanwhile, Disco Kenny was, as usual, kinetic and not static. He was moving across the car park at pace, coming from the North of the city and heading towards the centre. Presumably towards the first pub and  half pint, the first of several for the afternoon, where he would tell people that 'the world's gone mad'. His movements were as ritualistic and repetitive as Bike Man's, if perhaps more random.  I wondered if their paths ever crossed, or if anyone had ever mapped their movements.

Encountering both of these figures on the same day, let alone within ten minutes of each other, was unusual and seemed significant. Maybe it was symbolic of a re-emergence of some sort of normality. Town was busy. It felt like the shadow of Covid had begun to retreat, but was leaving things not quite as it had found them. I was reassured by the presence of these two familiar characters. It felt like they were maintaining a sort of equilibrium during uncertain times. Disco Kenny and Bike Man are the most significant of a much dwindled cast of these types of local figures. When they have finally departed the world will have truly gone mad. 

The mound itself is a significant site. It was identified by the London Psychogeographic Association (LPA) as an 'important place to cleanse the malevolent influence of the University which pervades the town of Cambridge'. The LPA linked the mound (or mount as they called it) to other similar structures in Lewes, Oxford and elsewhere, noting that all had largely been left undisturbed in the hands of municipal councils. That was in 1993. The mound is on the site of the Shire Hall (picture above as seen from the mound), the HQ of Cambridgeshire County Council. But not for much longer. The wheels are in motion for the Council to vacate the premises and lease them for use as a hotel. There have been concerns that the public right of way to the mound will be lost, despite reassurances from the Council that the new leaseholder will continue to allow public access to the ancient site. How that pans out remains to be seen. It seems that  'efficiency savings' are forcing the County Council headquarters to relocate to the far flung Alconbury Weald, off the A1, North of Huntingdon. Thirty years on from the LPA's 'The Ascent of Cambridge Mount Souvenir Programme', it seems that rather than the University, it is the ever ongoing expansion of 'private-public' spaces, as land and buildings are increasingly abandoned by municipal authorities and passed into the hands of private profiteers, that is the main malevolent influence these days.

I had brought the Cambridge Map and dice to use as a catapult. We spread the map open on peak of the mound. The square chosen by the dice was F5, at the centre of the map.  It included Christ's Pieces, most of what is left of The Kite and Parkers Pieces, all significant spaces in their own right. It also included grounds of three colleges, Christ's, Jesus and Emmanuel, rendering a fair portion of the square inaccessible.

We headed to Christ's Pieces and to the Diana Memorial Garden, at its centre. There were more people around than we had bargained for. All seats in the Diana Memorial Garden, which is a small circular arrangement of four benches, some metal arches and some flowerbeds, were full. Instead, we headed to one of the three alfresco ping pong tables. One was not being used and we spread the map over it. We decided to head to the perimeter of the square and circumnavigate the border. I photographed the square with my phone for easy reference. 

Christ's Pieces is significant perhaps for being the most central open green area for use by the public, in a City where the bulk of central green areas are behind college walls. Most use it to move between the town and the Grafton Centre. But there is a bowling green and tennis courts and its well used for sitting about on. Its a point at which Town rubs up perhaps most closely with Gown, if only in physical proximity. The other side of the wall on the Easterly side is Christ's College grounds. Emmanuel College is just over the road from the bus station, hidden behind its own walls.  The recently reopened Christ's Lane, that runs along part of the border with Christ's College, linking to the town centre, contains a disappointing selection of retail outlets. These have replaced Bradwell's Court, a 60s shopping precinct, that no doubt at the time of its building was much maligned. But what has replaced it is certainly no better and of  less interest.  Christ's Lane, heading away from Town, turns into Miltons' Walk, named after the poet John Milton who was a student at Christ's College. The walk links the rather dull chain stores at the Christ's Lane end with, by stark contrast, the excellent  Champion of The Thames pub at the other. At the other end of the bus station from Christ's Lane, opposite Emmanuel College, there is the bowling green and some of Cambridge's least salubrious public toilets.

R and I noticed a lack of young people drinking Thunderbird and cheap cider, which was probably the activity we most associated Christ's Pieces with from our youth. During that era, I once saw Roland Gift from the Fine Young Cannibals meditating under a tree here. He was stoically ignoring the approach of a man we only knew as 'How Do You Feel?', a tramp of the proper tradition. He had a wild beard, a knackered old jacket and had Bob Dylan lyrics as, apparently, his only means of communication. There were none of his kind here today. They seemed to have disappeared at some point in the late 1990s, before which they were ubiquitous users of the Pieces.

The amount of people of Christ's Pieces was off-putting, with the spectre of Covid almost unconsciously making us avoid anywhere crowded. We headed across to Parkers Piece, a wider expanse of green space. Parkers Piece currently has a ferris wheel located at its centre. A sort of lesser version of the London Eye. We were intrigued enough to give it a go. Not intrigued enough to ask what extras were included with the one first class 'carriage' which was distinguished by being painted black rather than white. The experience was slightly unnerving at first  It felt much higher at the top than it looked from below. At the top, the wheel stopped for a few minutes. Instead of taking in the panorama, I was distracted by the sight of some orange robed figures below, possibly Hari Krishna people which are quite a rare sight these days. I haven't been hawked one of their publications for some years.

The wheel went around three times, which was unexpected, but on the other hand one rotation didn't allow enough time to take in the panorama. Being local, most of the views were of no surprise. But I spotted two large square white roofed buildings, still apparently under construction and surrounded by cranes. They appeared to be somewhere between Mill Road and Marshalls Airport. I still haven't managed to figure out exactly where or what they are.

Back on the ground at nearby Reality Checkpoint we considered our next move. Reality Checkpoint is a four lamped post at the central point, where the two paths that cross the Piece meet. It is a well known local landmark and significant in the psychogeography of Cambridge. It is said to signify the point where Town meets Gown. For Cambridge University students it marks a transition from the University/College to Mill Road, a place much more accociated with 'Town' and a marked shift away from the 'Gown' University environment. Another persistent rumour is that the post has always provided a useful marker for drunk or stoned people who could recognise the lights as they crossed the Piece and so be roused from whatever otherworldly state they were in. In those circumstances, no doubt it serves as a useful reminder that the Police station is just across the road and to act straight.

'Reality Checkpoint' was scratched or painted on the post persistently for years. Yet more rumours have it that students and possibly staff from Cambridge College of Arts and Technology (CCAT), on nearby East Road ('town' side), were responsible for the upkeep of this. Each time the Council painted over it they reinstated 'Reality Checkpoint'. These rumours are probably enhanced by the attendance of  Syd Barrett at CCAT before he did Pink Floyd. The lights were apparently also a beacon during the 'pea 'souper' fogs of the 1950s. The name was finally made official and painted on permanently in 2017.

We found he post had been adorned with ribbons, which along with the staring red eyes of the fish, gave it a strange ritualistic air.

We headed away from Reality Checkpoint and the Wheel, which now, again, seemed much less significant in height then when we were up there.

To contrast the view from the wheel, we headed onto the roof of the Queen Anne multi-storey car park across the road. The view itself was much less impressive than we had hoped. It seemed to be impossible to get to the highest point where a profusion of mobile phone masts and other antennae were sited, on what looked like a small tower. We made do with the other side, where the stairwell door deposited us. The deserted scene looked frozen in time from the 1970s, if you ignored the few cars that were parked this high up. We saw no people, though there was evidence of skidding and fast driving which seemed out of kilter with the limited space available. I imagined dangerous late night car meets, or maybe moped meets took place here, along with associated clandestine activities.

Pedestrian access was limited, at least officially, to certain designated areas and the ramps between floors were off limits. The pedestrian depicted in the warning sign looked like a person from the era when the car park was built, judging by the slightly flared trousers and cuban heels. The person also looked to be adopting a strange hand gesture, as if the recipient of a 'back-hander'. This made me wonder about the origins of the car park. It was opened in 1971, after delays caused by lack of finance and because it went against the County Development Plan for the area. Obviously the lack of finance was somehow resolved and the planning issue somehow ceased to be a preventative factor. It still stands as one of few buildings in Cambridge that approach 60s/70s Newtown architecture, not quite brutalist but the nearest thing we have. The only other comparable buildings I can think of are other car parks, including Park Street ,which is of similar vintage and soon due for demolition to make way for a hotel.

We came back down a different stairwell and upon reaching the ground floor encountered a tea set, that had apparently been unpacked from a plastic bag and laid out on the floor. with some care. Rather it was a mixture of bits of different tea sets. The arrangement was odd but apparently deliberate. There was no sign of the people responsible and the purpose remained ambiguous. It looked like they may have been disturbed and left the scene in a hurry before anybody saw them, judging by the teapot on its side.

Gareth Rees described a plethora of unusual and normally unnoticed human activity in car parks in his book Car Park Life. But I don't recall him mentioning anything to to with clandestine tea and cake rituals in the stairwells.

Although I was quite taken with some of the plates, it seemed wrong to interfere with the crockery and we we left it undisturbed. Once we were the other side of the stairwell door, there was no readmission. The door was locked behind us and the scene preserved, at least until the next curious passer by came along down the apparently little used stairwell.

Back over the road on Parker's Piece, we stopped at the trio of monolithic concrete structures in the South Easterly corner. These memorialise the invention of the rules of Association Football, which were conceived by the University Football Club in 1848. These days the University is more associated with Rugby. Meanwhile, Cambridge's second football team Cambridge City are no longer even located within the City. They share a ground with Histon FC, just outside the city boundary on the other side of the A14. Their previous grounds near Mitchums Corner was sold off for development a few years ago. Cambridge United, meanwhile, continue to remain at the Abbey Stadium but there has been talk in the past of selling the grounds and moving further out of town. Cambridge United are currently in 'Sky Bet League One', which as far as I can work out translates into what used to be called the Third Division. Meanwhile, City play in something called Level Four of the Non-League Pyramid. So, while the rules of modern football may have been invented on Parker's piece, the City's association with football prowess in living memory is not notable. I doubt Cambridge even made the long list for Ian Nairn's 'football towns' series. However, the location of both grounds is significant for being on the 'town' side of 'Reality Checkpoint', while two of the three Rugby Grounds in Cambridge are located well within the vicinity of the University dominated area around Grange Road and Newnham.

R said he'd heard that originally the football rules memorial was originally going to be a giant Subutteo referee figure, sited where Reality Checkpoint is. The idea was been scrapped in favour of the more subtle trio of monoliths, which align with Reality Checkpoint if you stand behind them in the right place.

We drifted into The Kite and stopped at the Elm Tree for a pint. The Elm Tree is one of a trio if pubs situated close together and the one with the most interesting beer. It was quiet when we arrived and we took a bench outside. Gradually more customers appeared and the other benches became occupied. We hadn't been there long when a character known as 'Dead John' made an appearance. I think it was a former barman at the Elm Tree who I first heard refer to the aging black clad figure using that name. Dead John always appears in modern day 'goth' garb; large thick soled black boots, a bag with rubber spikes on and sometime a top hat and cane. I have never heard him speak or seen him smile. The Elm Tree seems to be a place he gravitates to. It is said he is an academic of some sort. Unlike Disco Kenny or Bike Man, he is a character from the Gown side of Reality Checkpoint. The Elm Tree exists in a sort of transitional interzone where both sides meet. Disco Kenny is certainly no stranger to the Elm Tree and the other pubs nearby.

 

After a nourishing pint of Brazilian Coffee Stout, we headed towards Mill Road, with the intention of taking the side entrance into Anglia Ruskin University (formerly CCAT). Near to this, at the end of Willis Road, is The Sinclair Building. This had been the HQ of Sinclair Research between 1982 and 1985, during the heyday of early home computers and the height of the popularity of the ZX Spectrum. Coincidentally, Clive Sinclair had died the week leading up to the walk and I had seen the building, with its original logo eblazened on its silver facade, featured on a regional news report that used archive footage. The report also had a man at the Cambridge Computer Museum demonstrating an old ZX Spectrum in action. He had the game Jetpac loaded onto the screen, one of hundreds of primitive computer games that are seared into the memory of a certain demographic. 

 

Now Spectrum emulators are available online so that these pre-digital, originally tape loaded games can be re-lived. Like old music, films and other cultural artefacts that would otherwise have aged into obscurity, obsolescence and inaccessibility, the digital age has brought these games back from the dead, into a period where they are no longer the captive of a particular time or space nor belong to a particular generation. Sinclair was part of 'the Cambridge Phenomenon', a phrase coined in 1980 to describe the explosion of Tech companies in Cambridge that began in the 1950s. I recently found a publication in a charity shop of the same name, a report by some consultants produced in 1984. It is contemporary with Sinclair. The 'phenomen' has continued to explode and now Cambridge is home to offices of Microsoft, Amazon and Apple among many others in the tech field. ARM now occupy the site of the old Acorn building on the edge of Cambridge. Acorn was a comtemporary rival of Sinclair with its Acorn Electron and BBC B computers. The old games played on Spectrum and Acorn computers are still alive and well, embedded in the digital world far more advanced but that descends directly from the earlier technology those companies helped create.

 

The building behind the gates we stood next to still had the silver facade at one end, but the old Sinclair logo had gone. The building is now part of Anglia Ruskin University. An older looking sign still remains on a low wall outside.

 

We found the back gates of Anglia Ruskin locked. It turns out they are only open during the week, when the public are free to pass through. It serves as a useful and interesting shortcut to East Road, which is where we intended to head next. We had to take the alternative route through the graveyard that runs behind the campus instead. 

The graveyard in recent years has become more popular for use not just as a cut through but almost as a park. During lockdown it became a place festooned by dog walkers, who could be seen chatting in the middle of a small green space on the site of the old chapel. Meanwhile, their dogs would run amok into the surrounding graves and bushes to chase balls thrown by their owners and occasionally would make unwelcome advances to other people who sat on benches hoping for some peace and tranquility before work. Previously, the graveyard had been noted for anti-social behaviour like drug taking, drinking and grave vandalism. Indeed, during lockdown for a short period, an apparently threatening character had been marking graves with satanic symbols and was aggressive towards anyone who challenged him. I never encountered this troubled character, and I suppose by comparison the odd irritating dog approach or stray turd is much easier to deal with.

 

We emerged onto Norfolk Street, opposite the small parade of shops. R and myself used to come here on Saturday mornings many years ago to eat breakfast at the Athena Restaurant. This was a particularly excellent Grease Cafe of the sort no longer seen in Cambridge. There are still places to get a fry up, but none are really proper greasy spoons. The premises are currently occupied by Eko Kitchen, an African Restaurant, which I still need to try. Previously, after the Athena, it was the Pandahar Indian Restaurant. So it was good to see that, though the Athena has been lost to the whims of history, the tradition of interesting and not overpriced food continues on its location.

The demise of the Grease Cafe in general has parallels with the decline of the proliferation of traditional wet led pubs. Both seem superficially to be the victims of a culture promoting healthier lifestyles. But since places like McDonalds and Kentucky Fried chicken, and sales of wine, beer, energy drinks and other junk food items at shops don't seem to have declined much, this can't be the sole cause. Property development and Whetherpoons are probably equally, if more, to blame.

 

I'd never really noticed the metal shutter across the street before. I couldn't recall what, if anything other than the metal, had been there before. The ubiquitous Nigel had got there before me, or possibly one of many Nigels. The tag is everywhere. I suspect behind it there is a grafitti/street art version of Luther Blisset, with a multiplicity of people using the tag and acting as a loose collective.

 

We left Norfolk Street, and crossed into Burleigh Street, past the old Boat Race pub, now a vegan eatery of some sort. Burleigh Street was busy with post Covid shoppers, emerging mainly from Primark. We avoided this by taking the route behind the shops, before re-emerging further up the street near the entrance of the Grafton Centre. 

It was announced recently that the Grafton Centre had been sold. Its future looked uncertain. Before Covid it was struggling to fill shops, and saw the departure of British Home Stores. Covid made things worse and the loss of Debenhams was perhaps the final straw. While neither of us had ever had much of a fondness for the Grafton Centre, we thought a (possibly) final visit was in order. This was also influenced by the comparative lack of people inside as compared to outside on the street and the knowledge that it contained a toilet. The stout quaffed earlier was re-making its presence felt. 

The atmosphere inside was lacklustre. The people wandering around inside looked even more bored and aimless than usual. The Grafton had been used as a Covid vaccination centre but that activity seemed to have ceased. Of the few shops opened, none enticed us inside other than a sort of Mediterranean deli/shop. Though some of its wares were tempting, there was nothing that could be consumed immediately and I couldn't really muster up much enthusiasm. I think in part, this was due to the 'indoor shop-ness' of it. In my mind there is still something not quite right in emerging out of a shop and still finding yourself indoors.

 

Some of the other 'units' that were not empty were being put to alternative uses. In the indoor ping-pong hall that had been here a while, the cow statues from the Cambridge Cow Trail had been herded inside. This was to allow viewing for their auctioning off. The Cow Trail had been a phenomena over the summer, consisting of a large number of identical cow sculptures that had each been customised by artists and schools. I had considered doing the trail in its entirety, but never quite felt like it, instead I had 'visited' the sites of some of the cows during random walks. The cows had been mostly confined to central Cambridge and the area around the Station, but a couple had been posted at Cambridge North Station. 

We decided not to go in, due to the relatively high number of people. Instead we headed up to the balcony, where the entrance to the cinema and various eateries link to the stairs and the car park and some toilets. We checked out a couple of the food vans, the sort that normally park up as  'streetfood' offerings at events. Somehow these had been elevated up to the second floor. We were not enthused by their offerings or of those in the cafe below.

The view across towards the former British Home Stores (now H&M and a Gym), invoked feelings of emptiness and fatigue. Even though the Grafton was not my favourite place and I've never quite forgiven it for replacing the part of The Kite that I never really got to see, I did feel a bit sorry for it. I even had a flash of nostalgia for the days of fish smelling supermarket Prestos, the Reject Shop, Our Price and even the officious security men and their random tannoy announcements.

The scene we looked over now had once been a continuation of Fitzroy Street before it was bulldozed to make way for the Grafton Centre. It represented a lost future where there might have been a proper outdoor street lined with shops, grease cafes and pubs surrounded by reasonably priced terraced housing for rent or purchase. But more likely it would have ended up heading towards gentrification in the same way as Mill Road. Instead, the Grafton Centre and the pedestrianised Burleigh and Fitzroy Streets immediately outside, are places 'ordinary' people go to shop. Places firmly on the Town side of Reality Checkpoint, physically and metaphorically, as they would have been before the Grafton was built, back to when the Kite was part of Barnwell. So paradoxically, the bland Grafton Centre has in some ways been a force against gentrification, if nothing else. But with its sale and the mystery of what it might become, maybe that will all change.

The lacklustre atmosphere of the Grafton had permeated us. We walked a bit further to Jesus Green. Somewhere here border of F5 crossed the Green but we had lost our concentration and overshot. Somewhere around Jesus Green Lido, well outside outside square F5, we called it a day.

Public Art Across The Bridge

I took a lunchtime walk across Hills Road Bridge. This was promted by having passed a bizarre sculpture a few days earlier. And then a social media post showing another nearby that I would have walked past but not noticed in my near-somnambulant state en route to work. The bridge along one side  is host to a number of pieces of public art. All in their own way strange and collectively making up a sort of mini-sculpture trail of the bizarre.

I started across the road from 'The Marque', at the base of the bridge, opposite Cherry Hinton Road. This is apparently the tallest residential building in Cambridge. Previously, the site was home to a car showroom which I think was single storey. At that time there were very few tall buildings in Cambridge at all. I seem to remember it being said that they were not allowed, in case they interfered with the scenic skyline produced by the University Colleges. It was impossible to get planning permission for anything remotely high rise. That all seemes to have gone out of the window, if it was ever true. Over the last decade or so, particularly at this end of town and around the Station, a collection of multi-storey buildings have emerged. Opposite the Marque, immediately behind where I was standing, is the battleship-like Belvedere, which is another building hosting penthouse flats. It is almost as tall as the Marque. 

The Marque was shortlisted for the Carbuncle Cup award for 'Ugliest Building of the Year' in 2014. When it went up, it was a bit of a shock to the system. But now its somewhere I barely notice. In part because it is a sort of gated community. Its not, at least as far as I can work out, accessible to the public (or visitors). Gates are firmly closed. I even recall seeing a notice on the bike racks outside the co-op underneath saying that these were for the use of residents, despite being sited in the street outside. The Marque does feature some 'public art' on  the first floor balcony. Entitled 'Bits of the world Blow Towards Him and Come Apart On the Wind' it sounds like the title of a God Speed You Black Emperor! LP. I recall hearing that part of the planning consent included provision for public access to view this piece of art. But having passed the building on several occasions, I have so far failed to find any obvious entry point to access and view the installation. It can however, be seen online on the website of 'Future City', an organisation involved in commissioning public art for developers (at least that's how I interpreted their management speak-laden explanation of what they do).

I  passed the Belvedere, under the shadow of its helm-like grey metallic tower, before heading up the bridge. When I reached the top, the three office buildings on the other side came into view. The first and most recent of these is Academy House, currently one of several buildings in Cambridge occupied by AstraZeneca. Leading up to the entrance to Academy House a sort of astro-turfed 'garden' had been created with benches apparently for the employees to sit and contemplate. The sparse plantlife was dwarfed by the statue that immediately came into view after crossing the bridge's pinnacle.

The statue features a nude man with a tall pointy hat, balancing an elephant in the air. The view below features the neighbouring office, Unex House, in the background. The Academy House 'garden' is to the fore. The golden hat the man is wearing is clearly symbolic. It brought to mind wizards, clowns, dunces and people from the band Gong. But the internet reveals that the artist says the hat represents knowledge through the ages. The sculpture is also supposed to symbolise 'the human struggle to achieve excellence, pushing boundaries to  make the impossible possible'. The artist, Bushra Fakhoury, goes on to say 'We need to prioritise, work positively and relentlessly towards achieving our goals and dreams'. This on the face of it, sounds like corporate management speak designed to motivate workers into believing their efforts have some higher purpose other than to fill shareholders pockets. An attempt to keep them on the treadmill, nose to the grindstone. But the sculpture is called Dunamis which is the name of an Ancient Greek philosphical concept meaning 'power', 'potential' or 'ability'. This is central to the Aristotelian idea of potentiality and actuality, which is not one necessarily concerned with the relentless push for 'progress' or economic growth. Nor with the perplexing concept of hard work for its own sake where a never ending series of 'goals' is seen as something individuals should constantly aspire to. The sculpture also seems to have a message around humans supporting the survival of endangered species, somehow entwined with these  concepts. AstraZennca have of course developed one of the Covid vacines successfully, helping to reduce the impact of Covid and reduce the number of deaths. This was managed impressively quickly, showing that where there is the will, expertise and (importantly) funding available, the 'impossible' can be achieved. The fact it was achieved shows it was never impossible in the first place, despite the misguided protestations of the anti-vax keyboard warriors who think a safe vacine does not and cannot exist and could not be developed with any speed. How many elephants or other endangered species were either harmed, saved or unaffected in the course of the  development of the vacine remains unclear.

I entered the 'garden' to get a closer view. It wasn't clear whether this space was meant to be available to the public to sit in or if it was only to be used by staff and people visiting Academy House. But there was nothing preventing entry and no 'private' or 'keep out' signs that I could see. Nobody was taking advantage of the space to stop for a rest or have their lunch, or to admire the sculpture. There was no sign of life from Academy House, nobody went in or out during my brief pause in the space.

The view of the statue from this angle was framed by the Marque, the Belvedere and the slightly more low rise Travelodge. This trio of buildings have all appeared following the apparent relaxation of the restriction on tall buildings in Cambridge. Twenty years ago this view would have probably been laughed off as 'impossible'. Now the impossible has been realised, whether this represents 'progess', is really in the eye of the beholder. Ignoring meaning intended by the artist, the statue brought to my mind the image of a bizarre circus. In the foreground of the non-descript 21st Century scene behind it, the statue felt like a mischievous intervention. The bizarre and unusual imposed on an environment dominated by the bland and the corporate, and mocking it. The hat man has his bare arse firmly pointed insultingly towards The Marque.

I left the garden and carried on down the bridge. At the far end of Unex House, on a patch of grass, 'The Don' looks out across the bridge like a giant being from another world. Unconvincingly disguised as a University academic, its white emulsion face melts downwards into a sort of neck scarf affair and has deep eyeless sockets. This piece of public art is possibly one of the strangest and mysterious in Cambridge. Its also one that was derided by Cambridge's public art officer as 'one of the poorest quality works' ever submitted to them. The artist , Pablo Atchugarry, called this accusation 'an abuse' of his work. He has also been reported as denying being responsible for producing it in the first place.

When I first noticed The Don, probably a couple of years ago, it was sited further back in the Unex House car park. It moved to its more prominent position more recently, probably during lockdown, but I can't recall exactly when. One day it was suddenly there, an imposing figure not far from the pedestrian footpath. This proximity allowed the plaque at its based to be easily read. It says 'HRH Prince Philip. Duke of Edinburgh Chancellor University of Cambridge 1977-2011'. Its not clear if this plaque was part of the original design of the sculpture, or a later addition. Or whether the figure itself is supposed to be Prince Philip, or at least an alien-like abstraction of him during his period as Chancellor. It was only after his death last year that I learned of The Prince Philip Movement., a cargo cult on the Island of Tanna. They worship Prince Philip as a deity and have in the past sent delegations to the UK. Maybe they wil send a future delegation to worship at the base of The Don.

Across to the edge of the third office building, City House, I encountered the third sculpture. This is 'Danse-Gwenodour', by the same artist as Dunamis, Bushra Fakhoury. It is intended to depict 'celebration of life' and inspired by a dance performed by villagers in Bretagne, France (or Brittany), a place famous for magalithic monuments and 'mysterious art vestiges' according to one website. This may explain the strange paganistic feel of the sculpture. The beak-masked faces and wild dancing of the naked figures has something of The Wicker Man about it. Like the Dumanis sculpture and the Don, this seemed a bizarre intervention, at odds with the typically 1990s office building behind it. From this angle though, even City House manages to emenate a sort of monolithic church tower like quality that I had not associated with the building before.

City House has sculptures inside too. I tried to peer surreptitiously through the window. There was a statue of somebody sitting down and another which looked like a horses head just inside. The glass was too opaque to make them out properly. As I tried to get a better view I stood in front of the door which automatically opened. There appeared to be nobody inside but presumably there was a receiptionist somewhere beyond the murk, behind the statue of a bull. This seemed to be placed in the position of a guardian to put off potential intruders. I recalled coming to this building once to sign up with a recruitment agent when I was under threat of being made redundant. My recollection was of a bull statue in the basement, resembling the Minotaur in its labyrinth. The building at the time seemed to be mostly financial sector businesses. That and the name City House, along with the symbol of the bull, had connotations of The City of London Financial Centre. Maybe the building was an outpost, maybe it was trying to project an imagined connection to drum up business. I've never met anyone that works there and in the end I wasn't made redundant so had no need to communicate with the recruitment agency or visit the building again, so never found out. It turns out there are two bulls, so maybe the one I remember is still in the basement. But I didn't hang around to find out. After I took the quick snap above I departed, sensing that my presence would be questioned should any reception staff suddenly appear.

The final sculpture on the Hills road trail is 'Chauvinist'. This is sited on the other side of City House, at the junction with Hills Road and Brooklands Avenue. This pre-dates the other three outdoor sculptures on the Bridge. I was commissioned in 1990, around the time City House was being built. The artist is Helaine Blumenfield but I can't find any explanation online as to the intended meaning of the sculpture. But given the City House's actual or imagined connections with the City Of London Finance industry, I suspect the title says it all. The Financial sector today is still reported as being one rife with sexism and I imagine in the early 1990s, during the era of 'new laddism', was even worse.

I left the vicinity of the bridge and its bizarre parade of office public art to go back to work. The sculptures felt like a series of disruptions of the otherwise non-descript corporate landscape created by the three office buildings. That they were permitted and sponsored by the same people as the offices themselves I suppose watered this feeling down to an extent but that didn't seem to matter much.That they managed to exist at all seemed to me a good thing in an area of town particularly susceptible to the development of ever homogenised and increasingly expensive offices, appartment buildings and hotels.

View from the Bench: Mill Road

The almost total removal of Covid restrictions, for the time being at least, had been heralded by ‘Freedom Day’. I cautiously felt that the grip of the pandemic was finally loosening. At least for the time being. The beginning of the end and the beginning of whatever the ‘new normal’ would look like. 

 

I had been wandering along Mill Road, the main street in the vicinity, on most days during the pandemic. For the majority of the period, Mill Road Bridge had been closed to through traffic as part of an Emergency Traffic Order to help social distancing on the street. The bridge closure and its associated ‘build outs’ initially seemed to bring about an atmosphere of almost static interregnum, layered on top of the already existing Covid-induced pause in everyday life. But as restrictions eased, the street became gradually more populated. At the same time, a noticeably different feel emerged, in comparison to that of the pre-covid era. Random encounters with friends and acquaintances and sightings of familiar faces were (still) much rarer than before. I recognised barely anyone among those on the street or in the shops. Nor among those sitting outside the cafes and restaurants that had installed additional tables on the pavements. Things were different to ‘the before time’. The phenomena that seems most symbolic the changes is the orange Voi e-scooter, a thing barely known of pre-pandemic but now ubiquitous. Its arrival, among a plethora of other electric powered bikes and mopeds, seemed to herald a significant shift in time and place, as if the street had fast forwarded a few years, rather than a few months.

I decided it was time to take stock. I had been walking the street most days, but really in a getting from A to B way, not properly noticing. Rather than just walk, I decided to include a static form of observance on one of Mill Road’s benches. There are a handful dotted along the road and I had a vague plan that having a ‘sit’ for a period on each of these. Maybe using them all over a period of time would allow me to properly immerse myself. A sort of immobile psychogeography. There were several options. There are benches around the Romsey R, one on top of Mill Road Bridge and some outside the Co-op. There are probably others I’ve never noticed. I elected though, to go to the bench on the corner of Coleridge Road.

The bench sits at a four way Junction with traffic lights with Hemingford Road opposite Coleridge Road, and Mill Road passing through the middle. It is somewhere most people probably walk by without paying too much attention. I couldn’t remember ever stopping and sitting here, or lingering in the vicinity. But when I arrived soon found myself in a place that seemed to exist in an almost separate enclave. The bench backs onto a wall, next to a couple of bins and green telecoms boxes. On the wall are two utilities markers. There are several manhole covers on the ground, including a series of concrete grey ones surrounded by tall flowering hollyhocks.

Upon sitting on the bench among these utilitarian objects and (possibly) random selection of plant life, I soon felt like I was in a sort of liminal spectator zone, where I could exist as unnoticed as the telecoms boxes. 

 

Across Coleridge Road was the yet-to-be developed old Romsey Labour Club building. It still exists in its own liminal space surrounded by an area of decaying concrete floor and wild edgelandic vegetation. The windows are now boarded and graffiti is starting to emerged on the crumbling brown walls. But other than that, it remains in a similar state to the last time I mentioned it, in a previous blog from the beginning of the bridge closure just over a year ago. I don’t know what is preventing the development into serviced apartments, which was approved over two years ago now. I suspect the task will be easier for the developer once the building has collapsed of its own volition, particularly the facade which is meant to be retained. But for now at least, I could savour the building, which despite its sorry state, is still one of Mill Road’s best features.

The Labour Club was once the epicentre of Red Romsey or Little Russia and no doubt built to last. But its demise is symbolic of those terms being irrelevant in contemporary Romsey, as the forces of change and gentrification march ever onwards. The building is an outcrop of an otherwise buried layer of Mill Road’s history. As I observed from the bench, a black and white spray-painted Joe Strummer looked on enigmatically from the corner of one of the boarded up windows, while the Coleridge Road sign was being slowly engulfed by vegetation. The only new feature I noticed, other than the street art, is a road sign. This shows the traffic restriction due to the bridge closure to the right. Meanwhile any would-be bridge crossing cars are diverted to the left, down the stretch of Mill Road that seemed least affected by the changes brought about by Covid and the bridge closure. I reflected that the Mill Road Winter Fair, which in pre-Covid times saw the road closed for the day in December, also usually ends at this junction, leaving the leftward stretch as the only part of the road open to traffic. I wondered if the fair would be extended on its pre-Covid return to include the small number of businesses along this usually forgotten part of the street, along with a chance to visit the impressive mosque which I’m not sure was open in time for the last Mill Road fair.

My attention wandered from the Labour Club, across the road to the Romsey Mill. At the same time, I began to settle into the micro-environment afforded by the bench. I became dimly aware of the background sounds of car engines, as they waited at the lights next to where I sat before slowly moving off. This sound became repetitive, almost unnoticed and strangely soothing. It became a sort of aid to noticing. Outside Romsey Mill was a tall conical tree, part obscuring the building, and behind it another bench. I had never noticed either of these objects before and wondered how on earth that was possible. The Romsey Mill serves as the local polling station and to vote is the only time I’ve ever set foot in it. It is the home of a Christian based charity that started in 1980, in the building that was formerly a Methodist chapel. I noticed two blocked up apertures next to the main door; a small bricked up arched window and just below that, too low for any sort of normal window to have existed, was a brown oblong, a 1970s sideboard had been inserted to occupy the space and fitted perfectly.

I shifted to observing the people passing by. There was a random and rich diversity among those that I noticed. An enigmatic, sage-like ageing man with what looked like a kit-bag drifted by, possibly on a Saturday morning derive of his own. Maybe just going to the shops. A singing man with dreadlocks went by on a bike, I heard him before I saw him. He looked oblivious and carefree, in comparison to a group of hipster-types who’s man-bun attempts to a similar direction were clearly carefully and self-consciously curated. They were outnumbered by the number of old ladies I saw, heading towards the broadway utilising a range of mobility aids from the walking sticks to the full on electric mobility scooters. These were the pioneers in the new age of electric transport. I only witnessed one Voi scooter, but several white vans. As I became even more settled in my bench enclave and reached a point of imagined invisibility, the background engine sounds aided an almost meditative state.

After a while I became aware of a distant chanting, coming from the direction of the bridge. This slowly roused me and I remembered that there was a protest due to take place, organised by the traders and others from the pro-bridge reopening faction. As mentioned previously the bridge closure had caused controversy and division. The County Council were due to vote the following week to decide whether to keep the bridge closed or reopen it, while a period of consultation took place. The bridge had initially been closed with no consultation, one followed some time later but was disregarded, due to concerns that the councils consultation system allowed the same people to comment more than once. The traders saw this protest as a last stand. As their voices grew louder, I was roused from my immersive state and curious to know what was going on up the road. I realised I had only been on the bench for around twenty minutes but it felt like a lot longer. I wrenched myself into a standing position, then removed myself from its immersive atmosphere, as I passed beyond the hollyhocks and manhole covers. I looked back to the bench and its surroundings, a segment of space that was almost tangibly separate and off-kilter from its immediate surrounds, I felt like it was a protected and protective space.

 

The protest was in full swing as I passed it crossing the bridge. There were chants, with the aid of megaphones of ‘one Mill Road, one community’. Meanwhile, the Romsey City Councillor, Dave Baigent, a vocal pro-closure proponent, stood among the protestors in silence. The scene was a microcosm of the division the bridge closure had created and the chanting seemed almost anacronistic.

Further down the road was a delegation of people from the pro-closure faction, specifically from a group called ‘Mill Road 4 People’. This group had sprung up relatively recently with a professional looking website showing quite detailed ideas for how the bridge could stay closed and asking for views to help make this work. There has been much speculation as to who might be behind the group, with the finger being firmly pointed by several social media commentators at Cam Cycle, a vocal pro-bridge closure lobbying group. While the rhetoric and ideas of both groups seem very similar, I don’t know whether this is true. As I passed through the delegation, one of them stopped me and handed me a leaflet. I expressed my reservations around keeping the bridge closed. I asked what about the traders claims that they were seeing a fall in takings. This was brushed off, and it was pointed out that several new business had opened during the closure and these would attract more to open as footfall increased. I wondered though, who were these new businesses for and whose feet would be falling? The emphasis was largely on the more artisan end of the food market, even beyond this to include something called a ‘Fish Butchery’, which struck me as something beyond pretentious.

My earlier fears, which had dissipated earlier in the protective environment of the bench, returned. The street was in danger of becoming something beyond the parody of Nathan Barley, with its various forms of e-scooter transport gliding along the road, a proliferation of serious faced joggers and high end eateries with outside seating becoming ever more prevalent, making ambulatory activity that bit more awkward. I wondered if the solution to Cambridge’s pollution and traffic problems had to be the imposition of a ‘continental cafe culture’ and the creation of a destination resembling Hoxton aspiring to be Hampstead in Mill Road, which is what many on the pro-closure side seemed to be pushing for. Certainly, the Covid-era seems to have accelerated a move towards such an environment. It was probably on the cards anyway, but the shift has been stark in its rapidity. I felt like I had been suffering from ‘Future Shock’ over the last few month as a result. As I moved along the street, it didn’t help when I noticed Fagitos was still ‘closed for refurbishment’. I wondered if it would ever really re-open and of so in what form. The legendary late night kebab joint has been unrivalled since the 1990s and is one of Mill Road’s most iconic institutions, but has been closed for months. This seemed an ominous portent that the direction of travel was set for good. There would be no return to the comfy, slightly grubby Mill Road of ‘the before time’.

As I retracted my steps, I passed by the protestors banner still standing at the foot of the bridge. ‘Open The Bridge. Consult!’ its shouted. In my deflated state, the banner seemed to express the futility of any attempt to prevent the worst extremities of gentrification imposing a more sterile and expensive version of Mill Road. But at least the bench was there, unaffected, at least for now.

 

Footnote: The week after the walk/bench sit, the County Council voted to re-open the bridge while a period of consultation takes place. I can’t say I’ve noticed the traffic get much busier as a result but I suppose it is the school holidays. I’ll find another bench to try out during this next stage of flux, until the next stage of the bridge saga.

Psycho-geographic post-card no. 3: Hemsby

 

I've finally got around to finishing writing and 'posting'  this final 'postcard'', just shy of a month after we got back from Norfolk. Thus even surpassing my usual tardiness when sending physical postcards.

We walked from the car park at Winterton, where sadly the cafe on the clifftop had disappeared, leaving behind just part of its floor.  A coffee concession  had appeared in its place, slightly more inland, but not far from the remains of the old cafe floor.  The concession of two silver round edged vans that somehow managed to look like they belonged to both space age and of 1970s American dragster racing tracks.

Winterton is a village near Yarmouth, but a much quieter concern. It is primarily of interest for the beach and the peripheral natural area which consists of a gorse-infested green corridor separated from the beach by the higher sand-dunes. It is also the beginning (if starting to the North)  of a continuous zone of connected coastal villages and  holiday parks, that become more built up until finally becoming Great Yarmouth.

As we emerged onto the beach, it appeared a wedding was taking place. A long table had been laid out  with a white cloth and places set. The table was perpendicular to the sea's edge and not far from it. A bunch of people were gathered photographing a couple dressed in bride and groom attire. A little further along, another gaggle of people were photographing a young woman posing in a dress/sheet type affair. These people all seemed connected. We couldn't tell if we had walked through the middle of a photoshoot for some type of high-end magazine, a student art project or possibly even a real wedding (this seemed unlikely). The people seemed oblivious to us and other people and their dogs drifting through the middle of whatever event they were part of. It was as if the wedding scene had been superimposed, as if projected from another place where it really belonged. It was only when we got a bit further away from it that I realised how off kilter it seemed.

Soon after, following a relatively deserted and uneventful beach strectch, we headed inland to the green corridor behind the dunes. The environment here had a prehistoric quality. On entering 'the valley'  as it is named on the map, we became the people that time forgot.  For a while the environment resembled a pre-human landscape. But after a while we began to emerge back into the present. Sporadically, bungalow-like dwellings appeared in the dunes. Inland, chalets began to replace the wilderness. Soon we arrived alongside the 'Funpark' at Hemsby. A large slide loomed up like a relic from a golden age of the seaside's more garish maifestations, rudely interrupting an environment that had up until now been mostly devoid of human paraphernalia or people. The slide marked the point of a definate shift from one type of coastal experience  to another. We entered a realm where most of the elements of 'The Seaside' that I recalled from childhood holidays were present.

Away from the near deserted beach and sand-dunes, where the only sounds were the sea, wind and birds, we were thrust into a cacophony of very different noises. And smells. Hemsby Beach, as distinct from the more inland village part of Hemsby, consists of one main drag that bifurcates various holiday parks/resorts. We had emerged somewhere about halfway down, in the epicentre of a realm of fish and chips, amusement arcades and cheap gift shops selling all manner of seaside ephemera. A number of  plastic moulded garish anthropomorphic characters, most representative of junk food items that were available in the various food outlets, appeared at various intervals along the street.

The smells and sounds were overwhelming in their sensory assault, but at the same time reassuring. With one or two minor updates, they remained exactly as a recalled from holidays with my parents in the 1980s in nearby Great Yarmouth. Great Yarmouth was a much larger concern than Hemsby, but here many of the essential elements were contained in microcosm. 

I drifted past an amusement arcade, 'Palace Caesar'. It's facade was apparently unchanged since the 1980s, other than the presumably originally bright red plastic frontage having faded to hot water bottle pink. From the blur of sound coming  from inside, a distinct few seconds of arcane ZX Spectrum era noise emerged that I recognised from an ancient arcade machine, but I couldn't place which one. I passed a 'Captain Pugwash' children's ride out the front, a character I'd assumed long forgotten by most and probably unknown by children today. 

The whole stretch felt like it had never left the era of space invaders, sugary donuts, fairgrounds and dangerous blow-up things proffered by gift shops to take in the sea. There was a faded quality, slightly washed out like a Polaroid photograph, accompanied by an analogue soundtrack of off-kilter  seaside noises and arcane seaside smells.

There were no dangerous inflatables or 'saucy' seaside postcards for sale (or indeed any postcards). Otherwise the place was the seaside of old, nothing had changed. It felt immune to the sort of creeping gentrification found elsewhere along the Norfolk Coast (and more widely) as if it existed within an invisible shield that preserved it.

I felt reassured by this small enclave of old school 'seaside-ness', and wished there was time to visit Great Yarmouth up the coast, but that would need a full day to do it justice. Possibly two.

Later back at the caravan, I read that Great Yarmouth had recently been ranked sixth from bottom in a Which survey of the UK's best seaside resorts. The findings at first, seemed puzzling. The Which commentator said something along the lines of 'biggest definitely is not best' and suggested that places with fairgrounds (of which Yarmouth has two) had done particularly badly. When it became apparent that one of the main criteria used to rate resorts was 'peace and quiet', then the survey results made much more sense.  The inbuilt assumption was that peace and quiet is always more desirable  than the sort of noise, smells and sights places like Hemsby and Great Yarmouth had to offer. This bias meant that the quieter, posher resorts did much better. But my feeling was that Which were asking an incomplete set of questions to a limited set of people.  There was apparently no balancing questions about 'largest and noisiest fairground', 'best Victorian-era seaside resort architecture' or 'finest so-bad-its-a must waxworks', which surely would have moved Great Yarmouth up the ranking considerably. I doubted many of those I'd seen wandering along Hemsby Beach earlier had been among those surveyed. I doubted also that they would give much credence to the survey rankings of post lockdown 'staycation' resorts, which had a definite smug 'crap towns' quality about it. 

The Which survey, and it's inbuilt bias against places like Yarmouth or Skegness, along with my all to brief dip into the old school seaside resort in Hemsby, gave me an immense  yearning to visit Great Yarmouth. I vowed to get there before the year is out. If I do, another psycho-geographic postcard will be forthcoming. To consider such an excursion a 'staycation', now the parlance used to describe a holiday anywhere in the UK, not just one where you stay at home, seems ludicrous. Instead, particularly post lockdown, I'm imaging the trip will be more akin to a journey into another world. 

Psycho-geographic postcard no.2: The Walcott/Bacton Interface

 

I headed out of Happisburgh, along the 'Byway to Ostend (1/2 a mile)'. I didn't follow the Byway to its conclusion at Ostend, a   hybrid of a chalet holiday park, old people's bungalow estate and Essex pioneer settlement, which seemed to be a sort of addendum to Walcott.

Instead, I took a left turn to follow another route, across a field, through the grounds of  All Saints Church and past the Lighthouse Pub. The pub was a roadside affair which featured a campsite, large beer garden and further up another piece of land that appears to be under development. This was fronted by a parade of flowerbeds and no less than four large blue signs announcing 'Walcott says thank you NHS' and in smaller font at the bottom 'Thank you NHS love from Steve'. 

The Church and pub were outliers of Walcott proper, the only buildings for about half a mile. But I soon emerged into the beginnings of Walcott, past it's worn village sign and the village hall, which had an impressive floral display in a bathtub out the front. The parish notices displayed above it talked of typical pressing local issues; car parking, traffic volumes, 'the defribulator' and dog theft. Additionally there were inevitably Covid issues added to the usual list, including a missing sanitiser station that would be 'investigated'. 

A series of small mosaics on a low wall outside somebody's house marked rememberance day (a large poppy motif), Walcott itself ('where the land meets the sea') and (presumably) the latest, a rainbow motif marked 2020, the (first) year of Covid, and support for the NHS and key workers. This display of folk art was the first example I noted as I entered Walcott and headed to the sea front. I knew it would not be the last. I was heading to a spot I knew to be ripe in the sort of ramshackle, homemade decoration that is such a great feature of seaside spots around Britain, particularly the ones that have yet to be overly, or at all, tidied-up.

I was heading for the Walcott/Bacton Interface, the zone immediately each side of the where Walcott ends and Bacton begins, at least according to the road signs. Without them, there is no obvious point at which one becomes the other.

Equally abitarily, I decided this zone really begins to emerge, on the Walcott side, where a sign displaying a forlornly sad looking wooden fish reads 'No Beach'. The creature was a folk art classic in its simplicity and the words seemed to match it's sad visage. On the other side, the word 'parking' was added, or more accurately, had not been removed. I should have guessed, considering that probably nearly all notices in the wider vicinity, official or otherwise, are concerned with either parking, private property or usually both.

At the very epicentre of the Interface is a series of four or five walled or fenced off enclaves, most containing at least a caravan and usually other ephemera, detritus and an occasional vehicle. The strangest and most impressively 'folk art' of these featured a wall embedded with all manner of creatures and appendages around all sides. A small child would probably have taken it for the exterior of tiny fairground or amusement arcade. Among the menagerie cemented into or onto the wall were stone fish, birds, gargoyle heads and a large Aslanic lions face. Also there was a letter box constructed out of blue and white tiles, embedded into the wall, and which contained the single word 'Correio'. Correio  is apparently the name of a Portuguese language newspaper published in Luxembourg. This gave the enclave an extra dimension of enigma, indicating strange international connections   The only other phrase displayed on the wall, 'shifting sands', did little to dispell the mystery.

An opaque 'window' in the wall revealed little of what was inside the enclave. Whatever was beyond was distorted and obscured. The only thing visible was a caravan or possibly motorhome, rising slightly above the wall. There was no sign of life. Around the back was a slightly rusting and apparently out of action white van.  I wondered if the enclave was a permanent residence or some kind of bizarre holiday let. 

I moved on and passed the other enclaves, less impressive but equally puzzling. One contained just a small caravan, a sandy floor and a couple of raised beds that were still under construction. A sign on the fence was advertising 'North Norfolk Coast and Country relaxing places to stay'. I assumed this was one of them. It's immediate neighbour was hidden by a six foot wall made of breeze blocks, with a canon-cum-weathervane amalgamation perched on top. A flagpole rose up from within the compound, flying the flag of St George. I didn't attempt to look over the wall.

Past these unexplained enclaves, at the Bacton extremity of the Interface,  was the Poachers Pocket Pub. The large car park extended from the main road across to the path above the beach where I was walking. The outdoor benches were abandoned, partly due to the wet weather and partly because today was the day Covid restrictions were relaxed to the point that people are allowed back in pubs. I could see a handful of people sitting in the rear window of the cavernous looking establishment, taking advantage of this situation. I didn't feel tempted to join them, thinking it would be better wait a bit and see how things panned out with the Indian Variant before re-visiting pub interiors.

Around the back, a decrepit and formerly white painted outbuilding of some kind featured a fading sign that suggested passers by 'Try our Superb Calvery'. The smaller fonted addendum 'Sun', revealed that a full seven day a week 'Toby Calvery' style operation was not being offered. Indeed, the apparent age of the sign gave doubt as to whether anything was still being offered at all. But back around the front of the pub, newer signage gave assurance that it was.

I headed back, past the enclaves and a giant metal replica seagull marking the boundary of one of them. Across the street, a ramshackle bungalow, with a large Esso sign on the side, shared it's plot with a green nissen hut, heavily covered in logos and badges. At first I couldn't work out why an apparently randomly placed 'closed' sign was displayed half way down the garden, until I saw another sign offering 'MOT' tests near the bungalow. 

The bizarre Nissan hut/MOT garage/bungalow amalgam was the penultimate manifestation of the Walcott/Bacton Interface I encountered, before I once again passed the Sad Fish, bade it farewell and left the zone.

 

Psycho-geographic Postcard no.1: Ghost Caravans of Happisburgh

This is the first in an intended series of 'psycho-geographic postcards' from a trip to Norfolk. There's no set plan or itinerary and I'm not sure how co-operative the technology (my phone and it's data allowance) will be in this venture. The weather is also looking a bit dodgy, but I've got my raincoat. The first 'postcard' is a scene from the ghost caravan park on the clifftops of Happisburgh.

Having escaped Cambridge, work and hopefully news of the wider world for a week, we are staying in Happisburgh, at the Manor caravan park (the only caravan park in Happisburgh). The site moved in 2019 to its current more inland location, away from the former clifftop site that is in the process of disappearing due to coastal erosion.

The previous site is located behind the Hill House Inn, the only pub in Happisburgh. It's an impressive, slightly crumbling, building and around the back sort of merges into the former caravan site. Indeed, there is a slightly dilapidated looking caravan around the back of the pub, the only one now in the vicinity, lurking in the ramshackle environment of the pub's private rear beyond the beer garden. 

Down the track along the side of the pub towards the cliffs is a crudely painted sign in blood red 'DEAD END NO TURNING'.

Shortly after this, a gate marks the entrance to the ghost caravan site and acts as a barrier to stray vehicles that might otherwise find themselves accidentally driving towards the cliff edge. 

For the walker, the gate was no barrier and the site was accessible as shown by markers for a  series of 'permissive paths'. I imagined that there would have been permissive access to non-residents through the caravan park when it was here and fully functioning and this has continued. The clifftop is part of the coast path too, so the area is well used by walkers, particularly ones with dogs.

Today the weather was rainy and murky, and I only saw a handful of other people while I made my perambulation of the site. I had visited before, last August, but failed to make a document of that excursion. I hadn't expected it to have changed, assuming the site was abandoned by whoever owned it while they waited for it to fall into the sea. But I immediately saw that a lot of the detritus that had been here last time had gone entirely or been tidied up. A large pile of caravan related remnants had been removed, leaving an area of exposed earth. Though the land was doomed, it hadn't been completely discarded and obviously considered worth tidying up for the last couple of decades of its existence, before it finally disappears into the sea. The removed detritus had given a clear headway to the encroaching vegetation that was merging with the remaining signs and outlines of 'caravan graves' across the site, like a sort of green embalming agent.

The spot of the former detritus pile was on my left as I passed through the gate. But I headed right, to start a sort of clockwise circulation of the site at the point where the deteriorating wooden structure of the former shower/toilet block still stood. Next to it was the small pile of wooden caravan remnants, depicted in the 'postcard' above, including a couple of sets of the sort of  steps often used to climb to the caravan door. 

On my previous visit, there had been a similar set of of steps  stood among some detritus to the Northern edge of the site. They had acted as a viewing platform across  adjacent agricultural land towards the pylonic structures of Bacon Gas Terminal in the distance. On that occasion, I had named the steps 'the Pulpit of Futility', and imagined some sort of demented  wasteland preacher conducting a sermon to a reduced and wretched congregation as they waited for the land to crumble beneath them. The pulpit had been tidied away, with the rest of the detritus in this part of the site. The lone mound of remnants was surrounded by a now rubbish free expanse of emerging vegetation; grass, thistles, docks and other unidentified edgelandic plants, as well as some leftover survivors from caravan owners 'gardens' that originated, no doubt, from the finest garden centres in Norfolk.

'Caravan graves', the ghostlike impressions of former caravan spots, are spread across the site. Some have physical markers: concrete bases or slabs, bits of piping and distressed garden centre plants. I encountered a couple of spots with derelict electricity boxes still unremoved. Other 'graves' were marked only by an oblong of distinct vegetation, usually dominated by dead brown dock stalks.

A desire path near to the cliff edge appeared to follow an old gas or water pipe, part of which was breaking through the surface. Sporadically, I encountered other bits of piping and although I did not venture there today, these can be seen emerging from the cliffs if you stand on the beach below. Back on the cliff top, a variety of manhole covers and utility appertures were spread around the site, some half hidden in the grass, others boldly placed in the middle of the tracks that lead to the cliff edge before coming to a premature halt.

After my foray around the caravan graves and utility covers, I followed one of the official 'permissive paths'. In the distance I could see the red and white striped lighthouse, which always looks newly painted and is in stark contrast to the semi-abandoned wasteland of the former caravan site. But like the caravan site, the lighthouse was destined to crumble into the sea, if not quite as soon. Back inland  from where I stood, just behind the site, is the looming tower of St. Mary's Church, Happisburgh's other vertical landmark. It's days also numbered. 

As I followed the path, the caravan graves ran out just before it was about to pass into the neighbouring field. I took a right turn to follow a path back into the site. This passed by a large imposing manor house of some kind just across the hedge, with towering chimney stacks and flint walls. At the top of a large apex something had been attached to the wall that read either 'Paris', 'Maps' or 'Mars'. Or possibly none of those things. It was hard to make out in the dim twilight of a grey rainy afternoon. The phrase appeared to have some sort of place orientated connection, not one that was local. As I tried to make it out I was reminded that Specsavers have been sending me constant reminders that I'm overdue for an eye-test and that they are able to provide it, even under the current restrictions. Maybe it's time I took them up on the offer. 

As I veered back around, I soon found myself among caravan graves at the back of the Southern part of the site. There was another electricity box still attached to the rotting back fence, this one fully covered with its warning sign :'Danger: 415 volts' stuck on its outer casing. I soon emerged back at the exposed earth of the former detritus heap, with a clear view back to the derelict former toilet block. The exposed earth had been colonised by a healthy profusion of comfrey, dominating among the thistles, nettles, grass and odd garden centre survivor. I was a bit disappointed that the caravan remnants had all gone, but was reminded that the site was very much a space between. It was in a semi-static state as it gradually (and sometimes not so gradually) fell into the sea. Human activity to clear it up was happening at a similar pace to the vegetative and erosional processes that are simultaneously greening the land and dismantling it. 

As I emerged back at the toilet block, I saw a faded notice stuck to the wall. 'The facilities are for the use of people staying on the site' was the jist of it, although half the words had been obscured.  A ghost sign for a spectral caravan park. 

I had one last look across to the cliff edge, where the tracks that caravaners had used to get around the site now abruptly came to a premature end. As I drifted back though the gate out of the site, I wondered how many years it would be before the current Manor Caravan site, where I was staying safely away from the cliff edge, would be in a similarly abandoned static state.

P.S. Additional photos of this excursion will be posted to Instagram. As this is a 'postcard' it seemed fitting that there is only one photograph as it fitted the concept, which itself was in part at least the result of not having WiFi access and sufficient 'bandwith' or patience to upload lots of pictures to Blogger using phone data.

Instagram @ramblingperambulator