Portland: the Memory Stones

Though I live in south Wales, I love the area of Dorset around Weymouth and the Isle of Portland and have visited several times this year. During each of these visits, I’ve enjoyed a walk around Tout, the former quarry, now sculpture park and haven for the area’s special butterfly species. And, as I usually enter the quarry from the path that runs downhill from Wide Street, I always pass by the semicircle of standing stones known as the Memory Stones. 

A few times I’ve walked around inside the semicircle, taken photos of the twelve huge stones – from inside the arc, they just look like blank stones but are impressive due to their size, reminiscent of the stone circles erected by humans thousands of years ago. 

However, if you look back as you walk down the path to Tout Quarry, you can see that one of the stones has been carved. This has been named the Architecture stone. The plaque on the ground in front of it says that it has been ‘Aligned to [face toward Portland’s] St Georges Church, Inspired by St Pauls’ Cathedral’. According to the Churches Conservation Trust website, St George’s was designed and built between 1754 and 1756 by master mason Thomas Gilbert ‘whose grandfather supplied the Portland Stone used to build St Paul’s Cathedral’ in London. 

As well as having a sun dial on its outer face, the stone is inscribed as follows:

AFTER THE FIRE From the Ashes
St Paul’s Cathedral
St Margaret Pattens; St Peter upon Cornhill; St Michael’s Cornhill; St Edmund, King and Martyr; St Clement East Cheap; St Margaret Lothbury; St Mary Abchurch; St Stephen Walbrook; St James Garlickhythe; St Mary Aldermary; St Benet Paul’s Wharf; St Martin Ludgate
Sir Christopher Wren, Architect, Anatomist, Astronomer, Geometer, Mathematician and Physicist built fifty-two Churches and one Cathedral using Portland Stone for the City of London after the Great Fire 1666.
This Architecture stone commemorates Wren’s 300^th anniversary and 40^th year of Portland Sculpture & Quarry Trust teaching carving stone in its place of origin supported by the Worshipful Company of Masons and The Island and Royal Manor of Portland Court Leet.
RESVRGAM [Latin for ‘I shall rise again’]

Following one of my visits to the Memory Stones, I decided to find out more about them. A quick google found an article on the BBC News website covering the opening of the site in February 2023. I read that the stones had ‘been unveiled as part of a bid to raise awareness of the environment’, and that ‘Local artist Hannah Solfaer worked with Greenpeace on the Ocean Stone.’ My immediate thought was ‘what Ocean Stone?’ The article continued: ‘Each stone carries an inscription and there are live audio-visual recordings of the artists process and site specific work, quarrying heritage, stone masonry skills and research by geologists and ecologists.’ Really?

Then I discovered a pdf on the Portland Tourism website. The document includes a comprehensive list of the stones, their alignments, and what each represents. But the document just added to my confusion as it also implies that each of the stones has been carved and refers to audio visual recordings that Hannah Sofaer had made of ‘Portland’s Quarry environment, people and skills of working with stone’. Maybe I’d missed something? I made a point of checking the stones more thoroughly during my next visit to Portland a couple of months later. 

My eyes had not deceived me; there were definitely no inscriptions on the stones when you viewed them from inside the arc but, when I walked around the outside – no easy task as tall scrub is almost touching the outer surfaces in places, I did notice that one other stone had been carved. This is the Ocean Stone. 

Even by walking down a track on that side of the site, I couldn’t get a clear view of what had been carved on the stone, nor could I get a complete photograph. More googling followed. This time I found an article on the Stone Specialist website, dated 17 February 2023, which explained the stone’s significance and provided details of the carving:

The stone is inscribed as follows: “Stand with your back to this stone and look out to sea. 307 miles southwest of here lies an underwater barrier of boulders like these protecting the ocean from destructive industrial fishing and, with it, all of our futures. This ocean stone commemorates the collaboration between the Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust and Greenpeace defending and safeguarding the UK's marine protected areas in an ocean that has sustained life for millions of years.”
The inscription moves in waves across the natural surface of the stone, reflecting the waves of the ocean. 

Though the information I’d found online implied that this artwork was complete, it is now obvious to me that this is not the case, and I can only assume that this is a long-term project that will be completed over time, presumably, as I am writing this more than three and a half years after the Ocean Stone was completed, a very very long time. I find myself questioning the decision to put the inscriptions on the outer surfaces of the stones, where they are not only difficult to access and read, but are even missed entirely by many visitors to the site. And as for the audio visual recordings – well, they remain a mystery.

Eastbourne: Curling drinking fountain

The evening of my arrival in Eastbourne, after six hours’ travelling on four trains, I was desperate to stretch my legs so went for a stroll along the beachside promenade. After 30 minutes or so, the sun was beginning to set and I was about to turn around to return to my hotel, when I noticed this magnificent drinking fountain, just across the road on the edge of Seahouses Square. 

Drinking fountains are one of my fascinations, and, over the years, I’ve written about many of them on this blog, so I couldn’t resist taking a good look at and many photographs of this one. The plaque on the side of the fountain reads:

This drinking fountain was donated in September 1865 by Mrs. Elizabeth Curling (1790 – 1873), who lived in Kent Lodge, Seaside Road (now Trinity Trees). The fountain was originally located in the middle of the road in Seaside, near the junction of Leaf Hall Road. It was first moved to the corner with Langney Road, probably in the 1950’s [sic] before being restored and relocated here on 21st December 2000. 

A nearby signboard that lists information about the area around Seahouses Square provides some additional facts. The drinking fountain

was donated by Mrs Curling in response to a serious outbreak of Scarlet Fever in 1863 when many children died.
Poor quality water was blamed. The fountain soon became a popular meeting point for the area and was known as ‘Speakers’ Corner’. 

As I suspected it might be, the drinking fountain has been grade II listed by Historic England, and the entry on their website gives the following information:

Cast iron structure. Rectangular with two intertwined dolphins on top supporting a lantern (restored), all raised on three octagonal Portland stone steps (restored). Mutule cornice above panels and fasces below. Alternate sides have tap, bowl and two small circular shelves on which rested the drinking cups (now missing). The other faces have oval inscription panels each engraved 'erected MDCCCLXV'. One has the biblical text 'Jesus said whoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again', the other, 'Jesus said whoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst'. … Old photographs show it originally had a gas lantern on top. 

Also on the Historic England website, on 30 September 2020, local historian Kevin Gordon posted the following comment:

The fountain was made by the Handyside Company of Derby and was originally installed opposite Leaf Working Men’s Hall in Seaside. It would have once had small troughs underneath for thirsty dogs, but these have since been blocked off. In Victorian times it became Eastbourne's 'Speakers Corner.
The fountain was donated by Mrs Elizabeth Curling (1790-1873) a local philanthropist. She provided a chapel at the Eastbourne Workhouse and gifts for the inmates at Christmas. She assisted schoolchildren with generous donations to local school funds and prizes.
When Mrs Curling died aged 83 in 1873, the Eastbourne Gazette said “The death of Mrs Curling will leave a blank not only in the public and private charities of the town, but in the hearts of all who had the privilege of her friendship. Distress, in whatever form it came before her, was sure to meet with sympathy coupled with a readiness to relieve it and the poor will feel that one of their best friends has been removed from them.” 

I then followed up on the information about the fountain’s manufacturer, Andrew Handyside and Company, and found a very comprehensive blog by Andy Savage, who has made it his mission to locate and document everything ever made by this ironworking company wherever the item is located around the world. And that led to the discovery that there is another drinking fountain, which is exactly the same model as the Eastbourne fountain, located on the beach at Alum Chine, in Westbourne, Bournemouth, in the English county of Dorset. The photographs on Savage’s blog show that the other fountain was in very poor condition when the blog was published in 2012; I don’t know what its current situation in. Savage’s research has uncovered more details about this model of drinking fountain:

This particular design of drinking fountain is listed as Design Number 24 on Page 42 of the 1879 publication "An Illustrated book of Designs for Fountains and Vases, costing from £1 to £1200 manufactured by Andrew Handyside".
The price for this fountain is listed in April 1880 as between £18 0s 0d and £20 5s 0d depending what finish was applied (no finish, bronze/marble paint etc).
According to the drawing it’s 6 foot 7 inches from the base to the bottom of the lamp support and includes a [sic] animal drinking trough in the base. Looking at the photographs of this fountain in Eastbourne it would appear that the animal drinking troughs have been covered up at some point. 

Of course, now I’m considering a visit to Alum Chine beach to check the other drinking fountain for myself.

Eastbourne Pier: an obsession with gold paint

One thing I noticed when I visited Eastbourne Pier earlier this month was the amount of gold paint that had been splashed about rather liberally on various surfaces. The Pier was built in the late 1860s and I sincerely doubted that the Victorian constructors had painted any part of it such a golden colour. And, as the Pier is a grade II* listed building, it seemed odd to me that Historic England would have authorised the use of gold paint in any restoration work. 

When I looked back at photos I’d taken during my first visit to Eastbourne in 2014, I could see there was no gold paint anywhere. So, I delved a little deeper and discovered, on the National Pier Society website, the origin of the gold paint. In July 2016, ‘Historic England and the local council ordered Pier owner, Sheikh Abid Gulzar, to stop all work on it after he painted its cupola gold without permission’. Gulzar’s response? ‘For me it is a project of the heart. It was the most neglected pier in Britain but there has been a lot of work carried out. I am looking for the next generation to enjoy it. I am not scared to think outside the box. I’m not charging people. They are coming onto my investment free of charge’. 

Rather surprisingly, in September 2016, following a meeting between Gulzar, Historic England and local council officials, ‘the council’s planning officers recommended that the application be allowed provided no further parts of the pier were painted gold until consent had been given.’ Perhaps the deciding factor was the fact that Gulzar was paying for the repair and restoration of the Pier, rather than Historic England and Eastbourne Council. In March 2017, even more gold paint was permitted, after Gulzar ‘applied for planning permission to paint the remaining two domes in the middle of the pier gold to match the existing 13 domes.’ 

But what is this obsession with gold paint all about? It seemed to be a personal preference of Sheikh Abid Gulzar; the Pier is owned by Golden (Lions) Eastbourne Limited (‘Golden Lions’), of which Gulzar is the sole shareholder and director. And, according to an article on the Eastbourne.info website, Gulzar has long been known as ‘Mr Goldfinger’ in the local and national press. The article, which provides a summary of Gulzar’s life, continues rather scathingly:

The “Goldfinger” persona
Gulzar’s public image is a deliberate construction: gold-liveried cars (a custom gold Mercedes AMG, gold Teslas, a gold Rolls-Royce), outsize gold-and-diamond rings, dark blazers with bright red ties, and portraits of Margaret Thatcher in his offices. After buying Eastbourne Pier he extended the aesthetic to the building itself — gold paint on the Victorian ironwork, gilded lion statues, and “Sheikh’s Pier” branding.

By this stage I could see that the ostentatious Gulzar’s love of bling was the reason for the gold-painted domes and turrets, and the golden lions on Eastbourne Pier, but what about the gold hippo I spotted on the Pier? Surely that was someone’s attempt to mock Gulzar’s obsession? But no. I then found articles about Gulzar adding gold-painted hippopotami statuettes to Hastings Pier, which he also owns. Now that truly is bizarre, and I wasn’t at all surprised to read that some unknown person or persons were being sought by Hastings Police for throwing one of the hippos off the Pier.