This post focusses on assemblages ("still lives") of vascular plants, bryophytes, lichen, shingle, brick, mortar and concrete at Tide Mills, and how these assemblages resonate with the histories of those who lived at Tide Mills. After the still life photographs, there are photos of the individual species of plants, bryophytes and lichen in the still lives.
All cities are geological; you cannot take three steps without encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends. We move within a closed landscape whose landmarks constantly draw us toward the past. Certain shifting angles, certain receding perspectives, allow us to glimpse original conceptions of space, but this vision remains fragmentary. Ivan Chtcheglov, 1953, Formulary for a New Urbanism
Still life includes all kinds of man-made or natural objects, cut flowers, fruit, vegetables, fish, game, wine and so on. Still life can be a celebration of material pleasures such as food and wine, or often a warning of the ephemerality of these pleasures and of the brevity of human life. Still life | Tate
These six photographs are assemblages of growing or once growing things (vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens); the brick, mortar and concrete remains of the Chailey Heritage Marine Hospital, and the vegetated shingle of Tide Mills. These assemblages arise naturally, through the ways that these species have grown together; the tidal drift of the pebbles, and the erosion of the remains of the hospital. At the point at which an assemblage is photographed, it becomes not just nature, landscape and archaeology but also a cultural product; an ever changing landscapes is frozen in time. Elements live on in a photo as they were, when those elements have been changed by time, wind and sea.
What is included in these photograph, and what is excluded (cropped), is my choice and represents my visual sensibilities and my biological, historical and art historical interests and biases; these still lives are not impartial records of what is at, or was at, Tide Mills
The titles I have given these photographs are not inherent in the assemblages. I have named these still lives according to how these assemblages resonate to me, in relation to visual art and literature and the history of Tide Mills and the Chailey Heritage Maine Hospital. At the end of the post are the four paintings from which I have borrowed four of the titles.
Histories of Tide Mills and the Chailey Heritage Marine Hospital
A Tidal Mill was built at Tide Mills in 1761 but last worked in 1883, 137 years ago. It was demolished in 1901, but was outlived by the village that grew up around it. https://tidemillsproject.uk/explore/the-lost-village/#startscroll
In 1808 a man named William Catt took over Tide Mills and made it much bigger. He needed more workers so he created a village right by the mill for them to live in. William Catt lived in the biggest and grandest house in the village – Mill House. He traded coal as well as flour, but built a high wall around the coal yard to stop the villagers stealing. He built walls around the village and set curfews - the gates were locked every night at 10.10pm. On one occasion, some villagers arrived back 10 minutes late from the pub. He stopped their beer tokens and banned them from leaving the village for a month! https://tidemillsproject.uk/explore/the-lost-village/#williamcatt
In 1936 the Seaford council took action to declare part of Tide Mills, houses numbered 8 to 13, a clearance area within the meaning of the Housing Act 1930. The council seems to have been especially concerned about the alleged sanitary defects of these houses. Water came from a single standpipe shared by all six houses, general waste from the houses was removed and thrown into the sea, and each house had a small outside building containing an earth closet whose contents had to be emptied and carried to the sea. Tide Mills, East Sussex - Wikipedia
The founder of the Hospital [Chailey Heritage Marine Hospital] was Grace Kimmins, born in Lewes in 1870. She founded Chailey Heritage residential school in 1903 and the Tide Mills hospital was the school’s second residential site. It offered medical care, schooling and lots of fresh sea air to boys aged 5-16 with physical disabilities. They would be sent to the hospital as it was believed the sea air and water was a great healer – especially for anyone recovering from an operation https://tidemillsproject.uk/explore/chailey-heritage-marine-hospital/#startscroll
A suggested name for Grace Kimmins’ first charity was “The Public School of Crippledom" https://tidemillsproject.uk/explore/chailey-heritage-marine-hospital/#changingattitudes
The Hospital had five long wards and a well-equipped operating theatre, as well as a gym and workshops including a carpenters and shoemakers. Grace Kimmins believed the boys should be taught crafts and skills so they could get a job. The boys had their school lessons outside and at night, if the weather was good, they would sleep outside too – there were 100 beds outside in total! In the winter months, the hospital would have been freezing – there was no heating and the wind and rain would come into the rooms during the winter storms. https://tidemillsproject.uk/explore/chailey-heritage-marine-hospital/#lifeatthehospital
The patients from the hospital and the children from the village were not allowed to mix at all. But as all curious young people do – they found a way. “They were on crutches, see … and if we were not careful they would whip them across the back of our legs! The matron used to hate us village kids and would never let us within 100 yards of the place.” [Percy Thompson, villager]. Percy also remembers that the hospital would put on film shows for the children, but the ‘village kids’ were not allowed in. Instead, they resorted to clinging to the side of the building in all weathers to get a glimpse of the latest film. Mrs Powell, the Matron, always put a stop to this behaviour. https://tidemillsproject.uk/explore/chailey-heritage-marine-hospital/#lifeatthehospital
One of the nurses’ duties involved dipping the children into the sea using large net hammocks. However, they’d also have to empty the toilets into the sea at night as there was no running water or sewage connection at the hospital. https://tidemillsproject.uk/explore/chailey-heritage-marine-hospital/#nurses
The patients and nurses were forced to leave the hospital in 1939. The building was subsequently dismantled and relocated to Chailey in 1940 as the fear of an invasion grew during WW2. Today, the remains of the hospital and its concrete foundations can still be seen at the top of the beach. https://tidemillsproject.uk/explore/chailey-heritage-marine-hospital/#endofthehospital
Still Life with Fruit. (Caravaggio Still Life with Fruit , 1610)
Bittersweet flowers (purple) and berries (red).
Seed heads of Sea Mayweed.
Seed heads of Curled Dock.
Ringed by the flat horizon. (T. S. Elliott The Waste Land, line 369, 1922)
Cladonia rangiformis lichen.
Twisted moss.
Xanthoria calcicola lichen.
Sea Mayweed.
White Stonecrop.
Desolation. (Thomas Coke The Course of Empire 5: Desolation, 1836)
Sea Thrift (gone over)
Common Whitlow Grass (gone over)
Cladonia rangiformis
Orange Mullein (gone over)
Withered. (Van Gogh Four Withered Sunflowers, 1879)
Yellow Horned Poppy (gone over)
Sea Kale (gone over)
Even in Arcadia, there am I. (Nicolas Poussin Et in Arcadia ego, 1638)
Rock Samphire
Variospora flavescens lichen
Tephromela atra ("Black Eye") lichen
Brick, mortar and concrete (ruins of Chailey Heritage Marine Hospital).
Bent. (Alice Walker In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect.
Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful. )
Orange Mullein
Bank of dredging spoil, now vegetated.
Photographs of the individual species in the assemblages above.
Bittersweet and Sea Kale
Sea Mayweed
Curled Dock
Cladonia rangiformis
Twisted Moss
Xanthoria calciola
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White Stonecrop
Thrift
Common Whitlow Grass
Orange Mullein
Rock Samphire
Variospora flavescens
Tephromela atra
Yellow Horned Poppy
Caravaggio Still Life with Fruit 1610
Desolation. Thomas Coke The Course of Empire 5: Desolation, 1836
Withered. Van Gogh Four Withered Sunflowers, 1879
Nicolas Poussin Et in Arcadia ego, 1638
I reached Tide Mills by train from Brighton, getting off at Bishopstone, and walking 1K westward along vegetated shingle (trains every 30 minutes, journey time 40mins). I retuned to Brighton by 12 bus, from the Tide Mill bus stop, 500 m up from the beach (5-6 busses an hour; journey time ca. 55min)
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