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Jimmy Cauty's Aftermath Dislocation Principle (ADP) model village.
The Aftermath Dislocation Principle (ADP) is a trilogy of artworks by Jimmy Cauty on a nationwide tour across the UK.
Each artwork is a 1:87 scale model housed in a shipping container.
The models are viewed through observation ports in the sides of the containers.
ADP 1 is a 40ft container that houses a vast post-apocalyptic landscape populated only by the police and media crews. The landscape is set somewhere in Bedfordshire and is known as 'Old Bedford'.
Death Valley National Park Winter Fine Art Photos! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography
45EPIC Elliot McGucken Fine Art Nature and Landscape Photography!
Join my new 45EPIC fine art landscapes page on facebook!
Working on a couple photography books! 45EPIC GODDESS PHOTOGRAPHY: A classic guide to exalting the archetypal woman. And 45EPIC Fine Art Landscape Photography!
More on my golden ratio musings: facebook.com/goldennumberratio
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Greetings all! I have been busy finishing a few books on photography, while traveling all over--to Zion and the Sierras--shooting fall colors. Please see some here: facebook.com/mcgucken
Let me know in the comments if you would like a free review copy of one of my photography books! :)
Titles include:
The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching!
The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography
And I am also working on a book on photographing the goddesses! :) More goddesses soon!
Best wishes on your epic hero's odyssey!:)
Exalt in the glorious golden ratio! facebook.com/goldennumberratio
Zabriskie Point Sunrise Death Valley National Park California Desert Fuji GFX100 Fine Art Landscape Nature Photography! Dr. Elliot McGucken dx4/dt=ic California Fine Art Medium Format Photographer! Fuji GFX 100 & FUJIFILM FUJINON Lens!
All my photography celebrates the physics of light! The McGucken Principle of the fourth expanding dimension: The fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions: dx4/dt=ic .
Lao Tzu--The Tao: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Unifying Physical Reality of the Fourth Expanding Dimensionsion dx4/dt=ic !: geni.us/Fa1Q
"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." --John Muir
Epic Stoicism guides my fine art odyssey and photography: geni.us/epicstoicism
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” --John Muir
Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” --John Muir
Epic Art & 45EPIC Gear exalting golden ratio designs for your Hero's Odyssey:
Support epic fine art! 45surf ! Bitcoin: 1FMBZJeeHVMu35uegrYUfEkHfPj5pe9WNz
Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!
Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!
Some of my epic books, prints, & more!
Exalt your photography with Golden Ratio Compositions!
Golden Ratio Compositions & Secret Sacred Geometry for Photography, Fine Art, & Landscape Photographers: How to Exalt Art with Leonardo da Vinci's, Michelangelo's!
Epic Landscape Photography:
A Simple Guide to the Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography: Master Composition, Lenses, Camera Settings, Aperture, ISO, ... Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography)
All art is but imitation of nature.-- Seneca (Letters from a Stoic - Letter LXV: On the First Cause)
The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul. --Chrysippus (Quoted by Cicero in De Natura Deorum)
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. --To Autumn. by John Keats
45EPIC Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography! Zion Autmn Colors and Fall Foliage!
Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography!
Hiking the Zion Narrows and the Zion Subway! Shooting Paradise Cove and Archangel Falls! The Zion National Park autumn is most beautiful!
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Greetings flickr fans! Many more uploads soon! I have been busy writing, traveling, and shooting! I finished my books on the Tao of Epic Landscape Photography and the Golden Number Ratio Principle! I oft incorporate the golden ratio in my landscape compositions, and you'll also see it in the design and proportion of the 45surf clothes and surfboard and gun logos (More golden ratio information at my facebook page facebook.com/goldennumberratio). Message me on facebook for free review copies of my books here: facebook.com/mcgucken ! :)
I'm working on a book on photographing epic goddesses too! What should I title it? :)
facebook.com/goldennumberratio
Full titles: The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.
And: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography: An Artistic and Scientific Introduction to the Golden Mean !
I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them! :)
Enjoy the epic landscape and goddess and photography and note the golden ratio overlays in some of the photos, as well as the golden ratio in the Birth of Venus painting by Botticelli!
I've been on the road shooting landscapes in Zion, Yosemite, the Eastern Sierras, Big Sur, and more!
Many of you have seen my physics formula dx4/dt=ic for Light Time Dimension Theory on a lot of the 45surf clothing and in the fine art landscape logos. I finally finished the first book of many on the foundations of photography's best friend--light:
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
All the best on your epic hero's odyssey!
Follow me! instagram.com/mcgucken
Was so fortunate to be able to photograph the epic Zion glow this year in the Narows and Zion National Park!
Scully is happy as a happy cat, basking in the sunshine while I find something for the shot of the day, yesterday.
Reminds me of one of the poses the cartoon cat, Garfield, would be drawn in.
Mt. Rainier Skyline Wonderland Trail Colorful Lupine Wildflowers Mount Rainier National Park Washington State Wilderness Fine Art Landscape Photography Fuji GFX100s Pacific Northwest! Elliot McGucken Master Medium Format Fujifilm Fine Art Nature Photographer American West PNW Fujifilm GFX 100 s GF Lens!
Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Spacetime Sculpture dx4//dt=ic:
Epic Fine Art Photography Prints & Luxury Wall Art:
Support epic, stoic fine art: 45SURF 45EPIC Hero's Odyssey Gear!
Follow me on Instagram!
Facebook:
All my photography celebrates the physics of light! The McGucken Principle of the fourth expanding dimension: The fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions: dx4/dt=ic .
Lao Tzu--The Tao: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Unifying Physical Reality of the Fourth Expanding Dimensionsion dx4/dt=ic !: geni.us/Fa1Q
"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." --John Muir
Epic Stoicism guides my fine art odyssey and photography: geni.us/epicstoicism
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” --John Muir
Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” --John Muir
Epic Art & 45EPIC Gear exalting golden ratio designs for your Hero's Odyssey:
Support epic fine art! 45surf ! Bitcoin: 1FMBZJeeHVMu35uegrYUfEkHfPj5pe9WNz
Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!
Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!
Some of my epic books, prints, & more!
Exalt your photography with Golden Ratio Compositions!
Golden Ratio Compositions & Secret Sacred Geometry for Photography, Fine Art, & Landscape Photographers: How to Exalt Art with Leonardo da Vinci's, Michelangelo's!
Epic Landscape Photography:
A Simple Guide to the Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography: Master Composition, Lenses, Camera Settings, Aperture, ISO, ... Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography)
All art is but imitation of nature.-- Seneca (Letters from a Stoic - Letter LXV: On the First Cause)
The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul. --Chrysippus (Quoted by Cicero in De Natura Deorum)
Photographs available as epic fine art luxury prints. For prints and licensing information, please send me a flickr mail or contact drelliot@gmail.com with your queries! All the best on your Epic Hero's Odyssey!
Grey Wolf Winter Snow Sony A1 ILCE-1 Fine Art Gray Wolves Photography! Sony Alpha 1 & Sony FE Telephoto Zoom 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS! West Yellowstone Montana Elliot McGucken Fine Art Wildlife Photography Sony Alpha1 !
All my photography celebrates the physics of light! The McGucken Principle of the fourth expanding dimension: The fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions: dx4/dt=ic .
Lao Tzu--The Tao: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Unifying Physical Reality of the Fourth Expanding Dimensionsion dx4/dt=ic !: geni.us/Fa1Q
"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." --John Muir
Epic Stoicism guides my fine art odyssey and photography: geni.us/epicstoicism
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” --John Muir
Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” --John Muir
Epic Art & 45EPIC Gear exalting golden ratio designs for your Hero's Odyssey:
Support epic fine art! 45surf ! Bitcoin: 1FMBZJeeHVMu35uegrYUfEkHfPj5pe9WNz
Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!
Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!
Some of my epic books, prints, & more!
Exalt your photography with Golden Ratio Compositions!
Golden Ratio Compositions & Secret Sacred Geometry for Photography, Fine Art, & Landscape Photographers: How to Exalt Art with Leonardo da Vinci's, Michelangelo's!
Epic Landscape Photography:
A Simple Guide to the Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography: Master Composition, Lenses, Camera Settings, Aperture, ISO, ... Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography)
All art is but imitation of nature.-- Seneca (Letters from a Stoic - Letter LXV: On the First Cause)
The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul. --Chrysippus (Quoted by Cicero in De Natura Deorum)
Photographs available as epic fine art luxury prints. For prints and licensing information, please send me a flickr mail or contact drelliot@gmail.com with your queries! All the best on your Epic Hero's Odyssey!
Don't distract me honey, I'm having a good read!
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The Dilbert Principle is one of the funniest books ever written for people working at the office, and sadly enough it's all true.
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I started reading this classic back in 2009... and because I wanted to extend the joy of this book, I decided not to finish reading it directly, and put it on a shelve instead.
So now, 10 years later, I can continue enjoying the rest of the book.
Some books are not worth to consume in just one weekend, it doesn't do any harm to take your time for pleasure.
.
Day 3 of #timewillwaitchallenge to spoil yourself with something exclusively for yourself.
.
.
#AB_FAV_FESTIVE_🎄
I am always on the look-out for visually interesting props, this is obviously a set of fibre optic lights, consists of 6 balls which I arranged in different ways to get a pleasing composition.
The light-guiding principle behind optical fibres was first demonstrated in Victorian times when the total internal reflection principle was used to illuminate streams of water in elaborate public fountains, but modern optical fibres were only developed in the beginning of the 1950's.
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair.
Daniel Colladon and Jacques Babinet first demonstrated the guiding of light by refraction, the principle that makes fiber optics possible, in Paris in the early 1840s.
Now that we are back on Winter time, it is dark very early, the weather's gone bad, I've had plenty of time to think and be creative in the studio once more.
And we NEED light and joy more then ever!
I am enjoying the burst of creativity, I wish you all a day full of light and THANK you for your visit and comments, so appreciated, Magda (*_*)
For more: www.indigo2photography.com
IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN (BY LAW!!!) TO USE ANY OF MY image or TEXT on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
Fibre-optics, white, tips, lights, balls, six, triangle, shape, black-background, colour, design, studio, square, Hasselblad, "Magda indigo"
“Principle White of the All Girls School “Miss. Trans’s Sacred Academy” is clearly in no mood to be trifled with and has called for an assembly at 9:00. Uh oh! “ My predilection for suits extends beyond simply looking professional- this one is so matronly as to imply mid-western church attendance. Pink is the new black.
Lundy Canyon High Sierra California Fall Foliage Fuji GFX100 Fine Art Landscape Photography! Elliot McGucken Eastern Sierra Autumn Colors Aspens Fuji GFX 100 & Fujinon Glass dx4/dt=ic!
All my photography celebrates the physics of light! The McGucken Principle of the fourth expanding dimension: The fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions: dx4/dt=ic .
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Unifying Physical Reality of the Fourth Expanding Dimensionsion dx4/dt=ic !: geni.us/Fa1Q
Epic Art & 45EPIC Eagle Gear exalting golden ratio designs for your Hero's Odyssey -- 45SURF T-shirts & Hoodies & more:
"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." --John Muir
Epic Stoicism guides my fine art odyssey and photography: geni.us/epicstoicism
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” --John Muir
Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” --John Muir
Support epic fine art! 45surf ! Bitcoin: 1FMBZJeeHVMu35uegrYUfEkHfPj5pe9WNz
Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!
Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!
Some of my epic books, prints, & more!
Exalt your photography with Golden Ratio Compositions!
Golden Ratio Compositions & Secret Sacred Geometry for Photography, Fine Art, & Landscape Photographers: How to Exalt Art with Leonardo da Vinci's, Michelangelo's!
Epic Landscape Photography:
A Simple Guide to the Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography: Master Composition, Lenses, Camera Settings, Aperture, ISO, ... Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography)
All art is but imitation of nature.-- Seneca (Letters from a Stoic - Letter LXV: On the First Cause)
The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul. --Chrysippus (Quoted by Cicero in De Natura Deorum)
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. --To Autumn. by John Keats
Same principle, same mistakes, but sketching like this is great fun.The right bay is too low. The people in the foreground are too big.
45EPIC Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography! Zion Autmn Colors and Fall Foliage!
Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography!
Hiking the Zion Narrows and the Zion Subway! Shooting Paradise Cove and Archangel Falls! The Zion National Park autumn is most beautiful!
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Greetings flickr fans! Many more uploads soon! I have been busy writing, traveling, and shooting! I finished my books on the Tao of Epic Landscape Photography and the Golden Number Ratio Principle! I oft incorporate the golden ratio in my landscape compositions, and you'll also see it in the design and proportion of the 45surf clothes and surfboard and gun logos (More golden ratio information at my facebook page facebook.com/goldennumberratio). Message me on facebook for free review copies of my books here: facebook.com/mcgucken ! :)
I'm working on a book on photographing epic goddesses too! What should I title it? :)
facebook.com/goldennumberratio
Full titles: The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.
And: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography: An Artistic and Scientific Introduction to the Golden Mean !
I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them! :)
Enjoy the epic landscape and goddess and photography and note the golden ratio overlays in some of the photos, as well as the golden ratio in the Birth of Venus painting by Botticelli!
I've been on the road shooting landscapes in Zion, Yosemite, the Eastern Sierras, Big Sur, and more!
Many of you have seen my physics formula dx4/dt=ic for Light Time Dimension Theory on a lot of the 45surf clothing and in the fine art landscape logos. I finally finished the first book of many on the foundations of photography's best friend--light:
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
All the best on your epic hero's odyssey!
Follow me! instagram.com/mcgucken
Was so fortunate to be able to photograph the epic Zion glow this year in the Narows and Zion National Park!
The principle of the Ce-Matoran, Serenity stands for a lifestyle of peace and calm, not being influenced by negative emotions and having a clear unbiased view on the world. This principle has resulted in a quiet and almost silent lifestyle where the Ce-Matoran reserve their speech for prayers to the Great Spirit.
Serenity leads to the skill of Stealth, allowing one to pass nearly unnoticed. This skill allows the Ce-Matoran to walk in an almost unnoticable manner.
Arizona White Pocket Monsoon Season Sunset Breaking Storm Black Storm Clouds Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape Nature Photography
All my photography celebrates the physics of light! The McGucken Principle of the fourth expanding dimension: The fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions: dx4/dt=ic .
Lao Tzu--The Tao: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Unifying Physical Reality of the Fourth Expanding Dimensionsion dx4/dt=ic !: geni.us/Fa1Q
"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." --John Muir
Epic Stoicism guides my fine art odyssey and photography: geni.us/epicstoicism
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” --John Muir
Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” --John Muir
Epic Art & 45EPIC Gear exalting golden ratio designs for your Hero's Odyssey:
Support epic fine art! 45surf ! Bitcoin: 1FMBZJeeHVMu35uegrYUfEkHfPj5pe9WNz
Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!
Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!
Some of my epic books, prints, & more!
Exalt your photography with Golden Ratio Compositions!
Golden Ratio Compositions & Secret Sacred Geometry for Photography, Fine Art, & Landscape Photographers: How to Exalt Art with Leonardo da Vinci's, Michelangelo's!
Epic Landscape Photography:
A Simple Guide to the Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography: Master Composition, Lenses, Camera Settings, Aperture, ISO, ... Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography)
All art is but imitation of nature.-- Seneca (Letters from a Stoic - Letter LXV: On the First Cause)
The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul. --Chrysippus (Quoted by Cicero in De Natura Deorum)
Photographs available as epic fine art luxury prints. For prints and licensing information, please send me a flickr mail or contact drelliot@gmail.com with your queries! All the best on your Epic Hero's Odyssey!
In every spiritual tradition, we talk about basic elements that are material and energetic, but since we know that every manifested thing is a trinity of matter, energy, and Consciousness, then we have to understand that the basic elements are also elements of Consciousness, not just matter and energy. The four primary elements—air, fire, water, earth—make up everything that we are, on every level. The important question we need to answer practically in our lives is how the four elements relate to the fifth element. How are we working with the fifth element? That is what we talked about in the previous lecture. The fifth element, literally “the quintessence,” relates to the Akash, the ether. In Sanskrit terms, we can also say that it is Kundalini. It is the Prakriti, the root energy that in some religions is symbolized as the Divine Mother.. The Divine Mother is that creative force or intelligence in nature that gives life to everything. If we want spiritual life, we need to know our Divine Mother. Her active agent is the quintessence, which is an energy in us. We need that energy to be active, and right now it is not. In us, it is passive, latent, what in science we could call "static, non-kinetic energy." Aphrodite Urania, the pure light of the Divine Mother. The method to awaken that energy, to activate it, has been hidden in every religion and mystical tradition. In the West, it is most famously known in the tradition we call Alchemy. The entire tradition of Alchemy is a symbolic presentation of a practical science. Alchemy hides the knowledge of how to elaborate the full potential of the human being, which is hidden in all of our atoms and cells. To do that, we need to know about transmutation. The Divine Mother is the fire of the Tree of Life
This word transmutation gets utilized a lot in esoteric traditions, but it appears as if it utilized without much knowledge of what the word really means. So it is important that we analyze this word and understand what it means, where it comes from, and what it implies. The word transmutation came into use because of the tradition of Alchemy, and is derived from Latin roots. The implications of the word transmutation are far beyond what most esoteric traditions attribute to it. Trans means “thoroughly,” and mutare means “change.” To transmute means to completely change something. In the modern Gnostic movement, for example, most students use this word transmutation exclusively in relation to sexual energy, which is a valid use of the word, but it is not its full meaning and not its original use. The word transmutation originally applied to our entire being, to everything about us. Really, to transmute comes from that famous phrase from Alchemy, "to transmute lead into gold." It means to purge the lead, which is a dense, heavy, and impure metal, and reduce it into its quintessence—in other words, to reduce it to the most basic components that originally made it, and from that, to perfect it. Everything that exists is constructed out of the basic elements that we explained in the previous lecture. First is the Akash or ether, and that becomes particularized into air, fire, water, and earth. Those four basic elements, which are physical, energetic, and conscious, become everything that exists. Everything that we are is made of four elements arranged and particularized into particular sequences. Physically, we call this encoding DNA, which is not merely physical chemicals, but also encodes energetic and spiritual data, as combinations of elements. Those elements are physically sequenced in series combinations of molecules that are arranged in infinite combinations to create everything that we are. Those sequences of four are reflections of the four elements. Similarly, the four subtle elements are reflected in the four basic components of physical matter:“For the most comprehensive and lucid exposition of occult pneumatology (the branch of philosophy dealing with spiritual substances) extant, mankind is indebted to Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), prince of alchemists and Hermetic philosophers and true possessor of the Royal Secret (the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life). Paracelsus believed that each of the four primary elements known to the ancients (earth, fire, air, and water) consisted of a subtle, vaporous principle and a gross corporeal substance.“Air is, therefore, twofold in nature-tangible atmosphere and an intangible, volatile substratum which may be termed spiritual air. Fire is visible and invisible, discernible and indiscernible--a spiritual, ethereal flame manifesting through a material, substantial flame. Carrying the analogy further, water consists of a dense fluid and a potential essence of a fluidic nature. Earth has likewise two essential parts--the lower being fixed, terreous, immobile; the higher, rarefied, mobile, and virtual. The general term elements has been applied to the lower, or physical, phases of these four primary principles, and the name elemental essences to their corresponding invisible, spiritual constitutions. Minerals, plants, animals, and men live in a world composed of the gross side of these four elements, and from various combinations of them construct their living organisms.“Henry Drummond, in Natural Law in the Spiritual World, describes this process as follows: "If we analyse this material point at which all life starts, we shall find it to consist of a clear structureless, jelly-like substance resembling albumen or white of egg. It is made of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. Its name is protoplasm. And it is not only the structural unit with which all living bodies start in life, but with which they are subsequently built up. 'Protoplasm,' says Huxley, 'simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is the clay of the Potter.'"“The water element of the ancient philosophers has been metamorphosed into the hydrogen of modern science; the air has become oxygen; the fire, nitrogen; the earth, carbon.” - Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages For us to become something new, we need to unzip the sequence that makes who we are, and reconnect it in a superior way. But how are you going to disarrange everything about yourself, and rearrange it? Especially when you are the one trying to do it. Not easy! But this is what to "transmute" really means. It means “to thoroughly change.” Gnosis is a science of transmutation. Yes, it begins with sexual energy, that is the root energy that makes the full and complete transmutation possible, but we do not seek to only transmute sexual energy. We want to transmute all of our matter, all of our Consciousness, our psyche, our soul: everything. We want to thoroughly change: to transmute. Interestingly, the result of that transmutation is a mutant. A mutant is someone who is different, who is changed. This word “mutant” has a negative connotation nowadays, but in reality every existing creature is a mutation, a mutant. What we want is a conscious mutation, a change for the better. We want a change towards something beneficial and positive, something useful, something that will bring harmony and peace, not discord and violence. We want a change that will bring about goodness, equality, harmony, love. For that type of change, we need to thoroughly change the causes of discord, the causes of suffering, and those causes are within us, in our matter, our energy, and our Consciousness. A genuine transmutation requires that the causes or the origins of problems and pain, suffering, are changed thoroughly, so that new effects can emerge. That change is not easy. If you consider how anything in nature changes, fundamentally changes, its a process of birth, growth, decline, death, rebirth, growth, decline and death. This is how evolution advances, through small mutations over time. If you have ever studied biology or evolution, you can see that this is how species grow. They grow because of the pressures put on them by their environment. They change, and adapt, and hopefully improve. We need the same thing. Unfortunately, we are not responding properly to the pressures that are upon us. In response to the psychological, material, social, and physical pressures that are on us now, we are not mutating ourselves properly. If we were, we would be transcending the problems. We would be adapting and overcoming them so that they would not be problems anymore. Instead, we see that the problems are deepening, that we are not changing fast enough, and in the right way. We need to know how to do it, how to transmute. Samael Aun Weor said:“No one can Self-realize without transmutation.” - Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah .In this context, he was not talking about sexual transmutation, he was talking about transmutation of the psyche, the mind, the heart, and the body: to change thoroughly. Stated in another way, you can transmute your sexual energy, but if you do not transmute your mind, you will not self-realize. three-pillarsWhen we study the Tree of Life, our primary interest is how it applies to us here and now. The Tree of Life maps all of the levels of existence. But those levels of existence are meaningless if we cannot access them. Studying and memorizing scriptures and teachings mean nothing if we cannot experience what they point towards. We need to examine this Tree of Life in relation with ourselves, and understand that these ten sephiroth relate to levels of being within us. Here on this graphic we see not only our physical state but our psychological state, so on this image while we see a physical body to remind us that this relates to us here and now, really all these spheres or levels show our levels of psychology. Symbolized here are two divisions, two sides. The superior part is related to the heavens or superior aspects of being. The inferior part that hangs below is called Klipoth or hell, and this aspect relates to the inferior or inverted aspect of our psyche. Everything on this map is composed of elements: air, fire, water and earth. All of this is suspended in or supported by the Akash.
So in this context, if we use our imagination and we look at how this applies to us here and now, everything about us is encoded, in elements. Here physically, we can sense those physical aspects: our physical body is an encoded series of elements, which is reflected in our DNA. But as well, our entire psychological make up is encoded in us. Sadly, we only hazily perceive it. We hazily perceive it as thoughts and feelings, and certain types of sensations physically. But we do not perceive or comprehend that all of the thoughts, feelings, and impulses are driven by matter and energy that is not physical. This is a real problem that we have. Really, open up your imagination, and analyze yourself: look at how you have a physical body here and now. This body is composed of a trinity of elements: matter, energy, and Consciousness. The Consciousness here is not awake, it is very asleep, but there is some degree of Consciousness or perception. Thoughts, feelings, and other impulses are more subtle that physical matter, but still we can perceive that they have some level of manifestation. We can verify that they are there, somehow. They also have matter, energy, and Consciousness, but not in the physical dimension. Those thoughts that you sense, and the feelings that you sense, are modifications of Consciousness that have matter and energy associated with them, but not physically. What we experience physically is their reflection, like light being bounced through a mirror. We have the mirror of our mind, which reflects the contents of our thoughts and feelings, but where are the thoughts? Where are the feelings? They are not in the brain, because you can experience thoughts and feelings when you are out of your body. So where are they? This is the problem we have: we do not know. The problem is compounded because we need to change. Rapidly. Otherwise, we are threatened with grave problems, even worse problems then we have now. We need to transmute all of these psychological elements, very quickly. How, if we cannot see them? If we cannot sense them, how can we change them? How can you work in the dark? How can a blind person create a piece of art if he cannot even see what he is doing? This is our fundamental challenge. Psychologically, spiritually, we are blind. How then can we create a perfect soul, if we cannot see what we are doing? How can we transmute ourselves into something better, if we cannot even see who we really are? For this, we need help. We need to understand how these elements work, in all of the levels of nature. So to remind you, these are the five elements. Space
Air Fire Water Earth All things are composed by these elements; understanding that, we need to look at how those elements manifest in us. We need to analyze our psychology, to see it for what it is. Let me remind you of the previous lecture: these elements do not refer to the literal physical aspects, they are psychological. Expansiveness Mobility
Temperature Fluidity Solidity In order to transmute yourself, you need to know what you are working with, you need to see yourself, you need to see how your mind and heart functions, how all of the sensations you experience flow. You need to see what parts of your psyche are expansive, what is the relative mobility of your thinking and feeling, what about its temperature? Its fluidity and solidity? In this way, you can analyze the elements that are involved. You can understand how to manage the elements in your experiences, psychologically. As we explained in the previous lecture, we get help with that process through what we call ordeals, psychological challenges that are given by our own Innermost, through our psychological trainer, who presents us with scenarios designed to bring out those parts of ourselves that we need to work on. If we are not prepared to see it, we will respond poorly, the way that we have been doing previously, and we will make our situation worse. If we are not psychologically trained to watch ourselves and look for the patterns in our psychology, we will not see what is really happening to us, and we will make mistakes. When you enter into this type of work and the process of starting to transmute yourself, you are given challenges, opportunities to see yourself as you are, and those opportunities will come every day. If you are really attentive, you will find that those opportunities are continually arising, all the time. We do not call them opportunities physically, we call them adversities, problems, suffering. We have all of our complaints. We have an old psychological habit that is a very serious obstacle in this type of study, this type of work. That is the habit of self-esteem. Its an old habit that thinks we deserve things that we do not deserve, and that wants things to be ideal, the way that we want it, and we get very frustrated and upset when things do not go the way that we want or expect. I am curious: what percentage of people listening to the lecture today are very disappointed they did not win the lottery last night? I would like to find that out, but I do not think anyone would tell me.
We all have this self-esteem, and it is in direct conflict with the Innermost, with the Being, because this “self” of self-esteem is the ego. The Being wants the ego dead. Dead. Dissolved. Transmuted...But we do not want to transmute it. We want things the way we want them, and when we do not get things the way we want them, what do we do? We complain. We complain in our mind, and we complain with our mouth. Many of us complain all the time. That is a sign, a very significant sign, that we are not transmuting. Another word for transmutation is transformation. We use that in a very important phrase in this teaching: the transformation of impressions. Someone who is transforming impressions has serenity, acceptance. In other words, they have no complaints.
So if we have a lot of complaints, we need to analyze the desires that are complaining: the complaining pride, the lust, the envy, the greed, the gluttony, the fear, the avarice, the laziness, all of those egos. And we need to analyze them in relation with the elements: space, air, fire, water and earth, to understand how they are made, how they work, how they function. In this work, we need to learn to not just go with the flow of our psychological river, but to fight it. The psychological river of our mind is flowing into hell. It is not taking us to God. To reach God, divinity, purity, you have to fight against everything that comes up in yourself that is impure, that is selfish. That fight is not easy. four-ordeals
The four elements are the basic tools that our psychological trainer uses in order to show us ourselves, to show us what we're made of—literally, what we (as a psyche) are made of. Not physically, psychologically. The physical part is impermanent and irrelevant. Spiritually speaking, we have had so many physical bodies in the past and may have more in the future, thus in the long term perspective the physical part is not as important as the psychological part, because the psychological part lasts, and is the determining factor as to whether we get more physical bodies, and what kind, and in what circumstances. Focusing on physicality is foolish. Focusing on psychology is wise. In the psychological point of view, what are we made of? We are made of these elements in different combinations, but unfortunately corrupted with desire. In order to transmute these elements, we have to break them down. Imagine if you were a weaver and you got really drunk and wove something, using up all your good cloth, your good fibers and materials; then you sobered up and realized that what you wove was a complete disaster and wouldn't do anybody any good, in fact it was a waste of all that material, but it was the only material that you had, and you need clothes... What do you do? You have to take it apart. You have to go back to zero. You have to be naked, and start again. We need to do that psychologically; we need to strip our identity completely: this self-esteem has to die. We have to renounce everything except God. To only hold fast to divinity. Nothing else. This is the only way that you can fully and completely transmute. Remember: transmute means to throughly change—thoroughly, not partially. Thoroughly, from the ground up, from zero. It is the only way to build something properly. This is why that Jesus told us that we need a new wineskin. “No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was [taken] out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.” - Jesus, in Luke 5 We need a new garment. A new mind. A new heart. A new body. That transmutation comes through these elements, so we are tested, every day, constantly, by our trainer, through these elements, to pull things out psychologically so we will see them for what they are. This is not for fun or games or just to punish us and humiliate us, it is not to make us suffer, just because we deserve it. It is to help us. It is the medicine we need; we are sick. To be healed, we need a very profound surgery, very deep, very painful. It is not easy. It is not easy to die psychologically. It is not pleasant. It is not something that you will enjoy. You will be in pain. You will cry. You will have regret. You will have remorse. You will be ashamed of yourself. And you should be. Don't avoid it. Embrace it, yet do not attach to it. Look squarely at the facts, accept them, and change. This is how you become spiritually mature. You do not avoid the facts. You look them in the face, you see them for what they are, and you change them. Thoroughly. When you are getting your psychological challenges every day, look them square in the face, accept them, accept responsibility for yourself, do not blame others, do not blame God, accept it, look at it and say, "I deserve this, I created this, now I'm going to change it". This is what a Master comes from. Everybody wonders, "How do the Masters become so beautiful? How do they become so humble, so pure?"... because they are honest. That is how. Because they are honest. They do not avoid the facts. They work hard to change, to become worthy of reflecting God.
The way that this is done is through this fifth element. Everything that we are is constructed of these basic elements. So our pride for example is constructed of the four elements. The humility of an angel is constructed from the same elements that your pride is made from. Isn't that odd? Its constructed of the same light, but arranged differently. The “pride” of an angel—that element, that light, that has to do with virtue of esteem or self nature—is not corrupted by desire, whereas ours is corrupted. What we call “pride” is a modified light that comes from the sun. It is the same light that shines in an angel, but in an angel it shines as humility. Its the same light, but in us, it is modified, corrupted. What shines in that psychological component is the quintessence. But in us, it is impure. In an angel, in a master, it is pure. The word quintessence comes from a root word which means: "To be":
esse "to be." Sanskrit asmi, Hittite eimi, O.C.S. jesmi, Lith. esmi, Goth. imi, O.E. eom "I am"The quintessence hidden in each element within us is the Being, the light of the Being, that shines through any psychological element. Everything that we are as a psyche is the light of the Being, but in us that light is trapped in corruption. If you want that light to shine pure, you need to break apart the lens and reform it to make it perfect, clean. This is the basic science of Alchemy: to purge the metals and make them pure. We could remove the word metals and instead use crystals or lenses, and it would mean the same thing. The quintessence is that light, what in Hebrew is called Shekinah, the light of the Divine Mother. That light shines through everything that we are, psychologically and physically. It shines as all of those elements arranged in all of those different patterns that make up all of the different people and things and plants and animals and minerals and everything that exist; everything is that light, but modified. What we are as a person is a huge complication of all those lights. “And אלהים Elohim said, Let there be מארת ma'owroth [lights] in the firmament of שמים shamayim to divide the day from ליל layil [night]. And let them be מאורת ma'owroth in the firmament of שמים shamayim to give איר owr [light] upon ארץ erets [the earth]...” - Genesis 1:15 We do not see the lights for what they are. We need to analyze ourselves physically, energetically, emotionally, intellectually, and consciously.
This graphic shows the basic psyche that we can perceive here and now, if we look. All of the psychological elements that we can perceive here and now are related to other forms of matter. Physically, we perceive our physical body. If you pay attention, you will recognize that this physical body has energy that allows it to be active and move, the energy of digestion and the circulation of blood, and the energy that flows through the muscles, in the senses and nerves. five-bodies. We also have energy that flows through the psyche, that let us us have imagination and memory and thought, feeling. All of those energies are related with the vital body, what in the Tree of Life is called Yesod (“foundation”). The vital body reflects the contents of thought, emotion, and will into the physical body. Everything we perceive physically is reflected, either through the five physical senses, or through the internal senses that we perceive inside. The vital body reflects those contents into our brain, into our heart. This is important to understand so that we have a clear perspective on how to analyze ourselves. When we are feeling emotions, those emotions do not originate in the physical body. They are not just imaginary. They are reflected forms of light. They are light that we feel and sense emotionally in the physical body, but is being reflected to the physical body from our Astral body, through the vital body. The light of emotion originates in the Astral body. That means that if we are feeling a negative emotion, full comprehension and elimination of that defect is only possible by working on it at that level, with the Astral body in the fifth dimension, where its originating. But how many of us have clairvoyance? How many of us are awake in the astral plane, in the fifth dimension, to work on that discursive negative emotion? None of us, we are asleep! Moreover, when we sleep at night and we are dreaming with those emotions, we do not remember them when we come back to our body. So our trainer has no choice but to give us ordeals in the physical world so that we can see and experience what is happening in that Astral body, so that it is reflected here physically, so that it can come up and we will work on it. Internally, consciously, we are asleep and enslaved, so to help us, our trainer gives us ordeals. Our trainer puts us in circumstances where we feel those emotions, so that our Consciousness, our willpower, can see it, and can respond consciously, not mechanically, but can comprehend and free itself. This is why we have ordeals. We need them. Do not complain about your problems. Learn from them. They are your path to liberation. In several places of the Bible it states very clearly: “For whom יהוה loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son [in whom] he delighteth.” - Proverbs 3:12 The chastisement or ordeals are given as help to help us and aid us, otherwise we will not see who we are, and what is stopping us from reaching God. So this applies to all of our emotions, all of our thoughts, all of our problems, all of our situations, all of our circumstances, everything thats bothering us or that we think is limiting us, or is a problem for us, is actually something that we need to take advantage of. That is why Samael Aun Weor said: “We must learn how to take advantage of the worst adversities. The worst adversities bring us the best opportunities. We must learn to smile before all adversities.” “People protest because of the difficulties that interaction offers them. They do not want to realize that those difficulties are precisely providing them with the necessary opportunities for the dissolution of their “I.” So why are all the spiritual students, including the so-called Gnostics , looking for easy lives? Students are trying to win the lottery, longing to retire in the countryside and grow sunflowers, longing to retreat from their problems. Listen: if you have an easy, laid back life, you will stagnate spiritually. You will rot. If you want to grow spiritually, you need to die psychologically. The only way you will do that is by seeing the garbage in your mind and in your heart. That is why we are given ordeals. “During times of rigorous temptations [ordeals], discouragement and desolation, one must appeal to the intimate Remembering of the Self.“Deep within each one of us is the Aztec Tonantzin, Stella Maris, the Egyptian Isis, God the Mother, waiting for us in order to heal our painful heart.“When one gives to oneself the shock of “Self-remembering,” then indeed, a miraculous change [transmutation] in the entire work of the body is produced, so that the cells receive a different nourishment.” - Samael Aun Weor. That is why Samael said:“We can disintegrate our defects and dissolve the psychological “I” only by means of this science of transmutations. We can modify our errors, transmute the vile metals into pure gold and command only by means of the science of transmutations.” - Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah. In The Gnostic Bible, The Pistis Sophia Unveiled, he said: “It is possible to crystallize the Soul within ourselves by dissolving the animal ego.“We need to dissolve the undesirable psychological elements in order to crystallize the Soul within ourselves.
“We must convert ourselves into pure Soul. With patience you will possess your Soul.“This is possible based on conscious work and voluntary sufferings. “The Souls of the people reside in a superior level of the Being.“The Soul is the conjunction of all the forces, powers, virtues, essences, etc., that crystallize within us when the entire animal ego has been dissolved.
“Each time that a psychological defect is dissolved, a virtue, a power, etc., crystallizes within our interior. “The complete dissolution of all the defects implies the integral crystallization of the Soul within ourselves. “If the water does not boil at one hundred degrees, that which must be crystallized does not crystallize, and that which must be dissolved is not dissolved.
“In similar form, we say that it is necessary to pass through great emotional crisis in order to dissolve psychological defects and crystallize the Soul.” Firstly, this is accomplished based on conscious work and voluntary suffering. Voluntary suffering means that we accept our suffering, we do not fight it, in the sense of resisting it or denying it or trying to change our physical circumstances all of the time. Instead we accept it, we do what we need to do in order to survive, and care for our responsibilities, and that's enough. The rest of our effort should be focused on changing ourselves. The soul is the conjunction of all the powers, virtues, etc., and they crystalize within us when the animal ego has been dissolved: that is transmutation. Each construction in the psyche is made of the elements. We dissolve each ego in order to liberate the light in each of the elements that are there, then automatically, spontaneously, the light emerges as the soul. In other words, the quintessence is freed. From there is a great range of potential. What happens with that energy next depends on the nature of our path. But whatever the nature of that path, it will be positive, since the light has been liberated. The other important point here is “if the water does not boil at one hundred degrees, that which must be crystalized does not crystalize, and that which must dissolve does not dissolve.” What is that water? Water is one of the elements. Where is the water in us? What water is it that must boil? Anybody know? Well, this is a sort of trick question, because everything about us is based on water. There is no exception. In the Hebrew letters are the three mother letters that we mentioned previously. mother-letters-three-brains..The element of water is represented by the letter Mem. The element water and the letter Mem are related with the vital body. That is the lower Eden or Mayim in the book of Genesis. “And אלהים Elohiym said, Let the מים mayim (waters) under שמים shamayim be gathered together unto one place…” - Genesis 1:9 yesod-body-croppedThe sephirah Yesod, the ninth sphere, is our creative waters, from which we create everything, physically, spiritually, psychologically. Those are our creative waters, the waters of Genesis within us. From Yesod, the sexual organs, was made our earth, our physical body. “And אלהים Elohiym said, Let the מים mayim (waters) under שמים shamayim be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so. And אלהים Elohiym called the dry [land] ארץ 'erets [earth, our body]; and the gathering together of the waters called he ים yam [seas]…” - Genesis 1:9-10 The physical body is mostly water. Without it we cannot live. The emotional body (Astral body) is very strongly influenced by water. Our emotions are a sea. The Mental body also is constructed with the element of water. The Causal body is made from the waters. Water is in everything. Everything that exists depends on water. Physically, energetically and consciously. So when the water must boil, that means that our entire psyche must boil. What is the boiling? The problems, difficulties. When you study how physics works, when you study how nature works, you find that crystallization and dissolution are very closely related. The entire science of Alchemy is based upon this understanding. This is why if you study any of the old alchemical texts, they always talk about the need to dissolve and coagulate or crystalize. The entire science of Alchemy is based upon that. One short example is from the Bosom Book of George Ripley (circa 1476): “Then mingle with this white calx [dusty residue remaining after a mineral or metal has been calcined or roasted] the fiery water [שמים shamayim], and distil it with a strong fire all off as before, and calcine the earth [ארץ 'erets] again that remaineth in the bottom of the still, and then distil it again with a strong fire as before, and again calcine it, and thus distil and calcine it seven times, until all the substance of the calx be lifted up by the limbec: and then thou hast the water [מים mayim] of life rectified and made indeed spiritual; and so hast thou the four elements exalted in the virtue of their quintessence. This water will dissolve all bodies, and putrefy them, and purge them: and this is our Mercury and our Lunary; and whosoever thinketh there is any other water than this is an ignorant and a fool, and shall never be able to come to the effect.”This is only one example of hundreds of writings like it. This excerpt explains that the process of purification and the elaboration of the quintessence is a process of dissolution and crystallization.
For centuries, foolish people lacking initiation into the actual science read these things literally and thought they were talking about literal water, literal physical mercury, literal physical elements. That is wrong. These scriptures are about the psyche, the mind. The dissolution is psychological, and it is accomplished through ordeals, through analyzing and dissolving impurities in the mind. Symbolically, we analyze the elements of the mind as having seven fundamental qualities, related to the seven lights that organize all things.
gnosticteachings.org/courses/alchemy/3076-transmutation.html
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The importance of defending airfields against attack was realised before the outbreak of World War II and a strategy evolved as the war went on. Initially based on the principle of defence against air attack, anti-aircraft guns, air raid shelters and dispersed layouts, with fighter or `blast' pens to protect dispersed aircraft, are characteristics of this early phase. With time, however, the capture of the airfield became a more significant threat, and it was in this phase that the majority of surviving defence structures were constructed, mostly in the form of pillboxes and other types of machine gun post. The scale of airfield defence depended on the likelihood of attack, with those airfields in south or east England, and those close to navigable rivers, ports and dockyards being more heavily defended. But the types of structure used were fairly standard. For defence against air attack there were anti-aircraft gun positions, either small machine gun posts or more substantial towers for Bofors guns; air raid shelters were common, with many examples on each airfield; and for aircraft, widely dispersed to reduce the potential effects of attack, fighter pens were provided. These were groups together, usually in threes, and took the form of `E' shaped earthworks with shelter for ground crew. Night fighter stations also had sleep shelters where the crew could rest. For defence against capture, pillboxes were provided. These fortified gun positions took many forms, from standard ministry designs used throughout Britain and in all contexts, to designs specifically for airfield defence. Three Pickett-Hamilton forts were issued to many airfields and located on the flying field itself. Normally level with the ground, these forts were occupied by two persons who entered through the roof before raising the structure by a pneumatic mechanism to bring fire on the invading force. Other types of gun position include the Seagull trench, a complex linear defensive position, and rounded `Mushroom' pillboxes, while fighter pens were often protected by defended walls. Finally, airfield defence was co-ordinated from a Battle Headquarters, a heavily built structure of which under and above ground examples are known. Defences survive on a number of airfields, though few in anything like the original form or configuration, or with their Battle Headquarters. Examples are considered to be of particular importance where the defence provision is near complete, or where a portion of the airfield represents the nature of airfield defence that existed more widely across the site. Surviving structures will often be given coherence and context by surviving lengths of perimeter track and the concrete dispersal pads. In addition, some types of defence structure are rare survivals nationally, and all examples of Pickett- Hamilton forts, fighter pens and their associated sleep shelters, gun positions and Battle Headquarters closely associated with defence structures, are of national importance.
Despite the loss of parts of West Malling airfield to modern development, elements of its World War II defences survive well and represent a range of structures originally present. The Pickett-Hamilton fort is a well-preserved example of a rare form of gun emplacement, 242 of which were installed on 82 airfields in 1940-41 by a commercial construction company. The structure remains substantially unchanged and still retains all the principal elements of its original design, including its operating equipment. Its use in this location illustrates the often unique character of airfield structures, in this case specifically designed for the defence of the flying field. The anti-aircraft defences at West Malling are also notable for the survival of a Bofors Light Anti-aircraft gun tower at the north western corner of the former airfield, one of only three examples recorded on airfields nationally (the other two survive at Brooklands and Weston-super-Mare). As such, it is an important historic structure, serving as a physical record of similar emplacements which have been demolished elsewhere. The Type 24 irregular hexagonal pillbox is the most common form of pillbox built between 1939 and 1941. Pillboxes are especially representative of World War II defence structures and its association with the adjacent airfield adds to the significance of the structure. The pillbox, located on the southern side of West Malling airfield survives comparatively well. Its presence, as well as the strengthening of its walls in concrete, illustrates the perceived vulnerability of the airfield to attack by heavy German artillery. The importance of the surviving defence structures at West Malling is further enhanced by the overall significance of the airfield itself and the necessity to safeguard crucial elements in the defence of Britain against the threat of invasion during the greatest conflict of the 20th century.
Details
The monument, which falls into three separate areas, includes a Bofors Light Anti-aircraft gun tower, a Pickett-Hamilton fort and a Type 24 pillbox. These structures formed part of the World War II defences of West Malling airfield, situated at Kings Hill, on top of the Greensand ridge, about 5km west of Maidstone. West Malling opened in 1930 as a private airfield for the Maidstone School of Flying, and was subsequently registered as Maidstone airport two years later. With the outbreak of World War II the airfield, which fell within Fighter Command's strategically important 11 Group (that part of Fighter Command covering the south east of England), was requisitioned by the RAF and soon re-opened as a front line fighter station in June 1940, and a satellite airfield to Biggin Hill, the principal fighter station in the area. A series of German bombing raids in August 1940 rendered the airfield unserviceable during the Battle of Britain, although it became a leading night fighter station the following year and played a key role in the 1944 campaign, code named Operation Diver, to defend the South East against the V1 flying bomb. With the end of the war West Malling became the main rehabilitation centre for prisoners of war returning from Germany. By this time its former grass runways, reinforced with Somerfield track (a heavy steel netting), had been replaced in concrete to meet the needs of the new jet aircraft. After the war the airfield was used for peacetime training, and during the 1960s the station was placed on `care and maintenance' by the RAF. The site was acquired by Kent County Council in 1970 and many of the airfield buildings are now used as offices by Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council. Since the 1990s, parts of the airfield have been lost to modern development. With the deepening threat of German invasion, the defence of Britain's airfields became a high priority during 1940. Fear of German `blitzkrieg' or `lightening' war tactics (involving rapid assault by air and seaborne troops, as witnessed in Europe in the Spring of 1940), led to the implementation of a national strategy for the defence of airfields in September 1940. West Malling was identified as one of 149 important airfields, located within 20 miles of vulnerable ports which could be targets for seaborne landings. Heavy defence of these airfields was therefore crucial to prevent capture of strategic landing grounds by enemy paratroops or gliderborne forces, rapidly followed by the arrival of transport aircraft carrying the principal invasion force. By the end of 1940, three Pickett-Hamilton forts had been installed at West Malling. These structures were designed in June 1940 by the New Kent Construction Company, specifically for the close defence of airfield runways. One of these forts was located towards the northern end of the flying field and survives next to what is now a modern access track. The structure consists of two, vertically sunken concrete cylinders, one mounted inside the other. The inner cylinder, known as the lifting head, remains in its lowered position, flush with the ground surface. The lifting head, pierced with three apertures for its main Vickers or Bren gun, was designed to be raised to its firing position by means of a pneumatic jack, supplemented by a manual pump for emergency use. The fort retains most of its original features, including its internal operating equipment as well as the access hatch in the lid of the lifting head through which the crew of two men entered at ground level. The second fort was removed from the airfield in 1983, and survives on display at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford. The location of the third fort has not yet been identified. Adjacent to the southern perimeter track at West Malling is a Type 24 hexagonal pillbox which originally formed part of an inner and outer series of about 20-30 pillboxes. The small squat structure measures about 6m by 5.5m and is entered through a doorway on its longer eastern side. The entrance is protected by a low externally attached brick wall, and is flanked by one of two loopholes, the second of which is located in the opposite wall of the pillbox. In accordance with orders issued in 1941, the walls of the original brick built structure were thickened by the external application of reinforced concrete, and evidence suggests that at least two additional loopholes were also blocked at this time. These measures were intended to strengthen pillboxes at vulnerable locations against heavy German artillery. The presence of a recess in the edge of the roof above each opening suggests that further protection for the gun crew may have been provided in the form of shields, designed to deflect flame-throwers. A rare surviving example of a Bofors Light Anti-aircraft gun tower also survives close to a modern roundabout, at the north western approach to the airfield. The concrete and brick built tower appears to conform to type `DFW 55087', which was designed at the end of 1939, with the earliest examples constructed during the first half of 1940. The tower was designed to raise a 40mm Bofors gun and its operational equipment, above surrounding obstacles in order to achieve an all-round field of fire in defending the airfield from attack by fast moving, low flying enemy aircraft. The tower stands to a height of about 20m and consists of two parallel, independent structures, separated for much of their height by a 1m gap and linked at intervals by cantilevered concrete bridges to allow movement between the towers. At ground level, the gap functioned as a passageway, providing access to the chambers on either side. The combined structure measures 9m from north to south by 4m east to west and each tower was constructed on four levels: three internal levels contained the magazine and accommodation chambers, lit by vertical two-light windows. The emplacement was located on the flat concrete roof, which projects beyond the brick walls of the tower and was reached via a ladder from the chamber below. The ordnance was centrally mounted on the roof of the northern tower and was served by ammunition lockers at each corner of the roof space. The roof of the southern tower supported the target predictor and was separated from the gun platform by a narrow intervening gap, above the passage below, to insulate this sensitive equipment from the vibration of the Bofors gun. Several temporary station buildings survive around the airfield perimeter. These derelict structures include externally rendered, temporary brick buildings, dispersed from the main technical site in anticipation of concentrated bombing raids. These structures are not included in the current scheduling. Among the more architecturally sophisticated airfield buildings, the Neo-Georgian style Officers' Mess is Listed Grade II. Several semi-sunken Stanton air raid shelters survive, in buried form, near the barrack buildings. These are infilled and are not therefore included in the scheduling. Other structures associated with the defence of the airfield, such as the battle headquarters and the protected aircraft dispersal pens, were destroyed towards the end of the 20th century, although further, as yet unidentified elements may survive beyond the area of the monument. All modern fixtures and fittings associated with the Bofors tower, including modern doors and window boxes, and all modern materials and equipment stored within the tower are excluded from the scheduling; the ground beneath these features, or the structures to which they are attached, however, is included.
MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
Kanso: The principle of simplicity, clarity, and cleanliness.
A couple hold hands on the promenade in Oostende.
Kanso is a Japanese aesthetic concept that emphasises simplicity and minimalism. Kanso is closely related to other Japanese aesthetic concepts such as shibui, wabi-sabi, and iki. It is an aesthetic that values clarity, cleanliness, and unclutteredness. It seeks to communicate the essence of an object or a scene through its essential form.
I wrote a blog about applying nine Japanese aesthetic principles to photography here: paulindigo.blogspot.com/2023/03/embracing-japanese-aesthe...
Last but not least, down in Hernando the progress on our new Prefinciple Toyota dealership has really come along! Construction crews have been busy working on this for months, and this view – from October 13th, 2019 – shows the traditional Toyota façade taking shape. Interestingly, the façade here doesn’t face the street (to the left of the frame) or the interstate (to the right) – instead, it faces due north. Guess that allows it to be seen from both the street and the interstate, although I’m not sure it will get them much interstate traffic since drivers will have already passed the Hernando exit by the time they see the building, haha!
The rest of the building has been taking shape in all-brick so far from what I’ve seen, in accordance with Hernando’s building codes, although the brick has been painted gray. Job listings have started to be posted online, so I bet they’ll open early next year. Per this article, they intended to open by the end of 2019, so that’s not too far off. The article also notes that the new Hernando dealership will serve as a relocation of Principle’s existing Clarksdale facility.
That’s it for today; more photos Saturday, of course, and in the meantime, here’s some music for ya!
1. Mississippi Moonshine – Saving Abel
2. Substitute – The Who
3. Holding on to Heaven – Nickelback
4. After All – Seven Circle Sunrise
5. Life Starts Now – Three Days Grace
6. So Long June – Cold
7. Manhattan – Kings of Leon
8. Paralyzer – Finger Eleven 🔥
9. Bullet Soul – Switchfoot
10. Heavy Metal – Sammy Hagar
11. The Final Countdown – Europe
12. Blue Monday – HEALTH 🔥
13. I Will Follow – U2
14. Roll to Me – Del Amitri
15. Stayin’ Alive – Bee Gees
16. Broken Bones – Kaleo
17. Blockades – Muse
18. The Joker – Steve Miller Band
(c) 2019 Retail Retell
These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)
In principle, I really like the colour rendering in this one.
But the colour shift is also there - along the top and the bottom. And the blotches and wiggly wormlets (what the hell are they???) are there too, though here you see tjem only at the second glance.
Camera: Leica R7 (10068), made in 1996
Lens: Leitz Summilux-R 50 mm 2nd model (11776)
Cinestill Daylight 50 colour negative film (expired in April 2019)
Developed and scanned by www.meinfilmlab.de
45EPIC Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography! Zion Autmn Colors and Fall Foliage!
Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography!
Hiking the Zion Narrows and the Zion Subway! Shooting Paradise Cove and Archangel Falls! The Zion National Park autumn is most beautiful!
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Greetings flickr fans! Many more uploads soon! I have been busy writing, traveling, and shooting! I finished my books on the Tao of Epic Landscape Photography and the Golden Number Ratio Principle! I oft incorporate the golden ratio in my landscape compositions, and you'll also see it in the design and proportion of the 45surf clothes and surfboard and gun logos (More golden ratio information at my facebook page facebook.com/goldennumberratio). Message me on facebook for free review copies of my books here: facebook.com/mcgucken ! :)
I'm working on a book on photographing epic goddesses too! What should I title it? :)
facebook.com/goldennumberratio
Full titles: The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.
And: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography: An Artistic and Scientific Introduction to the Golden Mean !
I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them! :)
Enjoy the epic landscape and goddess and photography and note the golden ratio overlays in some of the photos, as well as the golden ratio in the Birth of Venus painting by Botticelli!
I've been on the road shooting landscapes in Zion, Yosemite, the Eastern Sierras, Big Sur, and more!
Many of you have seen my physics formula dx4/dt=ic for Light Time Dimension Theory on a lot of the 45surf clothing and in the fine art landscape logos. I finally finished the first book of many on the foundations of photography's best friend--light:
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
All the best on your epic hero's odyssey!
Follow me! instagram.com/mcgucken
Was so fortunate to be able to photograph the epic Zion glow this year in the Narows and Zion National Park!
Giant Montana Grizzly Bear Winter Snow Ursus Arctos Horribilis Sony A7R4 & Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS Lens Wildlife Photography Grizly Bears! West Yellowstone Montana Dr. Elliot McGucken 45EPIC Fine Art Nature Wildlife Photographer !
All my photography celebrates the physics of light! The McGucken Principle of the fourth expanding dimension: The fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions: dx4/dt=ic .
Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Spacetime Sculpture dx4/dt=ic:
Epic Fine Art Photography Prints & Luxury Wall Art:
Lao Tzu--The Tao: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Unifying Physical Reality of the Fourth Expanding Dimensionsion dx4/dt=ic !: geni.us/Fa1Q
"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." --John Muir
Epic Stoicism guides my fine art odyssey and photography: geni.us/epicstoicism
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” --John Muir
Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” --John Muir
Epic Art & 45EPIC Gear exalting golden ratio designs for your Hero's Odyssey:
Support epic fine art! 45surf ! Bitcoin: 1FMBZJeeHVMu35uegrYUfEkHfPj5pe9WNz
Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!
Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!
Some of my epic books, prints, & more!
Exalt your photography with Golden Ratio Compositions!
Golden Ratio Compositions & Secret Sacred Geometry for Photography, Fine Art, & Landscape Photographers: How to Exalt Art with Leonardo da Vinci's, Michelangelo's!
Epic Landscape Photography:
A Simple Guide to the Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography: Master Composition, Lenses, Camera Settings, Aperture, ISO, ... Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography)
All art is but imitation of nature.-- Seneca (Letters from a Stoic - Letter LXV: On the First Cause)
The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul. --Chrysippus (Quoted by Cicero in De Natura Deorum)
Photographs available as epic fine art luxury prints. For prints and licensing information, please send me a flickr mail or contact drelliot@gmail.com with your queries! All the best on your Epic Hero's Odyssey!
The importance of defending airfields against attack was realised before the outbreak of World War II and a strategy evolved as the war went on. Initially based on the principle of defence against air attack, anti-aircraft guns, air raid shelters and dispersed layouts, with fighter or `blast' pens to protect dispersed aircraft, are characteristics of this early phase. With time, however, the capture of the airfield became a more significant threat, and it was in this phase that the majority of surviving defence structures were constructed, mostly in the form of pillboxes and other types of machine gun post. The scale of airfield defence depended on the likelihood of attack, with those airfields in south or east England, and those close to navigable rivers, ports and dockyards being more heavily defended. But the types of structure used were fairly standard. For defence against air attack there were anti-aircraft gun positions, either small machine gun posts or more substantial towers for Bofors guns; air raid shelters were common, with many examples on each airfield; and for aircraft, widely dispersed to reduce the potential effects of attack, fighter pens were provided. These were groups together, usually in threes, and took the form of `E' shaped earthworks with shelter for ground crew. Night fighter stations also had sleep shelters where the crew could rest. For defence against capture, pillboxes were provided. These fortified gun positions took many forms, from standard ministry designs used throughout Britain and in all contexts, to designs specifically for airfield defence. Three Pickett-Hamilton forts were issued to many airfields and located on the flying field itself. Normally level with the ground, these forts were occupied by two persons who entered through the roof before raising the structure by a pneumatic mechanism to bring fire on the invading force. Other types of gun position include the Seagull trench, a complex linear defensive position, and rounded `Mushroom' pillboxes, while fighter pens were often protected by defended walls. Finally, airfield defence was co-ordinated from a Battle Headquarters, a heavily built structure of which under and above ground examples are known. Defences survive on a number of airfields, though few in anything like the original form or configuration, or with their Battle Headquarters. Examples are considered to be of particular importance where the defence provision is near complete, or where a portion of the airfield represents the nature of airfield defence that existed more widely across the site. Surviving structures will often be given coherence and context by surviving lengths of perimeter track and the concrete dispersal pads. In addition, some types of defence structure are rare survivals nationally, and all examples of Pickett- Hamilton forts, fighter pens and their associated sleep shelters, gun positions and Battle Headquarters closely associated with defence structures, are of national importance.
Despite the loss of parts of West Malling airfield to modern development, elements of its World War II defences survive well and represent a range of structures originally present. The Pickett-Hamilton fort is a well-preserved example of a rare form of gun emplacement, 242 of which were installed on 82 airfields in 1940-41 by a commercial construction company. The structure remains substantially unchanged and still retains all the principal elements of its original design, including its operating equipment. Its use in this location illustrates the often unique character of airfield structures, in this case specifically designed for the defence of the flying field. The anti-aircraft defences at West Malling are also notable for the survival of a Bofors Light Anti-aircraft gun tower at the north western corner of the former airfield, one of only three examples recorded on airfields nationally (the other two survive at Brooklands and Weston-super-Mare). As such, it is an important historic structure, serving as a physical record of similar emplacements which have been demolished elsewhere. The Type 24 irregular hexagonal pillbox is the most common form of pillbox built between 1939 and 1941. Pillboxes are especially representative of World War II defence structures and its association with the adjacent airfield adds to the significance of the structure. The pillbox, located on the southern side of West Malling airfield survives comparatively well. Its presence, as well as the strengthening of its walls in concrete, illustrates the perceived vulnerability of the airfield to attack by heavy German artillery. The importance of the surviving defence structures at West Malling is further enhanced by the overall significance of the airfield itself and the necessity to safeguard crucial elements in the defence of Britain against the threat of invasion during the greatest conflict of the 20th century.
Details
The monument, which falls into three separate areas, includes a Bofors Light Anti-aircraft gun tower, a Pickett-Hamilton fort and a Type 24 pillbox. These structures formed part of the World War II defences of West Malling airfield, situated at Kings Hill, on top of the Greensand ridge, about 5km west of Maidstone. West Malling opened in 1930 as a private airfield for the Maidstone School of Flying, and was subsequently registered as Maidstone airport two years later. With the outbreak of World War II the airfield, which fell within Fighter Command's strategically important 11 Group (that part of Fighter Command covering the south east of England), was requisitioned by the RAF and soon re-opened as a front line fighter station in June 1940, and a satellite airfield to Biggin Hill, the principal fighter station in the area. A series of German bombing raids in August 1940 rendered the airfield unserviceable during the Battle of Britain, although it became a leading night fighter station the following year and played a key role in the 1944 campaign, code named Operation Diver, to defend the South East against the V1 flying bomb. With the end of the war West Malling became the main rehabilitation centre for prisoners of war returning from Germany. By this time its former grass runways, reinforced with Somerfield track (a heavy steel netting), had been replaced in concrete to meet the needs of the new jet aircraft. After the war the airfield was used for peacetime training, and during the 1960s the station was placed on `care and maintenance' by the RAF. The site was acquired by Kent County Council in 1970 and many of the airfield buildings are now used as offices by Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council. Since the 1990s, parts of the airfield have been lost to modern development. With the deepening threat of German invasion, the defence of Britain's airfields became a high priority during 1940. Fear of German `blitzkrieg' or `lightening' war tactics (involving rapid assault by air and seaborne troops, as witnessed in Europe in the Spring of 1940), led to the implementation of a national strategy for the defence of airfields in September 1940. West Malling was identified as one of 149 important airfields, located within 20 miles of vulnerable ports which could be targets for seaborne landings. Heavy defence of these airfields was therefore crucial to prevent capture of strategic landing grounds by enemy paratroops or gliderborne forces, rapidly followed by the arrival of transport aircraft carrying the principal invasion force. By the end of 1940, three Pickett-Hamilton forts had been installed at West Malling. These structures were designed in June 1940 by the New Kent Construction Company, specifically for the close defence of airfield runways. One of these forts was located towards the northern end of the flying field and survives next to what is now a modern access track. The structure consists of two, vertically sunken concrete cylinders, one mounted inside the other. The inner cylinder, known as the lifting head, remains in its lowered position, flush with the ground surface. The lifting head, pierced with three apertures for its main Vickers or Bren gun, was designed to be raised to its firing position by means of a pneumatic jack, supplemented by a manual pump for emergency use. The fort retains most of its original features, including its internal operating equipment as well as the access hatch in the lid of the lifting head through which the crew of two men entered at ground level. The second fort was removed from the airfield in 1983, and survives on display at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford. The location of the third fort has not yet been identified. Adjacent to the southern perimeter track at West Malling is a Type 24 hexagonal pillbox which originally formed part of an inner and outer series of about 20-30 pillboxes. The small squat structure measures about 6m by 5.5m and is entered through a doorway on its longer eastern side. The entrance is protected by a low externally attached brick wall, and is flanked by one of two loopholes, the second of which is located in the opposite wall of the pillbox. In accordance with orders issued in 1941, the walls of the original brick built structure were thickened by the external application of reinforced concrete, and evidence suggests that at least two additional loopholes were also blocked at this time. These measures were intended to strengthen pillboxes at vulnerable locations against heavy German artillery. The presence of a recess in the edge of the roof above each opening suggests that further protection for the gun crew may have been provided in the form of shields, designed to deflect flame-throwers. A rare surviving example of a Bofors Light Anti-aircraft gun tower also survives close to a modern roundabout, at the north western approach to the airfield. The concrete and brick built tower appears to conform to type `DFW 55087', which was designed at the end of 1939, with the earliest examples constructed during the first half of 1940. The tower was designed to raise a 40mm Bofors gun and its operational equipment, above surrounding obstacles in order to achieve an all-round field of fire in defending the airfield from attack by fast moving, low flying enemy aircraft. The tower stands to a height of about 20m and consists of two parallel, independent structures, separated for much of their height by a 1m gap and linked at intervals by cantilevered concrete bridges to allow movement between the towers. At ground level, the gap functioned as a passageway, providing access to the chambers on either side. The combined structure measures 9m from north to south by 4m east to west and each tower was constructed on four levels: three internal levels contained the magazine and accommodation chambers, lit by vertical two-light windows. The emplacement was located on the flat concrete roof, which projects beyond the brick walls of the tower and was reached via a ladder from the chamber below. The ordnance was centrally mounted on the roof of the northern tower and was served by ammunition lockers at each corner of the roof space. The roof of the southern tower supported the target predictor and was separated from the gun platform by a narrow intervening gap, above the passage below, to insulate this sensitive equipment from the vibration of the Bofors gun. Several temporary station buildings survive around the airfield perimeter. These derelict structures include externally rendered, temporary brick buildings, dispersed from the main technical site in anticipation of concentrated bombing raids. These structures are not included in the current scheduling. Among the more architecturally sophisticated airfield buildings, the Neo-Georgian style Officers' Mess is Listed Grade II. Several semi-sunken Stanton air raid shelters survive, in buried form, near the barrack buildings. These are infilled and are not therefore included in the scheduling. Other structures associated with the defence of the airfield, such as the battle headquarters and the protected aircraft dispersal pens, were destroyed towards the end of the 20th century, although further, as yet unidentified elements may survive beyond the area of the monument. All modern fixtures and fittings associated with the Bofors tower, including modern doors and window boxes, and all modern materials and equipment stored within the tower are excluded from the scheduling; the ground beneath these features, or the structures to which they are attached, however, is included.
MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
45EPIC Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography! Zion Autmn Colors and Fall Foliage!
Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography!
Hiking the Zion Narrows and the Zion Subway! Shooting Paradise Cove and Archangel Falls! The Zion National Park autumn is most beautiful!
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Greetings flickr fans! Many more uploads soon! I have been busy writing, traveling, and shooting! I finished my books on the Tao of Epic Landscape Photography and the Golden Number Ratio Principle! I oft incorporate the golden ratio in my landscape compositions, and you'll also see it in the design and proportion of the 45surf clothes and surfboard and gun logos (More golden ratio information at my facebook page facebook.com/goldennumberratio). Message me on facebook for free review copies of my books here: facebook.com/mcgucken ! :)
I'm working on a book on photographing epic goddesses too! What should I title it? :)
facebook.com/goldennumberratio
Full titles: The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.
And: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography: An Artistic and Scientific Introduction to the Golden Mean !
I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them! :)
Enjoy the epic landscape and goddess and photography and note the golden ratio overlays in some of the photos, as well as the golden ratio in the Birth of Venus painting by Botticelli!
I've been on the road shooting landscapes in Zion, Yosemite, the Eastern Sierras, Big Sur, and more!
Many of you have seen my physics formula dx4/dt=ic for Light Time Dimension Theory on a lot of the 45surf clothing and in the fine art landscape logos. I finally finished the first book of many on the foundations of photography's best friend--light:
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
All the best on your epic hero's odyssey!
Follow me! instagram.com/mcgucken
Was so fortunate to be able to photograph the epic Zion glow this year in the Narows and Zion National Park!
Frozen Wave Sculpture Black Sands Diamond Beach Southern Iceland Blue Ice Fuji GFX100s Medium Format Fine Art Landscape Photography IS Black Sand Beach! Elliot McGucken Master Fine Art Nature Photographer Fujifilm GFX 100s & FUJIFILM GF F4 Lens
"Beauty will save the world." --Dostoevsky
Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Spacetime Sculpture dx4//dt=ic:
Epic Fine Art Photography Prints & Luxury Wall Art:
Support epic, stoic fine art: Hero's Odyssey Gear!
Follow me on Instagram!
Facebook:
All my photography celebrates the physics of light! The McGucken Principle of the fourth expanding dimension: The fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions: dx4/dt=ic .
Lao Tzu--The Tao: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Unifying Physical Reality of the Fourth Expanding Dimensionsion dx4/dt=ic !: geni.us/Fa1Q
"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." --John Muir
Epic Stoicism guides my fine art odyssey and photography: geni.us/epicstoicism
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” --John Muir
Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” --John Muir
Epic Art & 45EPIC Gear exalting golden ratio designs for your Hero's Odyssey:
Support epic fine art! 45surf ! Bitcoin: 1FMBZJeeHVMu35uegrYUfEkHfPj5pe9WNz
Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!
Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!
Some of my epic books, prints, & more!
Exalt your photography with Golden Ratio Compositions!
Golden Ratio Compositions & Secret Sacred Geometry for Photography, Fine Art, & Landscape Photographers: How to Exalt Art with Leonardo da Vinci's, Michelangelo's!
Epic Landscape Photography:
A Simple Guide to the Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography: Master Composition, Lenses, Camera Settings, Aperture, ISO, ... Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography)
All art is but imitation of nature.-- Seneca (Letters from a Stoic - Letter LXV: On the First Cause)
The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul. --Chrysippus (Quoted by Cicero in De Natura Deorum)
Photographs available as epic fine art luxury prints. For prints and licensing information, please send me a flickr mail or contact drelliot@gmail.com with your queries! All the best on your Epic Hero's Odyssey!Seljalandsfoss Waterfall Sunset Behind the Falls! Southern Iceland Fuji GFX100s Medium Format Fine Art Landscape Photography Reykjavik IS Flowers! Elliot McGucken Master Fine Art Nature Photographer Fujifilm GFX 100s & FUJIFILM GF 20-35mm F4 Lens
"Beauty will save the world." --Dostoevsky
Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Spacetime Sculpture dx4//dt=ic:
Epic Fine Art Photography Prints & Luxury Wall Art:
Support epic, stoic fine art: Hero's Odyssey Gear!
Follow me on Instagram!
Facebook:
All my photography celebrates the physics of light! The McGucken Principle of the fourth expanding dimension: The fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions: dx4/dt=ic .
Lao Tzu--The Tao: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Unifying Physical Reality of the Fourth Expanding Dimensionsion dx4/dt=ic !: geni.us/Fa1Q
"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." --John Muir
Epic Stoicism guides my fine art odyssey and photography: geni.us/epicstoicism
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” --John Muir
Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” --John Muir
Epic Art & 45EPIC Gear exalting golden ratio designs for your Hero's Odyssey:
Support epic fine art! 45surf ! Bitcoin: 1FMBZJeeHVMu35uegrYUfEkHfPj5pe9WNz
Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!
Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!
Some of my epic books, prints, & more!
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Top left: A corniform above a rectangle, with four thin lines stretching away as if the legs of a cow. This may be an attempt to add detail to the description of cow, or a visual description of a raw-hide pelt being stretched. An alternative might be that the rectangular body is a hut with the 'legs' as tethering ropes and the horns are entrance fencing delimiting and protecting from wind and sun - a 'farmyard' work area.
Top right: one of Mont Bégo's most enigmatic petroglyphs comes from Fontanalba's 'Voie Sacrée' and seems to defy analysis. The lines are thought through, and with so much lifestyle description assigned to the Mont Bégo petroglyphs, one feels that there must be a slot for the image in a pastoral context: Stretching leather? A hut with guide ropes? And so on. One of the problems here is the 'boundary line' that goes through the design and appears to be part of the image rather than a superimposition.
Possible explanations:
1. A fridge. There is a simple mountain structure of the Pyrenees called a 'houn'. Here, a cold spring of mountain water flows through a dark stone hut, and any heat inside is transferred to the flowing water. Naturally, the environment inside the hut becomes cold enough to preserve milk products, often as they are assembled prior to transformation into curd, butter and cheese. The principle of heat transfer is similar to that at the back of a fridge and indeed 'houns' are archaic fridges. The pilgrims of Mont Bégo had cows in their lifestyle and transforming their milk into cheese would be within the date range. Just such a proto-houn might assure quantities necessary for cheese production during hot periods, and the stone steps or ledges aside the directed spring water may be pictured here covered by a stretch of taught leather attached to two long poles.
2. A ceremonial space. It seems safe to say that Mont Bégo's largely Bronze age population were walking into the barren non agricultural zone around Mont Bégo to show the mystical mountain the proud qualities of their life and culture - in effect asking for blessing and 'dialogue'. Today we see the zone's favoured rock surfaces ornamented with a diverse array of schematic images. With the weather shutting down the area for seasons of snow and storms, it becomes possible to suspect that there was a preferred period of pilgrimage - lets say at the time of the golden larch trees around October. Tools and people might all wish to be 'seen' and blessed and one of the mankind's traditional means of blessing is with water. Might this be the image of a temporary shrine for seasonal pilgrims? Here the image may be of a natural spring directed into a ditch and made to pass through a very simple roofed building. It is possible that there are two long poles and that an attempt was made to describe 'uprights' - here drawn vastly before the rules of perspective as flattened right angles. Flat representations of dimension can be verified from an Iron age site to the north (rock 23 Naquane) which depicts an early cart and as the wheels are easy to identify and less ambiguous than straight lines, the principle of 'flat' depiction of height is observed. With this interpretation, the roof is held-up by six posts aside a second smaller building, away from the stream, which would in turn be held up by four posts.
With 'pilgrims' leaving very little outside of the petroglyphs, there is also a possibility that a sacred water spring was located away from Mont Bégo, and that the element was in truth as far away as the described field systems and tools and simply 'taken' to the sacred site as an image idea. Tools, children, young animals might all have been offered sacred water aside rites and ritual.
3. Tanning. Cattle can be used for reserves in extreme conditions, they can be used for their meat, they can be used for their manure (manure cob etc), they can be used for their horns (drinking goblets and measuring devices), and they can be used for their pelt - probably the largest readily available. A large pelt can be one trimmed cover without seams, or a source for multiple smaller products apt for the lifestyle of the whole clan. Leather cord, leather ornament, leather cloths, leather coverings and full leather covered huts can all be envisaged by crofters as they look after even a small number of domesticated cows.
I only saw a small selection of the petroglyphs of Mont Bégo, and in the literature there are discussions of subsets of glyphs that may show stretched pelts. With this image, the stretching, if that is the case, is not as one might expect. The classic image is of a hide stretched evenly on a frame or with multiple pegs (Roberto Rosselini recreated a prehistoric village for one of his films where the stretching leathers were integrated onto hut roofs). If huts were covered in leather, and many of the corniforms are in fact depictions of huts with fence 'farmyards', then cow leather will have been used at its maximum size. Tanning requires large quantities of water, a product (urine, salt solutions, lime) and plenty of repeated 'lissage'. Here a large pelt may have been made temporarily manageable for one 'tanner' by being temporarily sewn into a cylinder. Two long poles could thread through the cylinder and be pulled taught. With this interpretation a drainage ditch or 'rigole' passes under the pelt so that fresh water can constantly be scooped.
Here, the canal here would have been a straight line with a right angle and this does not seem immediately logical. I have seen drainage canals on mountain slopes doing just this. A spring feeds the ditch rather than making the field generally boggy. The ditch then cuts perpendicular across the slope, and in so doing, it catches additional ground water that can be riddling down the slope. Before it overflows the ditch turns back down the slope at an angle and drier pastoral land is preserved within.
Of the three options, the 'fridge' needs data on ancient cheese production in the area. The ceremonial holy spring needs data on this potential representation of vertical posts, and the tanning loop is weakened by depictions of central 'ropes' that seem difficult to explain.
Lower left. Hyperbolic horns, a square body shape, legs like guide ropes and an apparent 'farmyard' where there might be a tail, all suggest that the abstract form of a cow might have been employed as a hut archetype. My work on 'transport dragons' explains how pelts over frames might have helped man navigate the extremes of the ice age. That these mobile structures took on the character from fauna and myth is also to be expected. Culture is not genetic and can survive as a memory even after waves of migration. Sedentary populations holding onto the traditions of a collective consciousness may feel that it is quite natural for their practical huts to resemble an animal. Domestication also added the mind of man to the animal, and was a lifestyle that required constant training and reflection. The cow/hut symbol may have perfectly reflect this inter relation.
Lower right: The closest of the four images to the pelt of a cow - but there are still differences: the horns, the tail and even the general shape do not alight to an image of a pelt. The argument here is that the image is not descriptive but instead communicates the principles of 'cow', and this may well be the case. An alternative explanation may seem idiotic, but needs to be considered, and is that the square of the 'cows' body is once again a small building, but this time for the distribution of feed for young calves or winter hay, and that the legs and tails are calves feeding with their heads tucked into the building's sweet smelling feed, in what may have been at the time an amusing image from the cycle of life.
AJM 6.2.19.
45EPIC Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography! Zion Autmn Colors and Fall Foliage!
Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography!
Hiking the Zion Narrows and the Zion Subway! Shooting Paradise Cove and Archangel Falls! The Zion National Park autumn is most beautiful!
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Greetings flickr fans! Many more uploads soon! I have been busy writing, traveling, and shooting! I finished my books on the Tao of Epic Landscape Photography and the Golden Number Ratio Principle! I oft incorporate the golden ratio in my landscape compositions, and you'll also see it in the design and proportion of the 45surf clothes and surfboard and gun logos (More golden ratio information at my facebook page facebook.com/goldennumberratio). Message me on facebook for free review copies of my books here: facebook.com/mcgucken ! :)
I'm working on a book on photographing epic goddesses too! What should I title it? :)
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Full titles: The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.
And: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography: An Artistic and Scientific Introduction to the Golden Mean !
I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them! :)
Enjoy the epic landscape and goddess and photography and note the golden ratio overlays in some of the photos, as well as the golden ratio in the Birth of Venus painting by Botticelli!
I've been on the road shooting landscapes in Zion, Yosemite, the Eastern Sierras, Big Sur, and more!
Many of you have seen my physics formula dx4/dt=ic for Light Time Dimension Theory on a lot of the 45surf clothing and in the fine art landscape logos. I finally finished the first book of many on the foundations of photography's best friend--light:
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
All the best on your epic hero's odyssey!
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Was so fortunate to be able to photograph the epic Zion glow this year in the Narows and Zion National Park!
1. The Mind-Body Problem and the History of Dualism
1.1 The Mind-Body Problem
The mind-body problem is the problem: what is the relationship between mind and body? Or alternatively: what is the relationship between mental properties and physical properties?
Humans have (or seem to have) both physical properties and mental properties. People have (or seem to have)the sort of properties attributed in the physical sciences. These physical properties include size, weight, shape, colour, motion through space and time, etc. But they also have (or seem to have) mental properties, which we do not attribute to typical physical objects These properties involve consciousness (including perceptual experience, emotional experience, and much else), intentionality (including beliefs, desires, and much else), and they are possessed by a subject or a self. Physical properties are public, in the sense that they are, in principle, equally observable by anyone. Some physical properties – like those of an electron – are not directly observable at all, but they are equally available to all, to the same degree, with scientific equipment and techniques. The same is not true of mental properties. I may be able to tell that you are in pain by your behaviour, but only you can feel it directly. Similarly, you just know how something looks to you, and I can only surmise. Conscious mental events are private to the subject, who has a privileged access to them of a kind no-one has to the physical. The mind-body problem concerns the relationship between these two sets of properties. The mind-body problem breaks down into a number of components. The ontological question: what are mental states and what are physical states? Is one class a subclass of the other, so that all mental states are physical, or vice versa? Or are mental states and physical states entirely distinct?
The causal question: do physical states influence mental states? Do mental states influence physical states? If so, how?
Different aspects of the mind-body problem arise for different aspects of the mental, such as consciousness, intentionality, the self. The problem of consciousness: what is consciousness? How is it related to the brain and the body? The problem of intentionality: what is intentionality? How is it related to the brain and the body? The problem of the self: what is the self? How is it related to the brain and the body? Other aspects of the mind-body problem arise for aspects of the physical. For example:
The problem of embodiment: what is it for the mind to be housed in a body? What is it for a body to belong to a particular subject?
The seemingly intractable nature of these problems have given rise to many different philosophical views.
Materialist views say that, despite appearances to the contrary, mental states are just physical states. Behaviourism, functionalism, mind-brain identity theory and the computational theory of mind are examples of how materialists attempt to explain how this can be so. The most common factor in such theories is the attempt to explicate the nature of mind and consciousness in terms of their ability to directly or indirectly modify behaviour, but there are versions of materialism that try to tie the mental to the physical without explicitly explaining the mental in terms of its behaviour-modifying role. The latter are often grouped together under the label ‘non-reductive physicalism’, though this label is itself rendered elusive because of the controversial nature of the term ‘reduction’.
Idealist views say that physical states are really mental. This is because the physical world is an empirical world and, as such, it is the intersubjective product of our collective experience.
Dualist views (the subject of this entry) say that the mental and the physical are both real and neither can be assimilated to the other. For the various forms that dualism can take and the associated problems, see below.
In sum, we can say that there is a mind-body problem because both consciousness and thought, broadly construed, seem very different from anything physical and there is no convincing consensus on how to build a satisfactorily unified picture of creatures possessed of both a mind and a body.
Other entries which concern aspects of the mind-body problem include (among many others): behaviorism, consciousness, eliminative materialism, epiphenomenalism, functionalism, identity theory, intentionality, mental causation, neutral monism, and physicalism.
1.2 History of dualism
In dualism, ‘mind’ is contrasted with ‘body’, but at different times, different aspects of the mind have been the centre of attention. In the classical and mediaeval periods, it was the intellect that was thought to be most obviously resistant to a materialistic account: from Descartes on, the main stumbling block to materialist monism was supposed to be ‘consciousness’, of which phenomenal consciousness or sensation came to be considered as the paradigm instance.
The classical emphasis originates in Plato’s Phaedo. Plato believed that the true substances are not physical bodies, which are ephemeral, but the eternal Forms of which bodies are imperfect copies. These Forms not only make the world possible, they also make it intelligible, because they perform the role of universals, or what Frege called ‘concepts’. It is their connection with intelligibility that is relevant to the philosophy of mind. Because Forms are the grounds of intelligibility, they are what the intellect must grasp in the process of understanding. In Phaedo Plato presents a variety of arguments for the immortality of the soul, but the one that is relevant for our purposes is that the intellect is immaterial because Forms are immaterial and intellect must have an affinity with the Forms it apprehends (78b4–84b8). This affinity is so strong that the soul strives to leave the body in which it is imprisoned and to dwell in the realm of Forms. It may take many reincarnations before this is achieved. Plato’s dualism is not, therefore, simply a doctrine in the philosophy of mind, but an integral part of his whole metaphysics.
One problem with Plato’s dualism was that, though he speaks of the soul as imprisoned in the body, there is no clear account of what binds a particular soul to a particular body. Their difference in nature makes the union a mystery.
Aristotle did not believe in Platonic Forms, existing independently of their instances. Aristotelian forms (the capital ‘F’ has disappeared with their standing as autonomous entities) are the natures and properties of things and exist embodied in those things. This enabled Aristotle to explain the union of body and soul by saying that the soul is the form of the body. This means that a particular person’s soul is no more than his nature as a human being. Because this seems to make the soul into a property of the body, it led many interpreters, both ancient and modern, to interpret his theory as materialistic. The interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy of mind – and, indeed, of his whole doctrine of form – remains as live an issue today as it was immediately after his death (Robinson 1983 and 1991; Nussbaum 1984; Rorty and Nussbaum, eds, 1992). Nevertheless, the text makes it clear that Aristotle believed that the intellect, though part of the soul, differs from other faculties in not having a bodily organ. His argument for this constitutes a more tightly argued case than Plato’s for the immateriality of thought and, hence, for a kind of dualism. He argued that the intellect must be immaterial because if it were material it could not receive all forms. Just as the eye, because of its particular physical nature, is sensitive to light but not to sound, and the ear to sound and not to light, so, if the intellect were in a physical organ it could be sensitive only to a restricted range of physical things; but this is not the case, for we can think about any kind of material object (De Anima III,4; 429a10–b9). As it does not have a material organ, its activity must be essentially immaterial.
It is common for modern Aristotelians, who otherwise have a high view of Aristotle’s relevance to modern philosophy, to treat this argument as being of purely historical interest, and not essential to Aristotle’s system as a whole. They emphasize that he was not a ‘Cartesian’ dualist, because the intellect is an aspect of the soul and the soul is the form of the body, not a separate substance. Kenny (1989) argues that Aristotle’s theory of mind as form gives him an account similar to Ryle (1949), for it makes the soul equivalent to the dispositions possessed by a living body. This ‘anti-Cartesian’ approach to Aristotle arguably ignores the fact that, for Aristotle, the form is the substance.
These issues might seem to be of purely historical interest. But we shall see in below, in section 4.5, that this is not so.
The identification of form and substance is a feature of Aristotle’s system that Aquinas effectively exploits in this context, identifying soul, intellect and form, and treating them as a substance. (See, for example, Aquinas (1912), Part I, questions 75 and 76.) But though the form (and, hence, the intellect with which it is identical) are the substance of the human person, they are not the person itself. Aquinas says that when one addresses prayers to a saint – other than the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is believed to retain her body in heaven and is, therefore, always a complete person – one should say, not, for example, ‘Saint Peter pray for us’, but ‘soul of Saint Peter pray for us’. The soul, though an immaterial substance, is the person only when united with its body. Without the body, those aspects of its personal memory that depend on images (which are held to be corporeal) will be lost.(See Aquinas (1912), Part I, question 89.)
The more modern versions of dualism have their origin in Descartes’ Meditations, and in the debate that was consequent upon Descartes’ theory. Descartes was a substance dualist. He believed that there were two kinds of substance: matter, of which the essential property is that it is spatially extended; and mind, of which the essential property is that it thinks. Descartes’ conception of the relation between mind and body was quite different from that held in the Aristotelian tradition. For Aristotle, there is no exact science of matter. How matter behaves is essentially affected by the form that is in it. You cannot combine just any matter with any form – you cannot make a knife out of butter, nor a human being out of paper – so the nature of the matter is a necessary condition for the nature of the substance. But the nature of the substance does not follow from the nature of its matter alone: there is no ‘bottom up’ account of substances. Matter is a determinable made determinate by form. This was how Aristotle thought that he was able to explain the connection of soul to body: a particular soul exists as the organizing principle in a particular parcel of matter.
The belief in the relative indeterminacy of matter is one reason for Aristotle’s rejection of atomism. If matter is atomic, then it is already a collection of determinate objects in its own right, and it becomes natural to regard the properties of macroscopic substances as mere summations of the natures of the atoms.
Although, unlike most of his fashionable contemporaries and immediate successors, Descartes was not an atomist, he was, like the others, a mechanist about the properties of matter. Bodies are machines that work according to their own laws. Except where there are minds interfering with it, matter proceeds deterministically, in its own right. Where there are minds requiring to influence bodies, they must work by ‘pulling levers’ in a piece of machinery that already has its own laws of operation. This raises the question of where those ‘levers’ are in the body. Descartes opted for the pineal gland, mainly because it is not duplicated on both sides of the brain, so it is a candidate for having a unique, unifying function.
The main uncertainty that faced Descartes and his contemporaries, however, was not where interaction took place, but how two things so different as thought and extension could interact at all. This would be particularly mysterious if one had an impact view of causal interaction, as would anyone influenced by atomism, for whom the paradigm of causation is like two billiard balls cannoning off one another.
Various of Descartes’ disciples, such as Arnold Geulincx and Nicholas Malebranche, concluded that all mind-body interactions required the direct intervention of God. The appropriate states of mind and body were only the occasions for such intervention, not real causes. Now it would be convenient to think that occasionalists held that all causation was natural except for that between mind and body. In fact they generalized their conclusion and treated all causation as directly dependent on God. Why this was so, we cannot discuss here.
Descartes’ conception of a dualism of substances came under attack from the more radical empiricists, who found it difficult to attach sense to the concept of substance at all. Locke, as a moderate empiricist, accepted that there were both material and immaterial substances. Berkeley famously rejected material substance, because he rejected all existence outside the mind. In his early Notebooks, he toyed with the idea of rejecting immaterial substance, because we could have no idea of it, and reducing the self to a collection of the ‘ideas’ that constituted its contents. Finally, he decided that the self, conceived as something over and above the ideas of which it was aware, was essential for an adequate understanding of the human person. Although the self and its acts are not presented to consciousness as objects of awareness, we are obliquely aware of them simply by dint of being active subjects. Hume rejected such claims, and proclaimed the self to be nothing more than a concatenation of its ephemeral contents.
In fact, Hume criticised the whole conception of substance for lacking in empirical content: when you search for the owner of the properties that make up a substance, you find nothing but further properties. Consequently, the mind is, he claimed, nothing but a ‘bundle’ or ‘heap’ of impressions and ideas – that is, of particular mental states or events, without an owner. This position has been labelled bundle dualism, and it is a special case of a general bundle theory of substance, according to which objects in general are just organised collections of properties. The problem for the Humean is to explain what binds the elements in the bundle together. This is an issue for any kind of substance, but for material bodies the solution seems fairly straightforward: the unity of a physical bundle is constituted by some form of causal interaction between the elements in the bundle. For the mind, mere causal connection is not enough; some further relation of co-consciousness is required. We shall see in 5.2.1 that it is problematic whether one can treat such a relation as more primitive than the notion of belonging to a subject.
One should note the following about Hume’s theory. His bundle theory is a theory about the nature of the unity of the mind. As a theory about this unity, it is not necessarily dualist. Parfit (1970, 1984) and Shoemaker (1984, ch. 2), for example, accept it as physicalists. In general, physicalists will accept it unless they wish to ascribe the unity to the brain or the organism as a whole. Before the bundle theory can be dualist one must accept property dualism, for more about which, see the next section.
A crisis in the history of dualism came, however, with the growing popularity of mechanism in science in the nineteenth century. According to the mechanist, the world is, as it would now be expressed, ‘closed under physics’. This means that everything that happens follows from and is in accord with the laws of physics. There is, therefore, no scope for interference in the physical world by the mind in the way that interactionism seems to require. According to the mechanist, the conscious mind is an epiphenomenon (a notion given general currency by T. H. Huxley 1893): that is, it is a by-product of the physical system which has no influence back on it. In this way, the facts of consciousness are acknowledged but the integrity of physical science is preserved. However, many philosophers found it implausible to claim such things as the following; the pain that I have when you hit me, the visual sensations I have when I see the ferocious lion bearing down on me or the conscious sense of understanding I have when I hear your argument – all have nothing directly to do with the way I respond. It is very largely due to the need to avoid this counterintuitiveness that we owe the concern of twentieth century philosophy to devise a plausible form of materialist monism. But, although dualism has been out of fashion in psychology since the advent of behaviourism (Watson 1913) and in philosophy since Ryle (1949), the argument is by no means over. Some distinguished neurologists, such as Sherrington (1940) and Eccles (Popper and Eccles 1977) have continued to defend dualism as the only theory that can preserve the data of consciousness. Amongst mainstream philosophers, discontent with physicalism led to a modest revival of property dualism in the last decade of the twentieth century. At least some of the reasons for this should become clear below.
2. Varieties of Dualism: Ontology
There are various ways of dividing up kinds of dualism. One natural way is in terms of what sorts of things one chooses to be dualistic about. The most common categories lighted upon for these purposes are substance and property, giving one substance dualism and property dualism. There is, however, an important third category, namely predicate dualism. As this last is the weakest theory, in the sense that it claims least, I shall begin by characterizing it.
2.1 Predicate dualism
Predicate dualism is the theory that psychological or mentalistic predicates are (a) essential for a full description of the world and (b) are not reducible to physicalistic predicates. For a mental predicate to be reducible, there would be bridging laws connecting types of psychological states to types of physical ones in such a way that the use of the mental predicate carried no information that could not be expressed without it. An example of what we believe to be a true type reduction outside psychology is the case of water, where water is always H2O: something is water if and only if it is H2O. If one were to replace the word ‘water’ by ‘H2O’, it is plausible to say that one could convey all the same information. But the terms in many of the special sciences (that is, any science except physics itself) are not reducible in this way. Not every hurricane or every infectious disease, let alone every devaluation of the currency or every coup d’etat has the same constitutive structure. These states are defined more by what they do than by their composition or structure. Their names are classified as functional terms rather than natural kind terms. It goes with this that such kinds of state are multiply realizable; that is, they may be constituted by different kinds of physical structures under different circumstances. Because of this, unlike in the case of water and H2O, one could not replace these terms by some more basic physical description and still convey the same information. There is no particular description, using the language of physics or chemistry, that would do the work of the word ‘hurricane’, in the way that ‘H2O’ would do the work of ‘water’. It is widely agreed that many, if not all, psychological states are similarly irreducible, and so psychological predicates are not reducible to physical descriptions and one has predicate dualism. (The classic source for irreducibility in the special sciences in general is Fodor (1974), and for irreducibility in the philosophy of mind, Davidson (1971).)
2.2 Property Dualism
Whereas predicate dualism says that there are two essentially different kinds of predicates in our language, property dualism says that there are two essentially different kinds of property out in the world. Property dualism can be seen as a step stronger than predicate dualism. Although the predicate ‘hurricane’ is not equivalent to any single description using the language of physics, we believe that each individual hurricane is nothing but a collection of physical atoms behaving in a certain way: one need have no more than the physical atoms, with their normal physical properties, following normal physical laws, for there to be a hurricane. One might say that we need more than the language of physics to describe and explain the weather, but we do not need more than its ontology. There is token identity between each individual hurricane and a mass of atoms, even if there is no type identity between hurricanes as kinds and some particular structure of atoms as a kind. Genuine property dualism occurs when, even at the individual level, the ontology of physics is not sufficient to constitute what is there. The irreducible language is not just another way of describing what there is, it requires that there be something more there than was allowed for in the initial ontology. Until the early part of the twentieth century, it was common to think that biological phenomena (‘life’) required property dualism (an irreducible ‘vital force’), but nowadays the special physical sciences other than psychology are generally thought to involve only predicate dualism. In the case of mind, property dualism is defended by those who argue that the qualitative nature of consciousness is not merely another way of categorizing states of the brain or of behaviour, but a genuinely emergent phenomenon.
2.3 Substance Dualism
There are two important concepts deployed in this notion. One is that of substance, the other is the dualism of these substances. A substance is characterized by its properties, but, according to those who believe in substances, it is more than the collection of the properties it possesses, it is the thing which possesses them. So the mind is not just a collection of thoughts, but is that which thinks, an immaterial substance over and above its immaterial states. Properties are the properties of objects. If one is a property dualist, one may wonder what kinds of objects possess the irreducible or immaterial properties in which one believes. One can use a neutral expression and attribute them to persons, but, until one has an account of person, this is not explanatory. One might attribute them to human beings qua animals, or to the brains of these animals. Then one will be holding that these immaterial properties are possessed by what is otherwise a purely material thing. But one may also think that not only mental states are immaterial, but that the subject that possesses them must also be immaterial. Then one will be a dualist about that to which mental states and properties belong as well about the properties themselves. Now one might try to think of these subjects as just bundles of the immaterial states. This is Hume’s view. But if one thinks that the owner of these states is something quite over and above the states themselves, and is immaterial, as they are, one will be a substance dualist.
Substance dualism is also often dubbed ‘Cartesian dualism’, but some substance dualists are keen to distinguish their theories from Descartes’s. E. J. Lowe, for example, is a substance dualist, in the following sense. He holds that a normal human being involves two substances, one a body and the other a person. The latter is not, however, a purely mental substance that can be defined in terms of thought or consciousness alone, as Descartes claimed. But persons and their bodies have different identity conditions and are both substances, so there are two substances essentially involved in a human being, hence this is a form of substance dualism. Lowe (2006) claims that his theory is close to P. F. Strawson’s (1959), whilst admitting that Strawson would not have called it substance dualism.
3. Varieties of Dualism: Interaction
If mind and body are different realms, in the way required by either property or substance dualism, then there arises the question of how they are related. Common sense tells us that they interact: thoughts and feelings are at least sometimes caused by bodily events and at least sometimes themselves give rise to bodily responses. I shall now consider briefly the problems for interactionism, and its main rivals, epiphenomenalism and parallelism.
3.1 Interactionism
Interactionism is the view that mind and body – or mental events and physical events – causally influence each other. That this is so is one of our common-sense beliefs, because it appears to be a feature of everyday experience. The physical world influences my experience through my senses, and I often react behaviourally to those experiences. My thinking, too, influences my speech and my actions. There is, therefore, a massive natural prejudice in favour of interactionism. It has been claimed, however, that it faces serious problems (some of which were anticipated in section 1).
The simplest objection to interaction is that, in so far as mental properties, states or substances are of radically different kinds from each other, they lack that communality necessary for interaction. It is generally agreed that, in its most naive form, this objection to interactionism rests on a ‘billiard ball’ picture of causation: if all causation is by impact, how can the material and the immaterial impact upon each other? But if causation is either by a more ethereal force or energy or only a matter of constant conjunction, there would appear to be no problem in principle with the idea of interaction of mind and body.
Even if there is no objection in principle, there appears to be a conflict between interactionism and some basic principles of physical science. For example, if causal power was flowing in and out of the physical system, energy would not be conserved, and the conservation of energy is a fundamental scientific law. Various responses have been made to this. One suggestion is that it might be possible for mind to influence the distribution of energy, without altering its quantity. (See Averill and Keating 1981). Another response is to challenge the relevance of the conservation principle in this context. The conservation principle states that ‘in a causally isolated system the total amount of energy will remain constant’. Whereas ‘[t]he interactionist denies…that the human body is an isolated system’, so the principle is irrelevant (Larmer (1986), 282: this article presents a good brief survey of the options). This approach has been termed conditionality, namely the view that conservation is conditional on the physical system being closed, that is, that nothing non-physical is interacting or interfering with it, and, of course, the interactionist claims that this condition is, trivially, not met. That conditionality is the best line for the dualist to take, and that other approaches do not work, is defended in Pitts (2019) and Cucu and Pitts (2019). This, they claim, makes the plausibility of interactionism an empirical matter which only close investigation on the fine operation of the brain could hope to settle. Cucu, in a separate article (2018), claims to find critical neuronal events which do not have sufficient physical explanation.This claim clearly needs further investigation.
Robins Collins (2011) has claimed that the appeal to conservation by opponents of interactionism is something of a red herring because conservation principles are not ubiquitous in physics. He argues that energy is not conserved in general relativity, in quantum theory, or in the universe taken as a whole. Why then, should we insist on it in mind-brain interaction?
Most discussion of interactionism takes place in the context of the assumption that it is incompatible with the world’s being ‘closed under physics’. This is a very natural assumption, but it is not justified if causal overdetermination of behaviour is possible. There could then be a complete physical cause of behaviour, and a mental one. The strongest intuitive objection against overdetermination is clearly stated by Mills (1996: 112), who is himself a defender of overdetermination.
For X to be a cause of Y, X must contribute something to Y. The only way a purely mental event could contribute to a purely physical one would be to contribute some feature not already determined by a purely physical event. But if physical closure is true, there is no feature of the purely physical effect that is not contributed by the purely physical cause. Hence interactionism violates physical closure after all.
Mills says that this argument is invalid, because a physical event can have features not explained by the event which is its sufficient cause. For example, “the rock’s hitting the window is causally sufficient for the window’s breaking, and the window’s breaking has the feature of being the third window-breaking in the house this year; but the facts about prior window-breakings, rather than the rock’s hitting the window, are what cause this window-breaking to have this feature.”
The opponent of overdetermination could perhaps reply that his principle applies, not to every feature of events, but to a subgroup – say, intrinsic features, not merely relational or comparative ones. It is this kind of feature that the mental event would have to cause, but physical closure leaves no room for this. These matters are still controversial.
The problem with closure of physics may be radically altered if physical laws are indeterministic, as quantum theory seems to assert. If physical laws are deterministic, then any interference from outside would lead to a breach of those laws. But if they are indeterministic, might not interference produce a result that has a probability greater than zero, and so be consistent with the laws? This way, one might have interaction yet preserve a kind of nomological closure, in the sense that no laws are infringed. Because it involves assessing the significance and consequences of quantum theory, this is a difficult matter for the non-physicist to assess. Some argue that indeterminacy manifests itself only on the subatomic level, being cancelled out by the time one reaches even very tiny macroscopic objects: and human behaviour is a macroscopic phenomenon. Others argue that the structure of the brain is so finely tuned that minute variations could have macroscopic effects, rather in the way that, according to ‘chaos theory’, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in China might affect the weather in New York. (For discussion of this, see Eccles (1980), (1987), and Popper and Eccles (1977).) Still others argue that quantum indeterminacy manifests itself directly at a high level, when acts of observation collapse the wave function, suggesting that the mind may play a direct role in affecting the state of the world (Hodgson 1988; Stapp 1993).
3.2 Epiphenomenalism
If the reality of property dualism is not to be denied, but the problem of how the immaterial is to affect the material is to be avoided, then epiphenomenalism may seem to be the answer. According to this theory, mental events are caused by physical events, but have no causal influence on the physical. I have introduced this theory as if its point were to avoid the problem of how two different categories of thing might interact. In fact, it is, at best, an incomplete solution to this problem. If it is mysterious how the non-physical can have it in its nature to influence the physical, it ought to be equally mysterious how the physical can have it in its nature to produce something non-physical. But that this latter is what occurs is an essential claim of epiphenomenalism. (For development of this point, see Green (2003), 149–51). In fact, epiphenomenalism is more effective as a way of saving the autonomy of the physical (the world as ‘closed under physics’) than as a contribution to avoiding the need for the physical and non-physical to have causal commerce.
There are at least three serious problems for epiphenomenalism. First, as I indicated in section 1, it is profoundly counterintuitive. What could be more apparent than that it is the pain that I feel that makes me cry, or the visual experience of the boulder rolling towards me that makes me run away? At least one can say that epiphenomenalism is a fall-back position: it tends to be adopted because other options are held to be unacceptable.
The second problem is that, if mental states do nothing, there is no reason why they should have evolved. This objection ties in with the first: the intuition there was that conscious states clearly modify our behaviour in certain ways, such as avoiding danger, and it is plain that they are very useful from an evolutionary perspective.
Frank Jackson (1982) replies to this objection by saying that it is the brain state associated with pain that evolves for this reason: the sensation is a by-product. Evolution is full of useless or even harmful by-products. For example, polar bears have evolved thick coats to keep them warm, even though this has the damaging side effect that they are heavy to carry. Jackson’s point is true in general, but does not seem to apply very happily to the case of mind. The heaviness of the polar bear’s coat follows directly from those properties and laws which make it warm: one could not, in any simple way, have one without the other. But with mental states, dualistically conceived, the situation is quite the opposite. The laws of physical nature which, the mechanist says, make brain states cause behaviour, in no way explain why brain states should give rise to conscious ones. The laws linking mind and brain are what Feigl (1958) calls nomological danglers, that is, brute facts added onto the body of integrated physical law. Why there should have been by-products of that kind seems to have no evolutionary explanation.
The third problem concerns the rationality of belief in epiphenomenalism, via its effect on the problem of other minds. It is natural to say that I know that I have mental states because I experience them directly. But how can I justify my belief that others have them? The simple version of the ‘argument from analogy’ says that I can extrapolate from my own case. I know that certain of my mental states are correlated with certain pieces of behaviour, and so I infer that similar behaviour in others is also accompanied by similar mental states. Many hold that this is a weak argument because it is induction from one instance, namely, my own. The argument is stronger if it is not a simple induction but an ‘argument to the best explanation’. I seem to know from my own case that mental events can be the explanation of behaviour, and I know of no other candidate explanation for typical human behaviour, so I postulate the same explanation for the behaviour of others. But if epiphenomenalism is true, my mental states do not explain my behaviour and there is a physical explanation for the behaviour of others. It is explanatorily redundant to postulate such states for others. I know, by introspection, that I have them, but is it not just as likely that I alone am subject to this quirk of nature, rather than that everyone is?
For more detailed treatment and further reading on this topic, see the entry epiphenomenalism.
3.3 Parallelism
The epiphenomenalist wishes to preserve the integrity of physical science and the physical world, and appends those mental features that he cannot reduce. The parallelist preserves both realms intact, but denies all causal interaction between them. They run in harmony with each other, but not because their mutual influence keeps each other in line. That they should behave as if they were interacting would seem to be a bizarre coincidence. This is why parallelism has tended to be adopted only by those – like Leibniz – who believe in a pre-established harmony, set in place by God. The progression of thought can be seen as follows. Descartes believes in a more or less natural form of interaction between immaterial mind and material body. Malebranche thought that this was impossible naturally, and so required God to intervene specifically on each occasion on which interaction was required. Leibniz decided that God might as well set things up so that they always behaved as if they were interacting, without particular intervention being required. Outside such a theistic framework, the theory is incredible. Even within such a framework, one might well sympathise with Berkeley’s instinct that once genuine interaction is ruled out one is best advised to allow that God creates the physical world directly, within the mental realm itself, as a construct out of experience.
4. Arguments for Dualism
4.1 The Knowledge Argument Against Physicalism
One category of arguments for dualism is constituted by the standard objections against physicalism. Prime examples are those based on the existence of qualia, the most important of which is the so-called ‘knowledge argument’. Because this argument has its own entry (see the entry qualia: the knowledge argument), I shall deal relatively briefly with it here. One should bear in mind, however, that all arguments against physicalism are also arguments for the irreducible and hence immaterial nature of the mind and, given the existence of the material world, are thus arguments for dualism.
The knowledge argument asks us to imagine a future scientist who has lacked a certain sensory modality from birth, but who has acquired a perfect scientific understanding of how this modality operates in others. This scientist – call him Harpo – may have been born stone deaf, but become the world’s greatest expert on the machinery of hearing: he knows everything that there is to know within the range of the physical and behavioural sciences about hearing. Suppose that Harpo, thanks to developments in neurosurgery, has an operation which finally enables him to hear. It is suggested that he will then learn something he did not know before, which can be expressed as what it is like to hear, or the qualitative or phenomenal nature of sound. These qualitative features of experience are generally referred to as qualia. If Harpo learns something new, he did not know everything before. He knew all the physical facts before. So what he learns on coming to hear – the facts about the nature of experience or the nature of qualia – are non-physical. This establishes at least a state or property dualism. (See Jackson 1982; Robinson 1982.)
There are at least two lines of response to this popular but controversial argument. First is the ‘ability’ response. According to this, Harpo does not acquire any new factual knowledge, only ‘knowledge how’, in the form of the ability to respond directly to sounds, which he could not do before. This essentially behaviouristic account is exactly what the intuition behind the argument is meant to overthrow. Putting ourselves in Harpo’s position, it is meant to be obvious that what he acquires is knowledge of what something is like, not just how to do something. Such appeals to intuition are always, of course, open to denial by those who claim not to share the intuition. Some ability theorists seem to blur the distinction between knowing what something is like and knowing how to do something, by saying that the ability Harpo acquires is to imagine or remember the nature of sound. In this case, what he acquires the ability to do involves the representation to himself of what the thing is like. But this conception of representing to oneself, especially in the form of imagination, seems sufficiently close to producing in oneself something very like a sensory experience that it only defers the problem: until one has a physicalist gloss on what constitutes such representations as those involved in conscious memory and imagination, no progress has been made.
The other line of response is to argue that, although Harpo’s new knowledge is factual, it is not knowledge of a new fact. Rather, it is new way of grasping something that he already knew. He does not realise this, because the concepts employed to capture experience (such as ‘looks red’ or ‘sounds C-sharp’) are similar to demonstratives, and demonstrative concepts lack the kind of descriptive content that allow one to infer what they express from other pieces of information that one may already possess. A total scientific knowledge of the world would not enable you to say which time was ‘now’ or which place was ‘here’. Demonstrative concepts pick something out without saying anything extra about it. Similarly, the scientific knowledge that Harpo originally possessed did not enable him to anticipate what it would be like to re-express some parts of that knowledge using the demonstrative concepts that only experience can give one. The knowledge, therefore, appears to be genuinely new, whereas only the mode of conceiving it is novel.
Proponents of the epistemic argument respond that it is problematic to maintain both that the qualitative nature of experience can be genuinely novel, and that the quality itself be the same as some property already grasped scientifically: does not the experience’s phenomenal nature, which the demonstrative concepts capture, constitute a property in its own right? Another way to put this is to say that phenomenal concepts are not pure demonstratives, like ‘here’ and ‘now’, or ‘this’ and ‘that’, because they do capture a genuine qualitative content. Furthermore, experiencing does not seem to consist simply in exercising a particular kind of concept, demonstrative or not. When Harpo has his new form of experience, he does not simply exercise a new concept; he also grasps something new – the phenomenal quality – with that concept. How decisive these considerations are, remains controversial.
4.2 The Argument from Predicate Dualism to Property Dualism
I said above that predicate dualism might seem to have no ontological consequences, because it is concerned only with the different way things can be described within the contexts of the different sciences, not with any real difference in the things themselves. This, however, can be disputed.
The argument from predicate to property dualism moves in two steps, both controversial. The first claims that the irreducible special sciences, which are the sources of irreducible predicates, are not wholly objective in the way that physics is, but depend for their subject matter upon interest-relative perspectives on the world. This means that they, and the predicates special to them, depend on the existence of minds and mental states, for only minds have interest-relative perspectives. The second claim is that psychology – the science of the mental – is itself an irreducible special science, and so it, too, presupposes the existence of the mental. Mental predicates therefore presuppose the mentality that creates them: mentality cannot consist simply in the applicability of the predicates themselves.
First, let us consider the claim that the special sciences are not fully objective, but are interest-relative.
No-one would deny, of course, that the very same subject matter or ‘hunk of reality’ can be described in irreducibly different ways and it still be just that subject matter or piece of reality. A mass of matter could be characterized as a hurricane, or as a collection of chemical elements, or as mass of sub-atomic particles, and there be only the one mass of matter. But such different explanatory frameworks seem to presuppose different perspectives on that subject matter.
This is where basic physics, and perhaps those sciences reducible to basic physics, differ from irreducible special sciences. On a realist construal, the completed physics cuts physical reality up at its ultimate joints: any special science which is nomically strictly reducible to physics also, in virtue of this reduction, it could be argued, cuts reality at its joints, but not at its minutest ones. If scientific realism is true, a completed physics will tell one how the world is, independently of any special interest or concern: it is just how the world is. It would seem that, by contrast, a science which is not nomically reducible to physics does not take its legitimation from the underlying reality in this direct way. Rather, such a science is formed from the collaboration between, on the one hand, objective similarities in the world and, on the other, perspectives and interests of those who devise the science. The concept of hurricane is brought to bear from the perspective of creatures concerned about the weather. Creatures totally indifferent to the weather would have no reason to take the real patterns of phenomena that hurricanes share as constituting a single kind of thing. With the irreducible special sciences, there is an issue of salience , which involves a subjective component: a selection of phenomena with a certain teleology in mind is required before their structures or patterns are reified. The entities of metereology or biology are, in this respect, rather like Gestalt phenomena.
Even accepting this, why might it be thought that the perspectivality of the special sciences leads to a genuine property dualism in the philosophy of mind? It might seem to do so for the following reason. Having a perspective on the world, perceptual or intellectual, is a psychological state. So the irreducible special sciences presuppose the existence of mind. If one is to avoid an ontological dualism, the mind that has this perspective must be part of the physical reality on which it has its perspective. But psychology, it seems to be almost universally agreed, is one of those special sciences that is not reducible to physics, so if its subject matter is to be physical, it itself presupposes a perspective and, hence, the existence of a mind to see matter as psychological. If this mind is physical and irreducible, it presupposes mind to see it as such. We seem to be in a vicious circle or regress.
We can now understand the motivation for full-blown reduction. A true basic physics represents the world as it is in itself, and if the special sciences were reducible, then the existence of their ontologies would make sense as expressions of the physical, not just as ways of seeing or interpreting it. They could be understood ‘from the bottom up’, not from top down. The irreducibility of the special sciences creates no problem for the dualist, who sees the explanatory endeavor of the physical sciences as something carried on from a perspective conceptually outside of the physical world. Nor need this worry a physicalist, if he can reduce psychology, for then he could understand ‘from the bottom up’ the acts (with their internal, intentional contents) which created the irreducible ontologies of the other sciences. But psychology is one of the least likely of sciences to be reduced. If psychology cannot be reduced, this line of reasoning leads to real emergence for mental acts and hence to a real dualism for the properties those acts instantiate (Robinson 2003).
4.3 The Modal Argument
There is an argument, which has roots in Descartes (Meditation VI), which is a modal argument for dualism. One might put it as follows:
It is imaginable that one’s mind might exist without one’s body.
therefore
It is conceivable that one’s mind might exist without one’s body.
therefore
It is possible one’s mind might exist without one’s body.
therefore
One’s mind is a different entity from one’s body.
The rationale of the argument is a move from imaginability to real possibility. I include (2) because the notion of conceivability has one foot in the psychological camp, like imaginability, and one in the camp of pure logical possibility and therefore helps in the transition from one to the other.
This argument should be distinguished from a similar ‘conceivability’ argument, often known as the ‘zombie hypothesis’, which claims the imaginability and possibility of my body (or, in some forms, a body physically just like it) existing without there being any conscious states associated with it. (See, for example, Chalmers (1996), 94–9.) This latter argument, if sound, would show that conscious states were something over and above physical states. It is a different argument because the hypothesis that the unaltered body could exist without the mind is not the same as the suggestion that the mind might continue to exist without the body, nor are they trivially equivalent. The zombie argument establishes only property dualism and a property dualist might think disembodied existence inconceivable – for example, if he thought the identity of a mind through time depended on its relation to a body (e.g., Penelhum 1970).
Before Kripke (1972/80), the first challenge to such an argument would have concerned the move from (3) to (4). When philosophers generally believed in contingent identity, that move seemed to them invalid. But nowadays that inference is generally accepted and the issue concerns the relation between imaginability and possibility. No-one would nowadays identify the two (except, perhaps, for certain quasi-realists and anti-realists), but the view that imaginability is a solid test for possibility has been strongly defended. W. D. Hart ((1994), 266), for example, argues that no clear example has been produced such that “one can imagine that p (and tell less imaginative folk a story that enables them to imagine that p) plus a good argument that it is impossible that p. No such counterexamples have been forthcoming…” This claim is at least contentious. There seem to be good arguments that time-travel is incoherent, but every episode of Star-Trek or Doctor Who shows how one can imagine what it might be like were it possible.
It is worth relating the appeal to possibility in this argument to that involved in the more modest, anti-physicalist, zombie argument. The possibility of this hypothesis is also challenged, but all that is necessary for a zombie to be possible is that all and only the things that the physical sciences say about the body be true of such a creature. As the concepts involved in such sciences – e.g., neuron, cell, muscle – seem to make no reference, explicit or implicit, to their association with consciousness, and are defined in purely physical terms in the relevant science texts, there is a very powerful prima facie case for thinking that something could meet the condition of being just like them and lack any connection with consciousness. There is no parallel clear, uncontroversial and regimented account of mental concepts as a whole that fails to invoke, explicitly or implicitly, physical (e.g., behavioural) states.
For an analytical behaviourist the appeal to imaginability made in the argument fails, not because imagination is not a reliable guide to possibility, but because we cannot imagine such a thing, as it is a priori impossible. The impossibility of disembodiment is rather like that of time travel, because it is demonstrable a priori, though only by arguments that are controversial. The argument can only get under way for those philosophers who accept that the issue cannot be settled a priori, so the possibility of the disembodiment that we can imagine is still prima facie open.
A major rationale of those who think that imagination is not a safe indication of possibility, even when such possibility is not eliminable a priori, is that we can imagine that a posteriori necessities might be false – for example, that Hesperus might not be identical to Phosphorus. But if Kripke is correct, that is not a real possibility. Another way of putting this point is that there are many epistemic possibilities which are imaginable because they are epistemic possibilities, but which are not real possibilities. Richard Swinburne (1997, New Appendix C), whilst accepting this argument in general, has interesting reasons for thinking that it cannot apply in the mind-body case. He argues that in cases that involve a posteriori necessities, such as those identities that need discovering, it is because we identify those entities only by their ‘stereotypes’ (that is, by their superficial features observable by the layman) that we can be wrong about their essences. In the case of our experience of ourselves this is not true.
Now it is true that the essence of Hesperus cannot be discovered by a mere thought experiment. That is because what makes Hesperus Hesperus is not the stereotype, but what underlies it. But it does not follow that no one can ever have access to the essence of a substance, but must always rely for identification on a fallible stereotype. One might think that for the person him or herself, while what makes that person that person underlies what is observable to others, it does not underlie what is experienceable by that person, but is given directly in their own self-awareness.
This is a very appealing Cartesian intuition: my identity as the thinking thing that I am is revealed to me in consciousness, it is not something beyond the veil of consciousness. Now it could be replied to this that though I do access myself as a conscious subject, so classifying myself is rather like considering myself qua cyclist. Just as I might never have been a cyclist, I might never have been conscious, if things had gone wrong in my very early life. I am the organism, the animal, which might not have developed to the point of consciousness, and that essence as animal is not revealed to me just by introspection.
But there are vital differences between these cases. A cyclist is explicitly presented as a human being (or creature of some other animal species) cycling: there is no temptation to think of a cyclist as a basic kind of thing in its own right. Consciousness is not presented as a property of something, but as the subject itself. Swinburne’s claim that when we refer to ourselves we are referring to something we think we are directly aware of and not to ‘something we know not what’ that underlies our experience seemingly ‘of ourselves’ has powerful intuitive appeal and could only be overthrown by very forceful arguments. Yet, even if we are not referring primarily to a substrate, but to what is revealed in consciousness, could it not still be the case that there is a necessity stronger than causal connecting this consciousness to something physical? To consider this further we must investigate what the limits are of the possible analogy between cases of the water-H2O kind, and the mind-body relation.
We start from the analogy between the water stereotype – how water presents itself – and how consciousness is given first-personally to the subject. It is plausible to claim that something like water could exist without being H2O, but hardly that it could exist without some underlying nature. There is, however, no reason to deny that this underlying nature could be homogenous with its manifest nature: that is, it would seem to be possible that there is a world in which the water-like stuff is an element, as the ancients thought, and is water-like all the way down. The claim of the proponents of the dualist argument is that this latter kind of situation can be known to be true a priori in the case of the mind: that is, one can tell by introspection that it is not more-than-causally dependent on something of a radically different nature, such as a brain or body. What grounds might one have for thinking that one could tell that a priori?
The only general argument that seem to be available for this would be the principle that, for any two levels of discourse, A and B, they are more-than-causally connected only if one entails the other a priori. And the argument for accepting this principle would be that the relatively uncontroversial cases of a posteriori necessary connections are in fact cases in which one can argue a priori from facts about the microstructure to the manifest facts. In the case of water, for example, it would be claimed that it follows a priori that if there were something with the properties attributed to H2O by chemistry on a micro level, then that thing would possess waterish properties on a macro level. What is established a posteriori is that it is in fact H2O that underlies and explains the waterish properties round here, not something else: the sufficiency of the base – were it to obtain – to explain the phenomena, can be deduced a priori from the supposed nature of the base. This is, in effect, the argument that Chalmers uses to defend the zombie hypothesis. The suggestion is that the whole category of a posteriori more-than-causally necessary connections (often identified as a separate category of metaphysical necessity) comes to no more than this. If we accept that this is the correct account of a posteriori necessities, and also deny the analytically reductionist theories that would be necessary for a priori connections between mind and body, as conceived, for example, by the behaviourist or the functionalist, does it follow that we can tell a priori that consciousness is not more-than-causally dependent on the body?
It is helpful in considering this question to employ a distinction like Berkeley’s between ideas and notions. Ideas are the objects of our mental acts, and they capture transparently – ‘by way of image or likeness’ (Principles, sect. 27) – that of which they are the ideas. The self and its faculties are not the objects of our mental acts, but are captured only obliquely in the performance of its acts, and of these Berkeley says we have notions, meaning by this that what we capture of the nature of the dynamic agent does not seem to have the same transparency as what we capture as the normal objects of the agent’s mental acts. It is not necessary to become involved in Berkeley’s metaphysics in general to feel the force of the claim that the contents and internal objects of our mental acts are grasped with a lucidity that exceeds that of our grasp of the agent and the acts per se. Because of this, notions of the self perhaps have a ‘thickness’ and are permanently contestable: there seems always to be room for more dispute as to what is involved in that concept. (Though we shall see later, in 5.2.2, that there is a ‘non-thick’ way of taking the Berkeleyan concept of a notion.)
Because ‘thickness’ always leaves room for dispute, this is one of those cases in philosophy in which one is at the mercy of the arguments philosophers happen to think up. The conceivability argument creates a prima facie case for thinking that mind has no more than causal ontological dependence on the body. Let us assume that one rejects analytical (behaviourist or functionalist) accounts of mental predicates. Then the above arguments show that any necessary dependence of mind on body does not follow the model that applies in other scientific cases. This does not show that there may not be other reasons for believing in such dependence, for so many of the concepts in the area are still contested. For example, it might be argued that identity through time requires the kind of spatial existence that only body can give: or that the causal continuity required by a stream of consciousness cannot be a property of mere phenomena. All these might be put forward as ways of filling out those aspects of our understanding of the self that are only obliquely, not transparently, presented in self-awareness. The dualist must respond to any claim as it arises: the conceivability argument does not pre-empt them.......
5.2 The Unity of the Mind
Whether one believes that the mind is a substance or just a bundle of properties, the same challenge arises, which is to explain the nature of the unity of the immaterial mind. For the Cartesian, that means explaining how he understands the notion of immaterial substance. For the Humean, the issue is to explain the nature of the relationship between the different elements in the bundle that binds them into one thing. Neither tradition has been notably successful in this latter task: indeed, Hume, in the appendix to the Treatise, declared himself wholly mystified by the problem, rejecting his own initial solution (though quite why is not clear from the text).
Death Valley National Park Winter Fine Art Photos! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography
45EPIC Elliot McGucken Fine Art Nature and Landscape Photography!
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Working on a couple photography books! 45EPIC GODDESS PHOTOGRAPHY: A classic guide to exalting the archetypal woman. And 45EPIC Fine Art Landscape Photography!
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Greetings all! I have been busy finishing a few books on photography, while traveling all over--to Zion and the Sierras--shooting fall colors. Please see some here: facebook.com/mcgucken
Let me know in the comments if you would like a free review copy of one of my photography books! :)
Titles include:
The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching!
The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography
And I am also working on a book on photographing the goddesses! :) More goddesses soon!
Best wishes on your epic hero's odyssey!:)
Exalt in the glorious golden ratio! facebook.com/goldennumberratio
45EPIC Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography! Zion Autmn Colors and Fall Foliage!
Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography!
Hiking the Zion Narrows and the Zion Subway! Shooting Paradise Cove and Archangel Falls! The Zion National Park autumn is most beautiful!
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Greetings flickr fans! Many more uploads soon! I have been busy writing, traveling, and shooting! I finished my books on the Tao of Epic Landscape Photography and the Golden Number Ratio Principle! I oft incorporate the golden ratio in my landscape compositions, and you'll also see it in the design and proportion of the 45surf clothes and surfboard and gun logos (More golden ratio information at my facebook page facebook.com/goldennumberratio). Message me on facebook for free review copies of my books here: facebook.com/mcgucken ! :)
I'm working on a book on photographing epic goddesses too! What should I title it? :)
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Full titles: The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.
And: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography: An Artistic and Scientific Introduction to the Golden Mean !
I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them! :)
Enjoy the epic landscape and goddess and photography and note the golden ratio overlays in some of the photos, as well as the golden ratio in the Birth of Venus painting by Botticelli!
I've been on the road shooting landscapes in Zion, Yosemite, the Eastern Sierras, Big Sur, and more!
Many of you have seen my physics formula dx4/dt=ic for Light Time Dimension Theory on a lot of the 45surf clothing and in the fine art landscape logos. I finally finished the first book of many on the foundations of photography's best friend--light:
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
All the best on your epic hero's odyssey!
Follow me! instagram.com/mcgucken
Was so fortunate to be able to photograph the epic Zion glow this year in the Narows and Zion National Park!
Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography!
Hiking the Zion Narrows and the Zion Subway! Shooting Paradise Cove and Archangel Falls! The Zion National Park autumn is most beautiful!
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Greetings flickr fans! Many more uploads soon! I have been busy writing, traveling, and shooting! I finished my books on the Tao of Epic Landscape Photography and the Golden Number Ratio Principle! I oft incorporate the golden ratio in my landscape compositions, and you'll also see it in the design and proportion of the 45surf clothes and surfboard and gun logos (More golden ratio information at my facebook page facebook.com/goldennumberratio). Message me on facebook for free review copies of my books here: facebook.com/mcgucken ! :)
I'm working on a book on photographing epic goddesses too! What should I title it? :)
facebook.com/goldennumberratio
Full titles: The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.
And: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography: An Artistic and Scientific Introduction to the Golden Mean !
I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them! :)
Enjoy the epic landscape and goddess and photography and note the golden ratio overlays in some of the photos, as well as the golden ratio in the Birth of Venus painting by Botticelli!
I've been on the road shooting landscapes in Zion, Yosemite, the Eastern Sierras, Big Sur, and more!
Many of you have seen my physics formula dx4/dt=ic for Light Time Dimesnion Theory on a lot of the 45surf clothing and in the fine art landscape logos. I finally finished the first book of many on the foundations of photography's best friend--light:
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
All the best on your epic hero's odyssey!
Follow me! instagram.com/mcgucken
Was so fortunate to be able to photograph the epic Zion glow this year in the Narows aod Zion National Park!
The principle decoration of the Anver Central Railway station in Antwerp, Belgium. This magnificent railway station has been modernised and extended but they retained much of the decoration and fine workmanship. This is the central facade above the stairs and escalators.
Epic Sony A7RII Malibu Beach Fine Art Landscape /Seascape Sunset! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Sea Caves Landscape and Nature Photography
Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 16-35mm f/4 ZA OSS Lens SEL1635Z Carl Zeiss!
instagram.com/elliotmcgucken
Join my new 45EPIC fine art landscapes page on facebook!
facebook.com/mcgucken
Working on a couple photography books! 45EPIC GODDESS PHOTOGRAPHY: A classic guide to exalting the archetypal woman. And 45EPIC Fine Art Landscape Photography!
Fresh snow! More on my golden ratio musings: facebook.com/goldennumberratio
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Greetings all! I have been busy finishing a few books on photography, while traveling all over--to Zion and the Sierras--shooting fall colors. Please see some here: facebook.com/mcgucken
instagram.com/elliotmcgucken
Let me know in the comments if you would like a free review copy of one of my photography books! :)
Titles include:
The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching!
The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography
facebook.com/goldennumberratio
And I am also working on a book on photographing the goddesses! :) More goddesses soon!
Best wishes on your epic hero's odyssey!:)
instagram.com/45surf
The universe from nothing?
The law of cause and effect tells us that every natural entity/event/effect requires an adequate cause. Which means an uncaused, ‘natural’ first cause is impossible, according to this fundamental principle of science.
Of course, this fact is fatal to atheist beliefs, because it rules out every conceivable, naturalistic, origin scenario.
One of the ways atheists try to get round the problem of a first cause is by saying - that the universe created itself from ‘nothing’ by natural processes.
If you think the notion that something could arise from nothing, by natural processes, is a crazy idea which defies logic and common sense, you are perfectly correct.
But atheists become extremely indignant at that accusation, and usually retort that anyone who thinks the idea is crazy is just plain ignorant. They accuse them of not understanding science, or what is really meant by 'nothing'.
So just what do atheists mean by their idea of nothing?
Incredibly, it turns out that the ‘nothing’ that atheists call nothing, isn't really nothing at all, but a definite ‘something’, i.e. space/time.
Confused or what?
So we have to ask - why do atheists perversely insist on referring to SOMETHING (i.e. space and time) which clearly ISN'T nothing - as NOTHING? They could, for example, just say that the universe created itself from a pre-existing, natural entity.
The answer is plain and simple … it is an obvious smokescreen.
Why would they need such a smokescreen?
Atheists know that people can easily accept the idea of an eternal nothingness, because ‘nothing’ in its true sense of the word (meaning NO - THING) doesn’t need a first cause. It simply means non-existence of everything.
And that which doesn’t exist, doesn’t need a cause.
Therefore, for atheists to claim the universe arose from 'nothing' means they can avoid having to explain ... what caused that which they believe existed before the universe?
However, the atheist’s ‘nothing’ actually turns out to be part of the existing material realm.
The atheist’s nothing is … ‘space’, and space is NOT nothing. Space is the medium which is around and between cosmic bodies in the existing universe.
In our universe, there is no such thing as empty space, even though it may look empty. We know that ‘space’ contains light, radio waves, gravitational forces, cosmic rays etc. Space is an integral part of the material universe, and is just as dependant on a first cause as the cosmic bodies it surrounds.
Therefore it is evident that the confusion between ‘space’ and ‘nothing’ is deliberate. The real nothing, that every sensible person understands as nothing, is totally different to the atheist idea of 'nothing'.
The space/time that atheists refer to as ‘nothing’ in their “UNIVERSE FROM NOTHING” scenario, apparently also contains energy and gravity.
Hence, the atheist ‘nothing’ turns out to be - not nothing at all, but a definite SOMETHING … And furthermore, it is an integral part of the material realm.
This means that, like all material things, – space (the atheist's 'nothing') cannot be non-contingent or eternally self-existent.
And that is the absolute crux of the matter.
It means that atheists are back to square one with the impossible problem of explaining a 'natural' first cause, because they still need to explain what CAUSED their 'nothing' (space) to exist, which is exactly what they were trying to avoid?
So there is no such thing as ... the universe from nothing. When you hear atheists proposing the universe arising from nothing, you will know what they are really proposing is the universe arising from 'something' which is itself already an integral part of the universe. In other words, it doesn't explain anything at all about a first cause of the universe. It is useless as a credible explanation of origins. It is just another atheist myth that has been debunked.
Why God must exist.
www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@
THE QUANTUM EFFECTS, SMOKE AND MIRRORS TRICK ...
What about the idea presented by some atheists that the answer to the origin of the universe lies in quantum mechanics and the so-called 'God' particle?
It is common sense that quantum effects cannot have anything to do with the origin of the universe.
The reasoning of those who propose quantum effects as a possible origin of the universe seems to be that, if something is impossible, just propose that it could happen - little by little -and that makes it plausible. If you make something as small, as simple, and as less complex as you can, people will believe anything is possible.
It is a similar reasoning to that applied to the origin of life and progressive evolution.
But what makes anyone think it is easier for something to come from nothing if it is smaller or simpler?
Is it any easier or more credible for a grain of sand to come from nothing than it would be for a boulder?
Of course it isn’t - it makes no difference whatsoever.
Something cannot come from nothing - that is an irrefutable fact.
Size or lack of complexity doesn’t alter that.
Nevertheless, some atheists apparently still think …. that, although people might realise that you couldn’t get a grain of sand from nothing, any more than you could a boulder, what if we propose the something which came from nothing is the smallest thing imaginable?-
What about the quantum world – how about a sub-atomic particle?
That should sound much more plausible to the public.
We could even find a particle which we could nickname the ‘God’ particle. Problem solved - apparently!
People will at least think that, even if we haven’t solved it completely, we are well on the way to solving it.
And, of course, if anyone still stubbornly insists that even a simple, sub-atomic particle can’t come from nothing, we can always propose that nothing isn’t really nothing, but ‘something’.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to get a scientifically illiterate and gullible public, in awe of anything claimed to be scientific, to swallow that.
However, the idea of a so-called ‘God’ particle was always an OBVIOUS misnomer to anyone with any common sense, but some atheists loved it and, predictably, the secular, media hacks also loved it.
What they either failed to realise (or deliberately failed to admit) is that not only is it just as impossible for a particle (however small) to arise of its own volition from nothing, as anything else, but also the smaller, simpler and less complex a proposed, first cause becomes, the more IMPOSSIBLE it is for it to be a first cause of the universe.
A simple, sub-atomic particle CANNOT possibly be the first cause, it CANNOT replace God, because it is clearly not adequate for the effect/result.
So those atheists who try to persuade people that it is easier for something to come from nothing, if it is simple and microscopic, actually shoot themselves in the foot....
The little by little approach which they apply to the origin of life and progressive evolution doesn’t work for the origin of the universe.
An effect CANNOT be greater than its cause.
The very first cause of the universe cannot be something simpler or less complex than everything that follows it, which is the sum total of the universe itself.
The first cause of the universe MUST be adequate to produce the universe in its entirely and complexity - and that means every property and quality it contains. The end result - the universe - cannot be greater in any respect than that which ultimately caused it. The properties of the first cause of the universe must at the very least, be equal to every property that exists in the universe.
Sub-atomic particles or quantum effects are OBVIOUSLY not up to the job, any more than any of the other natural, first causes proposed by atheists.
Furthermore, quantum effects are not uncaused. They are part of a caused, contingent universe and are just as reliant on causes as the universe itself.
So those atheists who think they can replace God with quantum mechanics are entirely wrong, they are interesting phenomenon, but the one thing it is absolutely certain they are not, is a first cause of the universe.
The nickname the God particle actually originates from a book by Lederman.
Wikipedia …
“And since the Higgs Boson deals with how matter was formed at the time of the big bang, and since newspapers loved the term, the term “God particle" was used.
While media use of this term may have contributed to wider awareness and interest many scientists feel the name is inappropriate since it is sensational hyperbole and misleads readers the particle also has nothing to do with God, leaves open numerous questions in fundamental physics, and does not explain the ultimate origin of the universe. Higgs, an atheist, was reported to be displeased and stated in a 2008 interview that he found it "embarrassing" because it was "the kind of misuse... which I think might offend some people” Science writer Ian Sample stated in his 2010 book on the search that the nickname is "universally hate[d]" by physicists and perhaps the "worst derided" in the history of physics, but that (according to Lederman) the publisher rejected all titles mentioning "Higgs" as unimaginative and too unknown.”
____________________________________________
"I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism"
"If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God"
Lord William Kelvin.
Noted for his theoretical work on thermodynamics, the concept of absolute zero and the Kelvin temperature scale.
The Law of Cause and Effect is a fundamental principle of the scientific method. Science literally means 'knowledge'. Knowledge about the natural world is gained through seeking adequate causes for every natural occurrence. An uncaused, natural ocurrence, is a completely, unscientific notion.
Concerning the Law of Cause and Effect, one of the world's greatest scientists, Dr. Albert Einstein wrote: “All natural science is based on the hypothesis of the complete causal connection of all events”
Albert Einstein. The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Hebrew University and Princeton University Press p.183
FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE
The Law of Cause and Effect. Dominant Principle of Classical Physics. David L. Bergman and Glen C. Collins
www.thewarfareismental.net/b/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/b...
"The Big Bang's Failed Predictions and Failures to Predict: (Updated Aug 3, 2017.) As documented below, trust in the big bang's predictive ability has been misplaced when compared to the actual astronomical observations that were made, in large part, in hopes of affirming the theory."
45EPIC Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography! Zion Autmn Colors and Fall Foliage!
Zion National Park Fine Art Landscapes: Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography!
Hiking the Zion Narrows and the Zion Subway! Shooting Paradise Cove and Archangel Falls! The Zion National Park autumn is most beautiful!
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Greetings flickr fans! Many more uploads soon! I have been busy writing, traveling, and shooting! I finished my books on the Tao of Epic Landscape Photography and the Golden Number Ratio Principle! I oft incorporate the golden ratio in my landscape compositions, and you'll also see it in the design and proportion of the 45surf clothes and surfboard and gun logos (More golden ratio information at my facebook page facebook.com/goldennumberratio). Message me on facebook for free review copies of my books here: facebook.com/mcgucken ! :)
I'm working on a book on photographing epic goddesses too! What should I title it? :)
facebook.com/goldennumberratio
Full titles: The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.
And: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography: An Artistic and Scientific Introduction to the Golden Mean !
I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them! :)
Enjoy the epic landscape and goddess and photography and note the golden ratio overlays in some of the photos, as well as the golden ratio in the Birth of Venus painting by Botticelli!
I've been on the road shooting landscapes in Zion, Yosemite, the Eastern Sierras, Big Sur, and more!
Many of you have seen my physics formula dx4/dt=ic for Light Time Dimension Theory on a lot of the 45surf clothing and in the fine art landscape logos. I finally finished the first book of many on the foundations of photography's best friend--light:
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
All the best on your epic hero's odyssey!
Follow me! instagram.com/mcgucken
Was so fortunate to be able to photograph the epic Zion glow this year in the Narows and Zion National Park!
In the 1960s Ferrari's Prototipo 'P series' sports car racers proved highly successful in terms of races won and imaginations captured. Of course speed rather than beauty was the goal of these cars, yet the two were seemingly inexorable at a time when intuition was a guiding principle. The P4, designed by Mauro Forghieri and William Casoli was both a zenith and nadir of the genre – perhaps the most beautiful, yet also increasingly outdated at a time when aerodynamics were coming to the fore.
And so Ferrari commissioned Pininfarina to explore advanced aerodynamics for the 250 P5. Young recruit Leonardo Fioravanti was chosen to design the car because of his mechanical engineering education at the Politecnico di Milano where his studies focused on aerodynamics and car body design.
Revealed at the 1968 Geneva motor show, the P5 won immediate acclaim for its futuristic design, even if some Ferrari purists grumbled at its perceived departure from Ferrari design orthodoxy. Built on P4 chassis number 0862, the two-seat coupe featured a three-litre V12 engine mounted in its tail. A walk around the brilliant white car (later repainted red) revealed a design composed of intersecting convex and concave volumes, its ovoid masses contrasting with deeply scalloped recesses for vents and wheel wells.
Revealed at the 1968 Geneva motor show, the P5 won immediate acclaim for its futuristic design, even if some Ferrari purists grumbled at its perceived departure from Ferrari design orthodoxy. Built on P4 chassis number 0862, the two-seat coupe featured a three-litre V12 engine mounted in its tail. A walk around the brilliant white car (later repainted red) revealed a design composed of intersecting convex and concave volumes, its ovoid masses contrasting with deeply scalloped recesses for vents and wheel wells.
The design featured a low, concave front fascia with a narrow slot for ventilation for the radiator. Just above this, integrated into the hood, was a bank of headlamps. Flanking this front assembly were pontoon-like fairings for the front wheels. It seems Enzo Ferrari was not overly impressed with this, referring to it as the “suppository”.
More successful were the Dino-like ventilation scoops with flow vanes integrated into the openings while at the rear a strong character line outlines the top of the wheel opening and then ascends and curves across the deck lid. Underneath this somewhat duck-tailed assembly, a strong composition of horizontal vanes covers the tail-lights and engine ventilation openings. It's clearly a theme Fioravanti was proud of as it was to reappear on his later Testarossa.
The upper body was almost entirely formed of a transparent teardrop canopy, its gullwing doors revealing a spartan composition of two seats, driving controls and little else. Seats were minimally ergonomic and the headrests are built into the firewall that separates the cabin from the engine compartment.
A Gentlemen’s Agreement
As popular as the P5 was on the car show circuit, changing racing rules and the complex and ever-developing programmes at Ferrari soon meant the P5 would not be developed further. Indeed, Fioravanti and his team were already working on a successor, the P6.
As it slowly became public knowledge that P5 was not to be a part of Modena’s future, an unusual request came to Enzo Ferrari from his longtime friend and associate, Dr. Giuseppe Luraghi, Chairman of Alfa Romeo. If Ferrari was not to continue the development of the P5, would he cede the project to his company to develop further? In a move that would be unheard of today, Il Commendatore granted the request.
[Text from CarDesignNews.com]
cardesignnews.com/articles/concept-car-of-the-week/2016/0...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamish_Museum
Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By displaying duplicates or replaceable items, it was also an early example of the now commonplace practice of museums allowing visitors to touch objects.
The museum's guiding principle is to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early 20th century. Much of the restoration and interpretation is specific to the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, together with portions of countryside under the influence of industrial revolution from 1825. On its 350 acres (140 ha) estate it uses a mixture of translocated, original and replica buildings, a large collection of artefacts, working vehicles and equipment, as well as livestock and costumed interpreters.
The museum has received a number of awards since it opened to visitors in 1972 and has influenced other living museums. It is an educational resource, and also helps to preserve some traditional and rare north-country livestock breeds.
History
Genesis
In 1958, days after starting as director of the Bowes Museum, inspired by Scandinavian folk museums, and realising the North East's traditional industries and communities were disappearing, Frank Atkinson presented a report to Durham County Council urging that a collection of items of everyday history on a large scale should begin as soon as possible, so that eventually an open air museum could be established. As well as objects, Atkinson was also aiming to preserve the region's customs and dialect. He stated the new museum should "attempt to make the history of the region live" and illustrate the way of life of ordinary people. He hoped the museum would be run by, be about and exist for the local populace, desiring them to see the museum as theirs, featuring items collected from them.
Fearing it was now almost too late, Atkinson adopted a policy of "unselective collecting" — "you offer it to us and we will collect it." Donations ranged in size from small items to locomotives and shops, and Atkinson initially took advantage of a surplus of space available in the 19th-century French chateau-style building housing the Bowes Museum to store items donated for the open air museum. With this space soon filled, a former British Army tank depot at Brancepeth was taken over, although in just a short time its entire complement of 22 huts and hangars had been filled, too.
In 1966, a working party was established to set up a museum "for the purpose of studying, collecting, preserving and exhibiting buildings, machinery, objects and information illustrating the development of industry and the way of life of the north of England", and it selected Beamish Hall, having been vacated by the National Coal Board, as a suitable location.
Establishment and expansion
In August 1970, with Atkinson appointed as its first full-time director together with three staff members, the museum was first established by moving some of the collections into the hall. In 1971, an introductory exhibition, "Museum in the Making" opened at the hall.
The museum was opened to visitors on its current site for the first time in 1972, with the first translocated buildings (the railway station and colliery winding engine) being erected the following year. The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973. The Town station was formally opened in 1976, the same year the reconstruction of the colliery winding engine house was completed, and the miners' cottages were relocated. Opening of the drift mine as an exhibit followed in 1979.
In 1975 the museum was visited by the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and by Anne, Princess Royal, in 2002. In 2006, as the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, The Duke of Kent visited, to open the town masonic lodge.
With the Co-op having opened in 1984, the town area was officially opened in 1985. The pub had opened in the same year, with Ravensworth Terrace having been reconstructed from 1980 to 1985. The newspaper branch office had also been built in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere, the farm on the west side of the site (which became Home Farm) opened in 1983. The present arrangement of visitors entering from the south was introduced in 1986.
At the beginning of the 1990s, further developments in the Pit Village were opened, the chapel in 1990, and the board school in 1992. The whole tram circle was in operation by 1993.[8] Further additions to the Town came in 1994 with the opening of the sweet shop and motor garage, followed by the bank in 1999. The first Georgian component of the museum arrived when Pockerley Old Hall opened in 1995, followed by the Pockerley Waggonway in 2001.
In the early 2000s two large modern buildings were added, to augment the museum's operations and storage capacity - the Regional Resource Centre on the west side opened in 2001, followed by the Regional Museums Store next to the railway station in 2002. Due to its proximity, the latter has been cosmetically presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works. Additions to display areas came in the form of the Masonic lodge (2006) and the Lamp Cabin in the Colliery (2009). In 2010, the entrance building and tea rooms were refurbished.
Into the 2010s, further buildings were added - the fish and chip shop (opened 2011)[28] band hall (opened 2013) and pit pony stables (built 2013/14) in the Pit Village, plus a bakery (opened 2013) and chemist and photographers (opened 2016) being added to the town. St Helen's Church, in the Georgian landscape, opened in November 2015.
Remaking Beamish
A major development, named 'Remaking Beamish', was approved by Durham County Council in April 2016, with £10.7m having been raised from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3.3m from other sources.
As of September 2022, new exhibits as part of this project have included a quilter's cottage, a welfare hall, 1950s terrace, recreation park, bus depot, and 1950s farm (all discussed in the relevant sections of this article). The coming years will see replicas of aged miners' homes from South Shields, a cinema from Ryhope, and social housing will feature a block of four relocated Airey houses, prefabricated concrete homes originally designed by Sir Edwin Airey, which previously stood in Kibblesworth. Then-recently vacated and due for demolition, they were instead offered to the museum by The Gateshead Housing Company and accepted in 2012.
Museum site
The approximately 350-acre (1.4 km2) current site, once belonging to the Eden and Shafto families, is a basin-shaped steep-sided valley with woodland areas, a river, some level ground and a south-facing aspect.
Visitors enter the site through an entrance arch formed by a steam hammer, across a former opencast mining site and through a converted stable block (from Greencroft, near Lanchester, County Durham).
Visitors can navigate the site via assorted marked footpaths, including adjacent (or near to) the entire tramway oval. According to the museum, it takes 20 minutes to walk at a relaxed pace from the entrance to the town. The tramway oval serves as both an exhibit and as a free means of transport around the site for visitors, with stops at the entrance (south), Home Farm (west), Pockerley (east) and the Town (north). Visitors can also use the museum's buses as a free form of transport between various parts of the museum. Although visitors can also ride on the Town railway and Pockerley Waggonway, these do not form part of the site's transport system (as they start and finish from the same platforms).
Governance
Beamish was the first English museum to be financed and administered by a consortium of county councils (Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear) The museum is now operated as a registered charity, but continues to receive support from local authorities - Durham County Council, Sunderland City Council, Gateshead Council, South Tyneside Council and North Tyneside Council. The supporting Friends of Beamish organisation was established in 1968. Frank Atkinson retired as director in 1987. The museum has been 96% self-funding for some years (mainly from admission charges).
Sections of the museum
1913
The town area, officially opened in 1985, depicts chiefly Victorian buildings in an evolved urban setting of 1913.
Tramway
The Beamish Tramway is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, with four passing loops. The line makes a circuit of the museum site forming an important element of the visitor transportation system.
The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973, with the whole circle in operation by 1993.[8] It represents the era of electric powered trams, which were being introduced to meet the needs of growing towns and cities across the North East from the late 1890s, replacing earlier horse drawn systems.
Bakery
Presented as Joseph Herron, Baker & Confectioner, the bakery was opened in 2013 and features working ovens which produce food for sale to visitors. A two-storey curved building, only the ground floor is used as the exhibit. A bakery has been included to represent the new businesses which sprang up to cater for the growing middle classes - the ovens being of the modern electric type which were growing in use. The building was sourced from Anfield Plain (which had a bakery trading as Joseph Herron), and was moved to Beamish in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The frontage features a stained glass from a baker's shop in South Shields. It also uses fittings from Stockton-on-Tees.
Motor garage
Presented as Beamish Motor & Cycle Works, the motor garage opened in 1994. Reflecting the custom nature of the early motor trade, where only one in 232 people owned a car in 1913, the shop features a showroom to the front (not accessible to visitors), with a garage area to the rear, accessed via the adjacent archway. The works is a replica of a typical garage of the era. Much of the museum's car, motorcycle and bicycle collection, both working and static, is stored in the garage. The frontage has two storeys, but the upper floor is only a small mezzanine and is not used as part of the display.
Department Store
Presented as the Annfield Plain Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd, (but more commonly referred to as the Anfield Plain Co-op Store) this department store opened in 1984, and was relocated to Beamish from Annfield Plain in County Durham. The Annfield Plain co-operative society was originally established in 1870, with the museum store stocking various products from the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), established 1863. A two-storey building, the ground floor comprises the three departments - grocery, drapery and hardware; the upper floor is taken up by the tea rooms (accessed from Redman Park via a ramp to the rear). Most of the items are for display only, but a small amount of goods are sold to visitors. The store features an operational cash carrier system, of the Lamson Cash Ball design - common in many large stores of the era, but especially essential to Co-ops, where customer's dividends had to be logged.
Ravensworth Terrace
Ravensworth Terrace is a row of terraced houses, presented as the premises and living areas of various professionals. Representing the expanding housing stock of the era, it was relocated from its original site on Bensham Bank, having been built for professionals and tradesmen between 1830 and 1845. Original former residents included painter John Wilson Carmichael and Gateshead mayor Alexander Gillies. Originally featuring 25 homes, the terrace was to be demolished when the museum saved it in the 1970s, reconstructing six of them on the Town site between 1980 and 1985. They are two storey buildings, with most featuring display rooms on both floors - originally the houses would have also housed a servant in the attic. The front gardens are presented in a mix of the formal style, and the natural style that was becoming increasingly popular.
No. 2 is presented as the home of Miss Florence Smith, a music teacher, with old fashioned mid-Victorian furnishings as if inherited from her parents. No. 3 & 4 is presented as the practice and home respectively (with a knocked through door) of dentist J. Jones - the exterior nameplate having come from the surgery of Mr. J. Jones in Hartlepool. Representing the state of dental health at the time, it features both a check-up room and surgery for extraction, and a technicians room for creating dentures - a common practice at the time being the giving to daughters a set on their 21st birthday, to save any future husband the cost at a later date. His home is presented as more modern than No.2, furnished in the Edwardian style the modern day utilities of an enamelled bathroom with flushing toilet, a controllable heat kitchen range and gas cooker. No. 5 is presented as a solicitor's office, based on that of Robert Spence Watson, a Quaker from Newcastle. Reflecting the trade of the era, downstairs is laid out as the partner's or principal office, and the general or clerk's office in the rear. Included is a set of books sourced from ER Hanby Holmes, who practised in Barnard Castle.
Pub
Presented as The Sun Inn, the pub opened in the town in 1985. It had originally stood in Bondgate in Bishop Auckland, and was donated to the museum by its final owners, the Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. Originally a "one-up one down" cottage, the earliest ownership has been traced to James Thompson, on 21 January 1806. Known as The Tiger Inn until the 1850s, from 1857 to 1899 under the ownership of the Leng family, it flourished under the patronage of miners from Newton Cap and other collieries. Latterly run by Elsie Edes, it came under brewery ownership in the 20th Century when bought by S&N antecedent, James Deuchar Ltd. The pub is fully operational, and features both a front and back bar, the two stories above not being part of the exhibit. The interior decoration features the stuffed racing greyhound Jake's Bonny Mary, which won nine trophies before being put on display in The Gerry in White le Head near Tantobie.
Town stables
Reflecting the reliance on horses for a variety of transport needs in the era, the town features a centrally located stables, situated behind the sweet shop, with its courtyard being accessed from the archway next to the pub. It is presented as a typical jobmaster's yard, with stables and a tack room in the building on its north side. A small, brick built open air, carriage shed is sited on the back of the printworks building. On the east side of the courtyard is a much larger metal shed (utilising iron roof trusses from Fleetwood), arranged mainly as carriage storage, but with a blacksmith's shop in the corner. The building on the west side of the yard is not part of any display. The interior fittings for the harness room came from Callaly Caste. Many of the horses and horse-drawn vehicles used by the museum are housed in the stables and sheds.
Printer, stationer and newspaper branch office
Presented as the Beamish Branch Office of the Northern Daily Mail and the Sunderland Daily Echo, the two storey replica building was built in the mid-1980s and represents the trade practices of the era. Downstairs, on the right, is the branch office, where newspapers would be sold directly and distributed to local newsagents and street vendors, and where orders for advertising copy would be taken. Supplementing it is a stationer's shop on the left hand side, with both display items and a small number of gift items on public sale. Upstairs is a jobbing printers workshop, which would not produce the newspapers, but would instead print leaflets, posters and office stationery. Split into a composing area and a print shop, the shop itself has a number of presses - a Columbian built in 1837 by Clymer and Dixon, an Albion dating back to 1863, an Arab Platen of c. 1900, and a Wharfedale flat bed press, built by Dawson & Son in around 1870. Much of the machinery was sourced from the print works of Jack Ascough's of Barnard Castle. Many of the posters seen around the museum are printed in the works, with the operation of the machinery being part of the display.
Sweet shop
Presented as Jubilee Confectioners, the two storey sweet shop opened in 1994 and is meant to represent the typical family run shops of the era, with living quarters above the shop (the second storey not being part of the display). To the front of the ground floor is a shop, where traditional sweets and chocolate (which was still relatively expensive at the time) are sold to visitors, while in the rear of the ground floor is a manufacturing area where visitors can view the techniques of the time (accessed via the arched walkway on the side of the building). The sweet rollers were sourced from a variety of shops and factories.
Bank
Presented as a branch of Barclays Bank (Barclay & Company Ltd) using period currency, the bank opened in 1999. It represents the trend of the era when regional banks were being acquired and merged into national banks such as Barclays, formed in 1896. Built to a three-storey design typical of the era, and featuring bricks in the upper storeys sourced from Park House, Gateshead, the Swedish imperial red shade used on the ground floor frontage is intended to represent stability and security. On the ground floor are windows for bank tellers, plus the bank manager's office. Included in a basement level are two vaults. The upper two storeys are not part of the display. It features components sourced from Southport and Gateshead
Masonic Hall
The Masonic Hall opened in 2006, and features the frontage from a former masonic hall sited in Park Terrace, Sunderland. Reflecting the popularity of the masons in North East England, as well as the main hall, which takes up the full height of the structure, in a small two story arrangement to the front of the hall is also a Robing Room and the Tyler's Room on the ground floor, and a Museum Room upstairs, featuring display cabinets of masonic regalia donated from various lodges. Upstairs is also a class room, with large stained glass window.
Chemist and photographer
Presented as W Smith's Chemist and JR & D Edis Photographers, a two-storey building housing both a chemist and photographers shops under one roof opened on 7 May 2016 and represents the growing popularity of photography in the era, with shops often growing out of or alongside chemists, who had the necessary supplies for developing photographs. The chemist features a dispensary, and equipment from various shops including John Walker, inventor of the friction match. The photographers features a studio, where visitors can dress in period costume and have a photograph taken. The corner building is based on a real building on Elvet Bridge in Durham City, opposite the Durham Marriot Hotel (the Royal County), although the second storey is not part of the display. The chemist also sells aerated water (an early form of carbonated soft drinks) to visitors, sold in marble-stopper sealed Codd bottles (although made to a modern design to prevent the safety issue that saw the original bottles banned). Aerated waters grew in popularity in the era, due to the need for a safe alternative to water, and the temperance movement - being sold in chemists due to the perception they were healthy in the same way mineral waters were.
Costing around £600,000 and begun on 18 August 2014, the building's brickwork and timber was built by the museum's own staff and apprentices, using Georgian bricks salvaged from demolition works to widen the A1. Unlike previous buildings built on the site, the museum had to replicate rather than relocate this one due to the fact that fewer buildings are being demolished compared to the 1970s, and in any case it was deemed unlikely one could be found to fit the curved shape of the plot. The studio is named after a real business run by John Reed Edis and his daughter Daisy. Mr Edis, originally at 27 Sherburn Road, Durham, in 1895, then 52 Saddler Street from 1897. The museum collection features several photographs, signs and equipment from the Edis studio. The name for the chemist is a reference to the business run by William Smith, who relocated to Silver Street, near the original building, in 1902. According to records, the original Edis company had been supplied by chemicals from the original (and still extant) Smith business.
Redman Park
Redman Park is a small lawned space with flower borders, opposite Ravensworth Terrace. Its centrepiece is a Victorian bandstand sourced from Saltwell Park, where it stood on an island in the middle of a lake. It represents the recognised need of the time for areas where people could relax away from the growing industrial landscape.
Other
Included in the Town are drinking fountains and other period examples of street furniture. In between the bank and the sweet shop is a combined tram and bus waiting room and public convenience.
Unbuilt
When construction of the Town began, the projected town plan incorporated a market square and buildings including a gas works, fire station, ice cream parlour (originally the Central Cafe at Consett), a cast iron bus station from Durham City, school, public baths and a fish and chip shop.
Railway station
East of the Town is the Railway Station, depicting a typical small passenger and goods facility operated by the main railway company in the region at the time, the North Eastern Railway (NER). A short running line extends west in a cutting around the north side of the Town itself, with trains visible from the windows of the stables. It runs for a distance of 1⁄4 mile - the line used to connect to the colliery sidings until 1993 when it was lifted between the town and the colliery so that the tram line could be extended. During 2009 the running line was relaid so that passenger rides could recommence from the station during 2010.
Rowley station
Representing passenger services is Rowley Station, a station building on a single platform, opened in 1976, having been relocated to the museum from the village of Rowley near Consett, just a few miles from Beamish.
The original Rowley railway station was opened in 1845 (as Cold Rowley, renamed Rowley in 1868) by the NER antecedent, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, consisting of just a platform. Under NER ownership, as a result of increasing use, in 1873 the station building was added. As demand declined, passenger service was withdrawn in 1939, followed by the goods service in 1966. Trains continued to use the line for another three years before it closed, the track being lifted in 1970. Although in a state of disrepair, the museum acquired the building, dismantling it in 1972, being officially unveiled in its new location by railway campaigner and poet, Sir John Betjeman.
The station building is presented as an Edwardian station, lit by oil lamp, having never been connected to gas or electricity supplies in its lifetime. It features both an open waiting area and a visitor accessible waiting room (western half), and a booking and ticket office (eastern half), with the latter only visible from a small viewing entrance. Adorning the waiting room is a large tiled NER route map.
Signal box
The signal box dates from 1896, and was relocated from Carr House East near Consett. It features assorted signalling equipment, basic furnishings for the signaller, and a lever frame, controlling the stations numerous points, interlocks and semaphore signals. The frame is not an operational part of the railway, the points being hand operated using track side levers. Visitors can only view the interior from a small area inside the door.
Goods shed
The goods shed is originally from Alnwick. The goods area represents how general cargo would have been moved on the railway, and for onward transport. The goods shed features a covered platform where road vehicles (wagons and carriages) can be loaded with the items unloaded from railway vans. The shed sits on a triangular platform serving two sidings, with a platform mounted hand-crane, which would have been used for transhipment activity (transfer of goods from one wagon to another, only being stored for a short time on the platform, if at all).
Coal yard
The coal yard represents how coal would have been distributed from incoming trains to local merchants - it features a coal drop which unloads railway wagons into road going wagons below. At the road entrance to the yard is a weighbridge (with office) and coal merchant's office - both being appropriately furnished with display items, but only viewable from outside.
The coal drop was sourced from West Boldon, and would have been a common sight on smaller stations. The weighbridge came from Glanton, while the coal office is from Hexham.
Bridges and level crossing
The station is equipped with two footbridges, a wrought iron example to the east having come from Howden-le-Wear, and a cast iron example to the west sourced from Dunston. Next to the western bridge, a roadway from the coal yard is presented as crossing the tracks via a gated level crossing (although in reality the road goes nowhere on the north side).
Waggon and Iron Works
Dominating the station is the large building externally presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works, estd 1857. In reality this is the Regional Museums Store (see below), although attached to the north side of the store are two covered sidings (not accessible to visitors), used to service and store the locomotives and stock used on the railway.
Other
A corrugated iron hut adjacent to the 'iron works' is presented as belonging to the local council, and houses associated road vehicles, wagons and other items.
Fairground
Adjacent to the station is an events field and fairground with a set of Frederick Savage built steam powered Gallopers dating from 1893.
Colliery
Presented as Beamish Colliery (owned by James Joicey & Co., and managed by William Severs), the colliery represents the coal mining industry which dominated the North East for generations - the museum site is in the former Durham coalfield, where 165,246 men and boys worked in 304 mines in 1913. By the time period represented by Beamish's 1900s era, the industry was booming - production in the Great Northern Coalfield had peaked in 1913, and miners were relatively well paid (double that of agriculture, the next largest employer), but the work was dangerous. Children could be employed from age 12 (the school leaving age), but could not go underground until 14.
Deep mine
Reconstructed pitworks buildings showing winding gear
Dominating the colliery site are the above ground structures of a deep (i.e. vertical shaft) mine - the brick built Winding Engine House, and the red painted wooden Heapstead. These were relocated to the museum (which never had its own vertical shaft), the winding house coming from Beamish Chophill Colliery, and the Heapstead from Ravensworth Park Mine in Gateshead. The winding engine and its enclosing house are both listed.
The winding engine was the source of power for hauling miners, equipment and coal up and down the shaft in a cage, the top of the shaft being in the adjacent heapstead, which encloses the frame holding the wheel around which the hoist cable travels. Inside the Heapstead, tubs of coal from the shaft were weighed on a weighbridge, then tipped onto jigging screens, which sifted the solid lumps from small particles and dust - these were then sent along the picking belt, where pickers, often women, elderly or disabled people or young boys (i.e. workers incapable of mining), would separate out unwanted stone, wood and rubbish. Finally, the coal was tipped onto waiting railway wagons below, while the unwanted waste sent to the adjacent heap by an external conveyor.
Chophill Colliery was closed by the National Coal Board in 1962, but the winding engine and tower were left in place. When the site was later leased, Beamish founder Frank Atkinson intervened to have both spot listed to prevent their demolition. After a protracted and difficult process to gain the necessary permissions to move a listed structure, the tower and engine were eventually relocated to the museum, work being completed in 1976. The winding engine itself is the only surviving example of the type which was once common, and was still in use at Chophill upon its closure. It was built in 1855 by J&G Joicey of Newcastle, to an 1800 design by Phineas Crowther.
Inside the winding engine house, supplementing the winding engine is a smaller jack engine, housed in the rear. These were used to lift heavy equipment, and in deep mines, act as a relief winding engine.
Outdoors, next to the Heapstead, is a sinking engine, mounted on red bricks. Brought to the museum from Silksworth Colliery in 1971, it was built by Burlington's of Sunderland in 1868 and is the sole surviving example of its kind. Sinking engines were used for the construction of shafts, after which the winding engine would become the source of hoist power. It is believed the Silksworth engine was retained because it was powerful enough to serve as a backup winding engine, and could be used to lift heavy equipment (i.e. the same role as the jack engine inside the winding house).
Drift mine
The Mahogany Drift Mine is original to Beamish, having opened in 1855 and after closing, was brought back into use in 1921 to transport coal from Beamish Park Drift to Beamish Cophill Colliery. It opened as a museum display in 1979. Included in the display is the winding engine and a short section of trackway used to transport tubs of coal to the surface, and a mine office. Visitor access into the mine shaft is by guided tour.
Lamp cabin
The Lamp Cabin opened in 2009, and is a recreation of a typical design used in collieries to house safety lamps, a necessary piece of equipment for miners although were not required in the Mahogany Drift Mine, due to it being gas-free. The building is split into two main rooms; in one half, the lamp cabin interior is recreated, with a collection of lamps on shelves, and the system of safety tokens used to track which miners were underground. Included in the display is a 1927 Hailwood and Ackroyd lamp-cleaning machine sourced from Morrison Busty Colliery in Annfield Plain. In the second room is an educational display, i.e., not a period interior.
Colliery railways
The colliery features both a standard gauge railway, representing how coal was transported to its onward destination, and narrow-gauge typically used by Edwardian collieries for internal purposes. The standard gauge railway is laid out to serve the deep mine - wagons being loaded by dropping coal from the heapstead - and runs out of the yard to sidings laid out along the northern-edge of the Pit Village.
The standard gauge railway has two engine sheds in the colliery yard, the smaller brick, wood and metal structure being an operational building; the larger brick-built structure is presented as Beamish Engine Works, a reconstruction of an engine shed formerly at Beamish 2nd Pit. Used for locomotive and stock storage, it is a long, single track shed featuring a servicing pit for part of its length. Visitors can walk along the full length in a segregated corridor. A third engine shed in brick (lower half) and corrugated iron has been constructed at the southern end of the yard, on the other side of the heapstead to the other two sheds, and is used for both narrow and standard gauge vehicles (on one road), although it is not connected to either system - instead being fed by low-loaders and used for long-term storage only.
The narrow gauge railway is serviced by a corrugate iron engine shed, and is being expanded to eventually encompass several sidings.
There are a number of industrial steam locomotives (including rare examples by Stephen Lewin from Seaham and Black, Hawthorn & Co) and many chaldron wagons, the region's traditional type of colliery railway rolling stock, which became a symbol of Beamish Museum. The locomotive Coffee Pot No 1 is often in steam during the summer.
Other
On the south eastern corner of the colliery site is the Power House, brought to the museum from Houghton Colliery. These were used to store explosives.
Pit Village
Alongside the colliery is the pit village, representing life in the mining communities that grew alongside coal production sites in the North East, many having come into existence solely because of the industry, such as Seaham Harbour, West Hartlepool, Esh Winning and Bedlington.
Miner's Cottages
The row of six miner's cottages in Francis Street represent the tied-housing provided by colliery owners to mine workers. Relocated to the museum in 1976, they were originally built in the 1860s in Hetton-le-Hole by Hetton Coal Company. They feature the common layout of a single-storey with a kitchen to the rear, the main room of the house, and parlour to the front, rarely used (although it was common for both rooms to be used for sleeping, with disguised folding "dess" beds common), and with children sleeping in attic spaces upstairs. In front are long gardens, used for food production, with associated sheds. An outdoor toilet and coal bunker were in the rear yards, and beyond the cobbled back lane to their rear are assorted sheds used for cultivation, repairs and hobbies. Chalkboard slates attached to the rear wall were used by the occupier to tell the mine's "knocker up" when they wished to be woken for their next shift.
No.2 is presented as a Methodist family's home, featuring good quality "Pitman's mahogany" furniture; No.3 is presented as occupied by a second generation well off Irish Catholic immigrant family featuring many items of value (so they could be readily sold off in times of need) and an early 1890s range; No.3 is presented as more impoverished than the others with just a simple convector style Newcastle oven, being inhabited by a miner's widow allowed to remain as her son is also a miner, and supplementing her income doing laundry and making/mending for other families. All the cottages feature examples of the folk art objects typical of mining communities. Also included in the row is an office for the miner's paymaster.[11] In the rear alleyway of the cottages is a communal bread oven, which were commonplace until miner's cottages gradually obtained their own kitchen ranges. They were used to bake traditional breads such as the Stottie, as well as sweet items, such as tea cakes. With no extant examples, the museum's oven had to be created from photographs and oral history.
School
The school opened in 1992, and represents the typical board school in the educational system of the era (the stone built single storey structure being inscribed with the foundation date of 1891, Beamish School Board), by which time attendance at a state approved school was compulsory, but the leaving age was 12, and lessons featured learning by rote and corporal punishment. The building originally stood in East Stanley, having been set up by the local school board, and would have numbered around 150 pupils. Having been donated by Durham County Council, the museum now has a special relationship with the primary school that replaced it. With separate entrances and cloakrooms for boys and girls at either end, the main building is split into three class rooms (all accessible to visitors), connected by a corridor along the rear. To the rear is a red brick bike shed, and in the playground visitors can play traditional games of the era.
Chapel
Pit Hill Chapel opened in 1990, and represents the Wesleyan Methodist tradition which was growing in North East England, with the chapels used for both religious worship and as community venues, which continue in its role in the museum display. Opened in the 1850s, it originally stood not far from its present site, having been built in what would eventually become Beamish village, near the museum entrance. A stained glass window of The Light of The World by William Holman Hunt came from a chapel in Bedlington. A two handled Love Feast Mug dates from 1868, and came from a chapel in Shildon Colliery. On the eastern wall, above the elevated altar area, is an angled plain white surface used for magic lantern shows, generated using a replica of the double-lensed acetylene gas powered lanterns of the period, mounted in the aisle of the main seating area. Off the western end of the hall is the vestry, featuring a small library and communion sets from Trimdon Colliery and Catchgate.
Fish bar
Presented as Davey's Fried Fish & Chip Potato Restaurant, the fish and chip shop opened in 2011, and represents the typical style of shop found in the era as they were becoming rapidly popular in the region - the brick built Victorian style fryery would most often have previously been used for another trade, and the attached corrugated iron hut serves as a saloon with tables and benches, where customers would eat and socialise. Featuring coal fired ranges using beef-dripping, the shop is named in honour of the last coal fired shop in Tyneside, in Winlaton Mill, and which closed in 2007. Latterly run by brothers Brian and Ramsay Davy, it had been established by their grandfather in 1937. The serving counter and one of the shop's three fryers, a 1934 Nuttal, came from the original Davy shop. The other two fryers are a 1920s Mabbott used near Chester until the 1960s, and a GW Atkinson New Castle Range, donated from a shop in Prudhoe in 1973. The latter is one of only two known late Victorian examples to survive. The decorative wall tiles in the fryery came to the museum in 1979 from Cowes Fish and Game Shop in Berwick upon Tweed. The shop also features both an early electric and hand-powered potato rumblers (cleaners), and a gas powered chip chopper built around 1900. Built behind the chapel, the fryery is arranged so the counter faces the rear, stretching the full length of the building. Outside is a brick built row of outdoor toilets. Supplementing the fish bar is the restored Berriman's mobile chip van, used in Spennymoor until the early 1970s.
Band hall
The Hetton Silver Band Hall opened in 2013, and features displays reflecting the role colliery bands played in mining life. Built in 1912, it was relocated from its original location in South Market Street, Hetton-le-Hole, where it was used by the Hetton Silver Band, founded in 1887. They built the hall using prize money from a music competition, and the band decided to donate the hall to the museum after they merged with Broughtons Brass Band of South Hetton (to form the Durham Miners' Association Brass Band). It is believed to be the only purpose built band hall in the region. The structure consists of the main hall, plus a small kitchen to the rear; as part of the museum it is still used for performances.
Pit pony stables
The Pit Pony Stables were built in 2013/14, and house the museum's pit ponies. They replace a wooden stable a few metres away in the field opposite the school (the wooden structure remaining). It represents the sort of stables that were used in drift mines (ponies in deep mines living their whole lives underground), pit ponies having been in use in the north east as late as 1994, in Ellington Colliery. The structure is a recreation of an original building that stood at Rickless Drift Mine, between High Spen and Greenside; it was built using a yellow brick that was common across the Durham coalfield.
Other
Doubling as one of the museum's refreshment buildings, Sinker's Bait Cabin represents the temporary structures that would have served as living quarters, canteens and drying areas for sinkers, the itinerant workforce that would dig new vertical mine shafts.
Representing other traditional past-times, the village fields include a quoits pitch, with another refreshment hut alongside it, resembling a wooden clubhouse.
In one of the fields in the village stands the Cupola, a small round flat topped brick built tower; such structures were commonly placed on top of disused or ventilation shafts, also used as an emergency exit from the upper seams.
The Georgian North (1825)
A late Georgian landscape based around the original Pockerley farm represents the period of change in the region as transport links were improved and as agriculture changed as machinery and field management developed, and breeding stock was improved. It became part of the museum in 1990, having latterly been occupied by a tenant farmer, and was opened as an exhibit in 1995. The hill top position suggests the site was the location of an Iron Age fort - the first recorded mention of a dwelling is in the 1183 Buke of Boldon (the region's equivalent of the Domesday Book). The name Pockerley has Saxon origins - "Pock" or "Pokor" meaning "pimple of bag-like" hill, and "Ley" meaning woodland clearing.
The surrounding farmlands have been returned to a post-enclosure landscape with ridge and furrow topography, divided into smaller fields by traditional riven oak fencing. The land is worked and grazed by traditional methods and breeds.
Pockerley Old Hall
The estate of Pockerley Old Hall is presented as that of a well off tenant farmer, in a position to take advantage of the agricultural advances of the era. The hall itself consists of the Old House, which is adjoined (but not connected to) the New House, both south facing two storey sandstone built buildings, the Old House also having a small north–south aligned extension. Roof timbers in the sandstone built Old House have been dated to the 1440s, but the lower storey (the undercroft) may be from even earlier. The New House dates to the late 1700s, and replaced a medieval manor house to the east of the Old House as the main farm house - once replaced itself, the Old House is believed to have been let to the farm manager. Visitors can access all rooms in the New and Old House, except the north–south extension which is now a toilet block. Displays include traditional cooking, such as the drying of oatcakes over a wooden rack (flake) over the fireplace in the Old House.
Inside the New House the downstairs consists of a main kitchen and a secondary kitchen (scullery) with pantry. It also includes a living room, although as the main room of the house, most meals would have been eaten in the main kitchen, equipped with an early range, boiler and hot air oven. Upstairs is a main bedroom and a second bedroom for children; to the rear (i.e. the colder, north side), are bedrooms for a servant and the servant lad respectively. Above the kitchen (for transferred warmth) is a grain and fleece store, with attached bacon loft, a narrow space behind the wall where bacon or hams, usually salted first, would be hung to be smoked by the kitchen fire (entering through a small door in the chimney).
Presented as having sparse and more old fashioned furnishings, the Old House is presented as being occupied in the upper story only, consisting of a main room used as the kitchen, bedroom and for washing, with the only other rooms being an adjoining second bedroom and an overhanging toilet. The main bed is an oak box bed dating to 1712, obtained from Star House in Baldersdale in 1962. Originally a defensive house in its own right, the lower level of the Old House is an undercroft, or vaulted basement chamber, with 1.5 metre thick walls - in times of attack the original tenant family would have retreated here with their valuables, although in its later use as the farm managers house, it is now presented as a storage and work room, housing a large wooden cheese press.[68] More children would have slept in the attic of the Old House (not accessible as a display).
To the front of the hall is a terraced garden featuring an ornamental garden with herbs and flowers, a vegetable garden, and an orchard, all laid out and planted according to the designs of William Falla of Gateshead, who had the largest nursery in Britain from 1804 to 1830.
The buildings to the east of the hall, across a north–south track, are the original farmstead buildings dating from around 1800. These include stables and a cart shed arranged around a fold yard. The horses and carts on display are typical of North Eastern farms of the era, Fells or Dales ponies and Cleveland Bay horses, and two wheeled long carts for hilly terrain (as opposed to four wheel carts).
Pockerley Waggonway
The Pockerley Waggonway opened in 2001, and represents the year 1825, as the year the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened. Waggonways had appeared around 1600, and by the 1800s were common in mining areas - prior to 1800 they had been either horse or gravity powered, before the invention of steam engines (initially used as static winding engines), and later mobile steam locomotives.
Housing the locomotives and rolling stock is the Great Shed, which opened in 2001 and is based on Timothy Hackworth's erecting shop, Shildon railway works, and incorporating some material from Robert Stephenson and Company's Newcastle works. Visitors can walk around the locomotives in the shed, and when in steam, can take rides to the end of the track and back in the line's assorted rolling stock - situated next to the Great Shed is a single platform for passenger use. In the corner of the main shed is a corner office, presented as a locomotive designer's office (only visible to visitors through windows). Off the pedestrian entrance in the southern side is a room presented as the engine crew's break room. Atop the Great Shed is a weather vane depicting a waggonway train approaching a cow, a reference to a famous quote by George Stephenson when asked by parliament in 1825 what would happen in such an eventuality - "very awkward indeed - for the coo!".
At the far end of the waggonway is the (fictional) coal mine Pockerley Gin Pit, which the waggonway notionally exists to serve. The pit head features a horse powered wooden whim gin, which was the method used before steam engines for hauling men and material up and down mineshafts - coal was carried in corves (wicker baskets), while miners held onto the rope with their foot in an attached loop.
Wooden waggonway
Following creation of the Pockerley Waggonway, the museum went back a chapter in railway history to create a horse-worked wooden waggonway.
St Helen's Church
St Helen's Church represents a typical type of country church found in North Yorkshire, and was relocated from its original site in Eston, North Yorkshire. It is the oldest and most complex building moved to the museum. It opened in November 2015, but will not be consecrated as this would place restrictions on what could be done with the building under church law.
The church had existed on its original site since around 1100. As the congregation grew, it was replaced by two nearby churches, and latterly became a cemetery chapel. After closing in 1985, it fell into disrepair and by 1996 was burnt out and vandalised leading to the decision by the local authority in 1998 to demolish it. Working to a deadline of a threatened demolition within six months, the building was deconstructed and moved to Beamish, reconstruction being authorised in 2011, with the exterior build completed by 2012.
While the structure was found to contain some stones from the 1100 era, the building itself however dates from three distinct building phases - the chancel on the east end dates from around 1450, while the nave, which was built at the same time, was modernised in 1822 in the Churchwarden style, adding a vestry. The bell tower dates from the late 1600s - one of the two bells is a rare dated Tudor example. Gargoyles, originally hidden in the walls and believed to have been pranks by the original builders, have been made visible in the reconstruction.
Restored to its 1822 condition, the interior has been furnished with Georgian box pews sourced from a church in Somerset. Visitors can access all parts except the bell tower. The nave includes a small gallery level, at the tower end, while the chancel includes a church office.
Joe the Quilter's Cottage
The most recent addition to the area opened to the public in 2018 is a recreation of a heather-thatched cottage which features stones from the Georgian quilter Joseph Hedley's original home in Northumberland. It was uncovered during an archaeological dig by Beamish. His original cottage was demolished in 1872 and has been carefully recreated with the help of a drawing on a postcard. The exhibit tells the story of quilting and the growth of cottage industries in the early 1800s. Within there is often a volunteer or member of staff not only telling the story of how Joe was murdered in 1826, a crime that remains unsolved to this day, but also giving visitors the opportunity to learn more and even have a go at quilting.
Other
A pack pony track passes through the scene - pack horses having been the mode of transport for all manner of heavy goods where no waggonway exists, being also able to reach places where carriages and wagons could not access. Beside the waggonway is a gibbet.
Farm (1940s)
Presented as Home Farm, this represents the role of North East farms as part of the British Home Front during World War II, depicting life indoors, and outside on the land. Much of the farmstead is original, and opened as a museum display in 1983. The farm is laid out across a north–south public road; to the west is the farmhouse and most of the farm buildings, while on the east side are a pair of cottages, the British Kitchen, an outdoor toilet ("netty"), a bull field, duck pond and large shed.
The farm complex was rebuilt in the mid-19th century as a model farm incorporating a horse mill and a steam-powered threshing mill. It was not presented as a 1940s farm until early 2014.
The farmhouse is presented as having been modernised, following the installation of electric power and an Aga cooker in the scullery, although the main kitchen still has the typical coal-fired black range. Lino flooring allowed quicker cleaning times, while a radio set allowed the family to keep up to date with wartime news. An office next to the kitchen would have served both as the administration centre for the wartime farm, and as a local Home Guard office. Outside the farmhouse is an improvised Home Guard pillbox fashioned from half an egg-ended steam boiler, relocated from its original position near Durham.
The farm is equipped with three tractors which would have all seen service during the war: a Case, a Fordson N and a 1924 Fordson F. The farm also features horse-drawn traps, reflecting the effect wartime rationing of petrol would have had on car use. The farming equipment in the cart and machinery sheds reflects the transition of the time from horse-drawn to tractor-pulled implements, with some older equipment put back into use due to the war, as well as a large Foster thresher, vital for cereal crops, and built specifically for the war effort, sold at the Newcastle Show. Although the wartime focus was on crops, the farm also features breeds of sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry that would have been typical for the time. The farm also has a portable steam engine, not in use, but presented as having been left out for collection as part of a wartime scrap metal drive.
The cottages would have housed farm labourers, but are presented as having new uses for the war: Orchard Cottage housing a family of evacuees, and Garden Cottage serving as a billet for members of the Women's Land Army (Land Girls). Orchard Cottage is named for an orchard next to it, which also contains an Anderson shelter, reconstructed from partial pieces of ones recovered from around the region. Orchard Cottage, which has both front and back kitchens, is presented as having an up to date blue enameled kitchen range, with hot water supplied from a coke stove, as well as a modern accessible bathroom. Orchard Cottage is also used to stage recreations of wartime activities for schools, elderly groups and those living with dementia. Garden Cottage is sparsely furnished with a mix of items, reflecting the few possessions Land Girls were able to take with them, although unusually the cottage is depicted with a bathroom, and electricity (due to proximity to a colliery).
The British Kitchen is both a display and one of the museum's catering facilities; it represents an installation of one of the wartime British Restaurants, complete with propaganda posters and a suitably patriotic menu.
Town (1950s)
As part of the Remaking Beamish project, with significant funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the museum is creating a 1950s town. Opened in July 2019, the Welfare Hall is an exact replica of the Leasingthorne Colliery Welfare Hall and Community Centre which was built in 1957 near Bishop Auckland. Visitors can 'take part in activities including dancing, crafts, Meccano, beetle drive, keep fit and amateur dramatics' while also taking a look at the National Health Service exhibition on display, recreating the environment of an NHS clinic. A recreation and play park, named Coronation Park was opened in May 2022 to coincide with the celebrations around the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
The museum's first 1950s terrace opened in February 2022. This included a fish and chip shop from Middleton St George, a cafe, a replica of Norman Cornish's home, and a hairdressers. Future developments opposite the existing 1950s terrace will see a recreation of The Grand Cinema, from Ryhope, in Sunderland, and toy and electricians shops. Also underdevelopment are a 1950s bowling green and pavilion, police houses and aged miner's cottages. Also under construction are semi-detached houses; for this exhibit, a competition was held to recreate a particular home at Beamish, which was won by a family from Sunderland.
As well as the town, a 1950s Northern bus depot has been opened on the western side of the museum – the purpose of this is to provide additional capacity for bus, trolleybus and tram storage once the planned trolleybus extension and the new area are completed, providing extra capacity and meeting the need for modified routing.
Spain's Field Farm
In March 2022, the museum opened Spain's Field Farm. It had stood for centuries at Eastgate in Weardale, and was moved to Beamish stone-by-stone. It is exhibited as it would have been in the 1950s.
1820s Expansion
In the area surrounding the current Pockerley Old Hall and Steam Wagon Way more development is on the way. The first of these was planned to be a Georgian Coaching Inn that would be the museum's first venture into overnight accommodation. However following the COVID-19 pandemic this was abandoned, in favour of self-catering accommodation in existing cottages.
There are also plans for 1820s industries including a blacksmith's forge and a pottery.
Museum stores
There are two stores on the museum site, used to house donated objects. In contrast to the traditional rotation practice used in museums where items are exchanged regularly between store and display, it is Beamish policy that most of their exhibits are to be in use and on display - those items that must be stored are to be used in the museum's future developments.
Open Store
Housed in the Regional Resource Centre, the Open Store is accessible to visitors. Objects are housed on racks along one wall, while the bulk of items are in a rolling archive, with one set of shelves opened, with perspex across their fronts to permit viewing without touching.
Regional Museums Store
The real purposes of the building presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works next to Rowley Station is as the Regional Museums Store, completed in 2002, which Beamish shares with Tyne and Wear Museums. This houses, amongst other things, a large marine diesel engine by William Doxford & Sons of Pallion, Sunderland (1977); and several boats including the Tyne wherry (a traditional local type of lighter) Elswick No. 2 (1930). The store is only open at selected times, and for special tours which can be arranged through the museum; however, a number of viewing windows have been provided for use at other times.
Transport collection
Main article: Beamish Museum transport collection
The museum contains much of transport interest, and the size of its site makes good internal transportation for visitors and staff purposes a necessity.
The collection contains a variety of historical vehicles for road, rail and tramways. In addition there are some modern working replicas to enhance the various scenes in the museum.
Agriculture
The museum's two farms help to preserve traditional northcountry and in some cases rare livestock breeds such as Durham Shorthorn Cattle; Clydesdale and Cleveland Bay working horses; Dales ponies; Teeswater sheep; Saddleback pigs; and poultry.
Regional heritage
Other large exhibits collected by the museum include a tracked steam shovel, and a coal drop from Seaham Harbour.
In 2001 a new-build Regional Resource Centre (accessible to visitors by appointment) opened on the site to provide accommodation for the museum's core collections of smaller items. These include over 300,000 historic photographs, printed books and ephemera, and oral history recordings. The object collections cover the museum's specialities. These include quilts; "clippy mats" (rag rugs); Trade union banners; floor cloth; advertising (including archives from United Biscuits and Rowntree's); locally made pottery; folk art; and occupational costume. Much of the collection is viewable online and the arts of quilting, rug making and cookery in the local traditions are demonstrated at the museum.
Filming location
The site has been used as the backdrop for many film and television productions, particularly Catherine Cookson dramas, produced by Tyne Tees Television, and the final episode and the feature film version of Downton Abbey. Some of the children's television series Supergran was shot here.
Visitor numbers
On its opening day the museum set a record by attracting a two-hour queue. Visitor numbers rose rapidly to around 450,000 p.a. during the first decade of opening to the public, with the millionth visitor arriving in 1978.
Awards
Museum of the Year1986
European Museum of the Year Award1987
Living Museum of the Year2002
Large Visitor Attraction of the YearNorth East England Tourism awards2014 & 2015
Large Visitor Attraction of the Year (bronze)VisitEngland awards2016
It was designated by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 1997 as a museum with outstanding collections.
Critical responses
In responding to criticism that it trades on nostalgia the museum is unapologetic. A former director has written: "As individuals and communities we have a deep need and desire to understand ourselves in time."
According to the BBC writing in its 40th anniversary year, Beamish was a mould-breaking museum that became a great success due to its collection policy, and what sets it apart from other museums is the use of costumed people to impart knowledge to visitors, rather than labels or interpretive panels (although some such panels do exist on the site), which means it "engages the visitor with history in a unique way".
Legacy
Beamish was influential on the Black Country Living Museum, Blists Hill Victorian Town and, in the view of museologist Kenneth Hudson, more widely in the museum community and is a significant educational resource locally. It can also demonstrate its benefit to the contemporary local economy.
The unselective collecting policy has created a lasting bond between museum and community.
Back in high school, every morning we would stand, face the flag hanging on the wall and recite the Pledge Of Allegiance. Being me, one morning I decided to no more recite my Allegiance to a flag. Upon noticing me not even standing up let alone reciting, the Teacher asked me if something was wrong. I replied, that I decided as of today not to recite my allegiance to the flag since it was nothing but an object. She told me I was missing the point, I was pledging my allegiance to the United States Of America. My reply, brilliantly composed in my head was, isn't the USA built on the principle of Freedom for all and my Freedom to NOT pledge my allegiance to a Flag? She smiled and nodded her head and quietly said, speaking of Principal, why don't you go see him.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamish_Museum
Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By displaying duplicates or replaceable items, it was also an early example of the now commonplace practice of museums allowing visitors to touch objects.
The museum's guiding principle is to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early 20th century. Much of the restoration and interpretation is specific to the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, together with portions of countryside under the influence of industrial revolution from 1825. On its 350 acres (140 ha) estate it uses a mixture of translocated, original and replica buildings, a large collection of artefacts, working vehicles and equipment, as well as livestock and costumed interpreters.
The museum has received a number of awards since it opened to visitors in 1972 and has influenced other living museums. It is an educational resource, and also helps to preserve some traditional and rare north-country livestock breeds.
History
Genesis
In 1958, days after starting as director of the Bowes Museum, inspired by Scandinavian folk museums, and realising the North East's traditional industries and communities were disappearing, Frank Atkinson presented a report to Durham County Council urging that a collection of items of everyday history on a large scale should begin as soon as possible, so that eventually an open air museum could be established. As well as objects, Atkinson was also aiming to preserve the region's customs and dialect. He stated the new museum should "attempt to make the history of the region live" and illustrate the way of life of ordinary people. He hoped the museum would be run by, be about and exist for the local populace, desiring them to see the museum as theirs, featuring items collected from them.
Fearing it was now almost too late, Atkinson adopted a policy of "unselective collecting" — "you offer it to us and we will collect it." Donations ranged in size from small items to locomotives and shops, and Atkinson initially took advantage of a surplus of space available in the 19th-century French chateau-style building housing the Bowes Museum to store items donated for the open air museum. With this space soon filled, a former British Army tank depot at Brancepeth was taken over, although in just a short time its entire complement of 22 huts and hangars had been filled, too.
In 1966, a working party was established to set up a museum "for the purpose of studying, collecting, preserving and exhibiting buildings, machinery, objects and information illustrating the development of industry and the way of life of the north of England", and it selected Beamish Hall, having been vacated by the National Coal Board, as a suitable location.
Establishment and expansion
In August 1970, with Atkinson appointed as its first full-time director together with three staff members, the museum was first established by moving some of the collections into the hall. In 1971, an introductory exhibition, "Museum in the Making" opened at the hall.
The museum was opened to visitors on its current site for the first time in 1972, with the first translocated buildings (the railway station and colliery winding engine) being erected the following year. The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973. The Town station was formally opened in 1976, the same year the reconstruction of the colliery winding engine house was completed, and the miners' cottages were relocated. Opening of the drift mine as an exhibit followed in 1979.
In 1975 the museum was visited by the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and by Anne, Princess Royal, in 2002. In 2006, as the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, The Duke of Kent visited, to open the town masonic lodge.
With the Co-op having opened in 1984, the town area was officially opened in 1985. The pub had opened in the same year, with Ravensworth Terrace having been reconstructed from 1980 to 1985. The newspaper branch office had also been built in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere, the farm on the west side of the site (which became Home Farm) opened in 1983. The present arrangement of visitors entering from the south was introduced in 1986.
At the beginning of the 1990s, further developments in the Pit Village were opened, the chapel in 1990, and the board school in 1992. The whole tram circle was in operation by 1993.[8] Further additions to the Town came in 1994 with the opening of the sweet shop and motor garage, followed by the bank in 1999. The first Georgian component of the museum arrived when Pockerley Old Hall opened in 1995, followed by the Pockerley Waggonway in 2001.
In the early 2000s two large modern buildings were added, to augment the museum's operations and storage capacity - the Regional Resource Centre on the west side opened in 2001, followed by the Regional Museums Store next to the railway station in 2002. Due to its proximity, the latter has been cosmetically presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works. Additions to display areas came in the form of the Masonic lodge (2006) and the Lamp Cabin in the Colliery (2009). In 2010, the entrance building and tea rooms were refurbished.
Into the 2010s, further buildings were added - the fish and chip shop (opened 2011)[28] band hall (opened 2013) and pit pony stables (built 2013/14) in the Pit Village, plus a bakery (opened 2013) and chemist and photographers (opened 2016) being added to the town. St Helen's Church, in the Georgian landscape, opened in November 2015.
Remaking Beamish
A major development, named 'Remaking Beamish', was approved by Durham County Council in April 2016, with £10.7m having been raised from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3.3m from other sources.
As of September 2022, new exhibits as part of this project have included a quilter's cottage, a welfare hall, 1950s terrace, recreation park, bus depot, and 1950s farm (all discussed in the relevant sections of this article). The coming years will see replicas of aged miners' homes from South Shields, a cinema from Ryhope, and social housing will feature a block of four relocated Airey houses, prefabricated concrete homes originally designed by Sir Edwin Airey, which previously stood in Kibblesworth. Then-recently vacated and due for demolition, they were instead offered to the museum by The Gateshead Housing Company and accepted in 2012.
Museum site
The approximately 350-acre (1.4 km2) current site, once belonging to the Eden and Shafto families, is a basin-shaped steep-sided valley with woodland areas, a river, some level ground and a south-facing aspect.
Visitors enter the site through an entrance arch formed by a steam hammer, across a former opencast mining site and through a converted stable block (from Greencroft, near Lanchester, County Durham).
Visitors can navigate the site via assorted marked footpaths, including adjacent (or near to) the entire tramway oval. According to the museum, it takes 20 minutes to walk at a relaxed pace from the entrance to the town. The tramway oval serves as both an exhibit and as a free means of transport around the site for visitors, with stops at the entrance (south), Home Farm (west), Pockerley (east) and the Town (north). Visitors can also use the museum's buses as a free form of transport between various parts of the museum. Although visitors can also ride on the Town railway and Pockerley Waggonway, these do not form part of the site's transport system (as they start and finish from the same platforms).
Governance
Beamish was the first English museum to be financed and administered by a consortium of county councils (Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear) The museum is now operated as a registered charity, but continues to receive support from local authorities - Durham County Council, Sunderland City Council, Gateshead Council, South Tyneside Council and North Tyneside Council. The supporting Friends of Beamish organisation was established in 1968. Frank Atkinson retired as director in 1987. The museum has been 96% self-funding for some years (mainly from admission charges).
Sections of the museum
1913
The town area, officially opened in 1985, depicts chiefly Victorian buildings in an evolved urban setting of 1913.
Tramway
The Beamish Tramway is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, with four passing loops. The line makes a circuit of the museum site forming an important element of the visitor transportation system.
The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973, with the whole circle in operation by 1993.[8] It represents the era of electric powered trams, which were being introduced to meet the needs of growing towns and cities across the North East from the late 1890s, replacing earlier horse drawn systems.
Bakery
Presented as Joseph Herron, Baker & Confectioner, the bakery was opened in 2013 and features working ovens which produce food for sale to visitors. A two-storey curved building, only the ground floor is used as the exhibit. A bakery has been included to represent the new businesses which sprang up to cater for the growing middle classes - the ovens being of the modern electric type which were growing in use. The building was sourced from Anfield Plain (which had a bakery trading as Joseph Herron), and was moved to Beamish in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The frontage features a stained glass from a baker's shop in South Shields. It also uses fittings from Stockton-on-Tees.
Motor garage
Presented as Beamish Motor & Cycle Works, the motor garage opened in 1994. Reflecting the custom nature of the early motor trade, where only one in 232 people owned a car in 1913, the shop features a showroom to the front (not accessible to visitors), with a garage area to the rear, accessed via the adjacent archway. The works is a replica of a typical garage of the era. Much of the museum's car, motorcycle and bicycle collection, both working and static, is stored in the garage. The frontage has two storeys, but the upper floor is only a small mezzanine and is not used as part of the display.
Department Store
Presented as the Annfield Plain Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd, (but more commonly referred to as the Anfield Plain Co-op Store) this department store opened in 1984, and was relocated to Beamish from Annfield Plain in County Durham. The Annfield Plain co-operative society was originally established in 1870, with the museum store stocking various products from the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), established 1863. A two-storey building, the ground floor comprises the three departments - grocery, drapery and hardware; the upper floor is taken up by the tea rooms (accessed from Redman Park via a ramp to the rear). Most of the items are for display only, but a small amount of goods are sold to visitors. The store features an operational cash carrier system, of the Lamson Cash Ball design - common in many large stores of the era, but especially essential to Co-ops, where customer's dividends had to be logged.
Ravensworth Terrace
Ravensworth Terrace is a row of terraced houses, presented as the premises and living areas of various professionals. Representing the expanding housing stock of the era, it was relocated from its original site on Bensham Bank, having been built for professionals and tradesmen between 1830 and 1845. Original former residents included painter John Wilson Carmichael and Gateshead mayor Alexander Gillies. Originally featuring 25 homes, the terrace was to be demolished when the museum saved it in the 1970s, reconstructing six of them on the Town site between 1980 and 1985. They are two storey buildings, with most featuring display rooms on both floors - originally the houses would have also housed a servant in the attic. The front gardens are presented in a mix of the formal style, and the natural style that was becoming increasingly popular.
No. 2 is presented as the home of Miss Florence Smith, a music teacher, with old fashioned mid-Victorian furnishings as if inherited from her parents. No. 3 & 4 is presented as the practice and home respectively (with a knocked through door) of dentist J. Jones - the exterior nameplate having come from the surgery of Mr. J. Jones in Hartlepool. Representing the state of dental health at the time, it features both a check-up room and surgery for extraction, and a technicians room for creating dentures - a common practice at the time being the giving to daughters a set on their 21st birthday, to save any future husband the cost at a later date. His home is presented as more modern than No.2, furnished in the Edwardian style the modern day utilities of an enamelled bathroom with flushing toilet, a controllable heat kitchen range and gas cooker. No. 5 is presented as a solicitor's office, based on that of Robert Spence Watson, a Quaker from Newcastle. Reflecting the trade of the era, downstairs is laid out as the partner's or principal office, and the general or clerk's office in the rear. Included is a set of books sourced from ER Hanby Holmes, who practised in Barnard Castle.
Pub
Presented as The Sun Inn, the pub opened in the town in 1985. It had originally stood in Bondgate in Bishop Auckland, and was donated to the museum by its final owners, the Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. Originally a "one-up one down" cottage, the earliest ownership has been traced to James Thompson, on 21 January 1806. Known as The Tiger Inn until the 1850s, from 1857 to 1899 under the ownership of the Leng family, it flourished under the patronage of miners from Newton Cap and other collieries. Latterly run by Elsie Edes, it came under brewery ownership in the 20th Century when bought by S&N antecedent, James Deuchar Ltd. The pub is fully operational, and features both a front and back bar, the two stories above not being part of the exhibit. The interior decoration features the stuffed racing greyhound Jake's Bonny Mary, which won nine trophies before being put on display in The Gerry in White le Head near Tantobie.
Town stables
Reflecting the reliance on horses for a variety of transport needs in the era, the town features a centrally located stables, situated behind the sweet shop, with its courtyard being accessed from the archway next to the pub. It is presented as a typical jobmaster's yard, with stables and a tack room in the building on its north side. A small, brick built open air, carriage shed is sited on the back of the printworks building. On the east side of the courtyard is a much larger metal shed (utilising iron roof trusses from Fleetwood), arranged mainly as carriage storage, but with a blacksmith's shop in the corner. The building on the west side of the yard is not part of any display. The interior fittings for the harness room came from Callaly Caste. Many of the horses and horse-drawn vehicles used by the museum are housed in the stables and sheds.
Printer, stationer and newspaper branch office
Presented as the Beamish Branch Office of the Northern Daily Mail and the Sunderland Daily Echo, the two storey replica building was built in the mid-1980s and represents the trade practices of the era. Downstairs, on the right, is the branch office, where newspapers would be sold directly and distributed to local newsagents and street vendors, and where orders for advertising copy would be taken. Supplementing it is a stationer's shop on the left hand side, with both display items and a small number of gift items on public sale. Upstairs is a jobbing printers workshop, which would not produce the newspapers, but would instead print leaflets, posters and office stationery. Split into a composing area and a print shop, the shop itself has a number of presses - a Columbian built in 1837 by Clymer and Dixon, an Albion dating back to 1863, an Arab Platen of c. 1900, and a Wharfedale flat bed press, built by Dawson & Son in around 1870. Much of the machinery was sourced from the print works of Jack Ascough's of Barnard Castle. Many of the posters seen around the museum are printed in the works, with the operation of the machinery being part of the display.
Sweet shop
Presented as Jubilee Confectioners, the two storey sweet shop opened in 1994 and is meant to represent the typical family run shops of the era, with living quarters above the shop (the second storey not being part of the display). To the front of the ground floor is a shop, where traditional sweets and chocolate (which was still relatively expensive at the time) are sold to visitors, while in the rear of the ground floor is a manufacturing area where visitors can view the techniques of the time (accessed via the arched walkway on the side of the building). The sweet rollers were sourced from a variety of shops and factories.
Bank
Presented as a branch of Barclays Bank (Barclay & Company Ltd) using period currency, the bank opened in 1999. It represents the trend of the era when regional banks were being acquired and merged into national banks such as Barclays, formed in 1896. Built to a three-storey design typical of the era, and featuring bricks in the upper storeys sourced from Park House, Gateshead, the Swedish imperial red shade used on the ground floor frontage is intended to represent stability and security. On the ground floor are windows for bank tellers, plus the bank manager's office. Included in a basement level are two vaults. The upper two storeys are not part of the display. It features components sourced from Southport and Gateshead
Masonic Hall
The Masonic Hall opened in 2006, and features the frontage from a former masonic hall sited in Park Terrace, Sunderland. Reflecting the popularity of the masons in North East England, as well as the main hall, which takes up the full height of the structure, in a small two story arrangement to the front of the hall is also a Robing Room and the Tyler's Room on the ground floor, and a Museum Room upstairs, featuring display cabinets of masonic regalia donated from various lodges. Upstairs is also a class room, with large stained glass window.
Chemist and photographer
Presented as W Smith's Chemist and JR & D Edis Photographers, a two-storey building housing both a chemist and photographers shops under one roof opened on 7 May 2016 and represents the growing popularity of photography in the era, with shops often growing out of or alongside chemists, who had the necessary supplies for developing photographs. The chemist features a dispensary, and equipment from various shops including John Walker, inventor of the friction match. The photographers features a studio, where visitors can dress in period costume and have a photograph taken. The corner building is based on a real building on Elvet Bridge in Durham City, opposite the Durham Marriot Hotel (the Royal County), although the second storey is not part of the display. The chemist also sells aerated water (an early form of carbonated soft drinks) to visitors, sold in marble-stopper sealed Codd bottles (although made to a modern design to prevent the safety issue that saw the original bottles banned). Aerated waters grew in popularity in the era, due to the need for a safe alternative to water, and the temperance movement - being sold in chemists due to the perception they were healthy in the same way mineral waters were.
Costing around £600,000 and begun on 18 August 2014, the building's brickwork and timber was built by the museum's own staff and apprentices, using Georgian bricks salvaged from demolition works to widen the A1. Unlike previous buildings built on the site, the museum had to replicate rather than relocate this one due to the fact that fewer buildings are being demolished compared to the 1970s, and in any case it was deemed unlikely one could be found to fit the curved shape of the plot. The studio is named after a real business run by John Reed Edis and his daughter Daisy. Mr Edis, originally at 27 Sherburn Road, Durham, in 1895, then 52 Saddler Street from 1897. The museum collection features several photographs, signs and equipment from the Edis studio. The name for the chemist is a reference to the business run by William Smith, who relocated to Silver Street, near the original building, in 1902. According to records, the original Edis company had been supplied by chemicals from the original (and still extant) Smith business.
Redman Park
Redman Park is a small lawned space with flower borders, opposite Ravensworth Terrace. Its centrepiece is a Victorian bandstand sourced from Saltwell Park, where it stood on an island in the middle of a lake. It represents the recognised need of the time for areas where people could relax away from the growing industrial landscape.
Other
Included in the Town are drinking fountains and other period examples of street furniture. In between the bank and the sweet shop is a combined tram and bus waiting room and public convenience.
Unbuilt
When construction of the Town began, the projected town plan incorporated a market square and buildings including a gas works, fire station, ice cream parlour (originally the Central Cafe at Consett), a cast iron bus station from Durham City, school, public baths and a fish and chip shop.
Railway station
East of the Town is the Railway Station, depicting a typical small passenger and goods facility operated by the main railway company in the region at the time, the North Eastern Railway (NER). A short running line extends west in a cutting around the north side of the Town itself, with trains visible from the windows of the stables. It runs for a distance of 1⁄4 mile - the line used to connect to the colliery sidings until 1993 when it was lifted between the town and the colliery so that the tram line could be extended. During 2009 the running line was relaid so that passenger rides could recommence from the station during 2010.
Rowley station
Representing passenger services is Rowley Station, a station building on a single platform, opened in 1976, having been relocated to the museum from the village of Rowley near Consett, just a few miles from Beamish.
The original Rowley railway station was opened in 1845 (as Cold Rowley, renamed Rowley in 1868) by the NER antecedent, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, consisting of just a platform. Under NER ownership, as a result of increasing use, in 1873 the station building was added. As demand declined, passenger service was withdrawn in 1939, followed by the goods service in 1966. Trains continued to use the line for another three years before it closed, the track being lifted in 1970. Although in a state of disrepair, the museum acquired the building, dismantling it in 1972, being officially unveiled in its new location by railway campaigner and poet, Sir John Betjeman.
The station building is presented as an Edwardian station, lit by oil lamp, having never been connected to gas or electricity supplies in its lifetime. It features both an open waiting area and a visitor accessible waiting room (western half), and a booking and ticket office (eastern half), with the latter only visible from a small viewing entrance. Adorning the waiting room is a large tiled NER route map.
Signal box
The signal box dates from 1896, and was relocated from Carr House East near Consett. It features assorted signalling equipment, basic furnishings for the signaller, and a lever frame, controlling the stations numerous points, interlocks and semaphore signals. The frame is not an operational part of the railway, the points being hand operated using track side levers. Visitors can only view the interior from a small area inside the door.
Goods shed
The goods shed is originally from Alnwick. The goods area represents how general cargo would have been moved on the railway, and for onward transport. The goods shed features a covered platform where road vehicles (wagons and carriages) can be loaded with the items unloaded from railway vans. The shed sits on a triangular platform serving two sidings, with a platform mounted hand-crane, which would have been used for transhipment activity (transfer of goods from one wagon to another, only being stored for a short time on the platform, if at all).
Coal yard
The coal yard represents how coal would have been distributed from incoming trains to local merchants - it features a coal drop which unloads railway wagons into road going wagons below. At the road entrance to the yard is a weighbridge (with office) and coal merchant's office - both being appropriately furnished with display items, but only viewable from outside.
The coal drop was sourced from West Boldon, and would have been a common sight on smaller stations. The weighbridge came from Glanton, while the coal office is from Hexham.
Bridges and level crossing
The station is equipped with two footbridges, a wrought iron example to the east having come from Howden-le-Wear, and a cast iron example to the west sourced from Dunston. Next to the western bridge, a roadway from the coal yard is presented as crossing the tracks via a gated level crossing (although in reality the road goes nowhere on the north side).
Waggon and Iron Works
Dominating the station is the large building externally presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works, estd 1857. In reality this is the Regional Museums Store (see below), although attached to the north side of the store are two covered sidings (not accessible to visitors), used to service and store the locomotives and stock used on the railway.
Other
A corrugated iron hut adjacent to the 'iron works' is presented as belonging to the local council, and houses associated road vehicles, wagons and other items.
Fairground
Adjacent to the station is an events field and fairground with a set of Frederick Savage built steam powered Gallopers dating from 1893.
Colliery
Presented as Beamish Colliery (owned by James Joicey & Co., and managed by William Severs), the colliery represents the coal mining industry which dominated the North East for generations - the museum site is in the former Durham coalfield, where 165,246 men and boys worked in 304 mines in 1913. By the time period represented by Beamish's 1900s era, the industry was booming - production in the Great Northern Coalfield had peaked in 1913, and miners were relatively well paid (double that of agriculture, the next largest employer), but the work was dangerous. Children could be employed from age 12 (the school leaving age), but could not go underground until 14.
Deep mine
Reconstructed pitworks buildings showing winding gear
Dominating the colliery site are the above ground structures of a deep (i.e. vertical shaft) mine - the brick built Winding Engine House, and the red painted wooden Heapstead. These were relocated to the museum (which never had its own vertical shaft), the winding house coming from Beamish Chophill Colliery, and the Heapstead from Ravensworth Park Mine in Gateshead. The winding engine and its enclosing house are both listed.
The winding engine was the source of power for hauling miners, equipment and coal up and down the shaft in a cage, the top of the shaft being in the adjacent heapstead, which encloses the frame holding the wheel around which the hoist cable travels. Inside the Heapstead, tubs of coal from the shaft were weighed on a weighbridge, then tipped onto jigging screens, which sifted the solid lumps from small particles and dust - these were then sent along the picking belt, where pickers, often women, elderly or disabled people or young boys (i.e. workers incapable of mining), would separate out unwanted stone, wood and rubbish. Finally, the coal was tipped onto waiting railway wagons below, while the unwanted waste sent to the adjacent heap by an external conveyor.
Chophill Colliery was closed by the National Coal Board in 1962, but the winding engine and tower were left in place. When the site was later leased, Beamish founder Frank Atkinson intervened to have both spot listed to prevent their demolition. After a protracted and difficult process to gain the necessary permissions to move a listed structure, the tower and engine were eventually relocated to the museum, work being completed in 1976. The winding engine itself is the only surviving example of the type which was once common, and was still in use at Chophill upon its closure. It was built in 1855 by J&G Joicey of Newcastle, to an 1800 design by Phineas Crowther.
Inside the winding engine house, supplementing the winding engine is a smaller jack engine, housed in the rear. These were used to lift heavy equipment, and in deep mines, act as a relief winding engine.
Outdoors, next to the Heapstead, is a sinking engine, mounted on red bricks. Brought to the museum from Silksworth Colliery in 1971, it was built by Burlington's of Sunderland in 1868 and is the sole surviving example of its kind. Sinking engines were used for the construction of shafts, after which the winding engine would become the source of hoist power. It is believed the Silksworth engine was retained because it was powerful enough to serve as a backup winding engine, and could be used to lift heavy equipment (i.e. the same role as the jack engine inside the winding house).
Drift mine
The Mahogany Drift Mine is original to Beamish, having opened in 1855 and after closing, was brought back into use in 1921 to transport coal from Beamish Park Drift to Beamish Cophill Colliery. It opened as a museum display in 1979. Included in the display is the winding engine and a short section of trackway used to transport tubs of coal to the surface, and a mine office. Visitor access into the mine shaft is by guided tour.
Lamp cabin
The Lamp Cabin opened in 2009, and is a recreation of a typical design used in collieries to house safety lamps, a necessary piece of equipment for miners although were not required in the Mahogany Drift Mine, due to it being gas-free. The building is split into two main rooms; in one half, the lamp cabin interior is recreated, with a collection of lamps on shelves, and the system of safety tokens used to track which miners were underground. Included in the display is a 1927 Hailwood and Ackroyd lamp-cleaning machine sourced from Morrison Busty Colliery in Annfield Plain. In the second room is an educational display, i.e., not a period interior.
Colliery railways
The colliery features both a standard gauge railway, representing how coal was transported to its onward destination, and narrow-gauge typically used by Edwardian collieries for internal purposes. The standard gauge railway is laid out to serve the deep mine - wagons being loaded by dropping coal from the heapstead - and runs out of the yard to sidings laid out along the northern-edge of the Pit Village.
The standard gauge railway has two engine sheds in the colliery yard, the smaller brick, wood and metal structure being an operational building; the larger brick-built structure is presented as Beamish Engine Works, a reconstruction of an engine shed formerly at Beamish 2nd Pit. Used for locomotive and stock storage, it is a long, single track shed featuring a servicing pit for part of its length. Visitors can walk along the full length in a segregated corridor. A third engine shed in brick (lower half) and corrugated iron has been constructed at the southern end of the yard, on the other side of the heapstead to the other two sheds, and is used for both narrow and standard gauge vehicles (on one road), although it is not connected to either system - instead being fed by low-loaders and used for long-term storage only.
The narrow gauge railway is serviced by a corrugate iron engine shed, and is being expanded to eventually encompass several sidings.
There are a number of industrial steam locomotives (including rare examples by Stephen Lewin from Seaham and Black, Hawthorn & Co) and many chaldron wagons, the region's traditional type of colliery railway rolling stock, which became a symbol of Beamish Museum. The locomotive Coffee Pot No 1 is often in steam during the summer.
Other
On the south eastern corner of the colliery site is the Power House, brought to the museum from Houghton Colliery. These were used to store explosives.
Pit Village
Alongside the colliery is the pit village, representing life in the mining communities that grew alongside coal production sites in the North East, many having come into existence solely because of the industry, such as Seaham Harbour, West Hartlepool, Esh Winning and Bedlington.
Miner's Cottages
The row of six miner's cottages in Francis Street represent the tied-housing provided by colliery owners to mine workers. Relocated to the museum in 1976, they were originally built in the 1860s in Hetton-le-Hole by Hetton Coal Company. They feature the common layout of a single-storey with a kitchen to the rear, the main room of the house, and parlour to the front, rarely used (although it was common for both rooms to be used for sleeping, with disguised folding "dess" beds common), and with children sleeping in attic spaces upstairs. In front are long gardens, used for food production, with associated sheds. An outdoor toilet and coal bunker were in the rear yards, and beyond the cobbled back lane to their rear are assorted sheds used for cultivation, repairs and hobbies. Chalkboard slates attached to the rear wall were used by the occupier to tell the mine's "knocker up" when they wished to be woken for their next shift.
No.2 is presented as a Methodist family's home, featuring good quality "Pitman's mahogany" furniture; No.3 is presented as occupied by a second generation well off Irish Catholic immigrant family featuring many items of value (so they could be readily sold off in times of need) and an early 1890s range; No.3 is presented as more impoverished than the others with just a simple convector style Newcastle oven, being inhabited by a miner's widow allowed to remain as her son is also a miner, and supplementing her income doing laundry and making/mending for other families. All the cottages feature examples of the folk art objects typical of mining communities. Also included in the row is an office for the miner's paymaster.[11] In the rear alleyway of the cottages is a communal bread oven, which were commonplace until miner's cottages gradually obtained their own kitchen ranges. They were used to bake traditional breads such as the Stottie, as well as sweet items, such as tea cakes. With no extant examples, the museum's oven had to be created from photographs and oral history.
School
The school opened in 1992, and represents the typical board school in the educational system of the era (the stone built single storey structure being inscribed with the foundation date of 1891, Beamish School Board), by which time attendance at a state approved school was compulsory, but the leaving age was 12, and lessons featured learning by rote and corporal punishment. The building originally stood in East Stanley, having been set up by the local school board, and would have numbered around 150 pupils. Having been donated by Durham County Council, the museum now has a special relationship with the primary school that replaced it. With separate entrances and cloakrooms for boys and girls at either end, the main building is split into three class rooms (all accessible to visitors), connected by a corridor along the rear. To the rear is a red brick bike shed, and in the playground visitors can play traditional games of the era.
Chapel
Pit Hill Chapel opened in 1990, and represents the Wesleyan Methodist tradition which was growing in North East England, with the chapels used for both religious worship and as community venues, which continue in its role in the museum display. Opened in the 1850s, it originally stood not far from its present site, having been built in what would eventually become Beamish village, near the museum entrance. A stained glass window of The Light of The World by William Holman Hunt came from a chapel in Bedlington. A two handled Love Feast Mug dates from 1868, and came from a chapel in Shildon Colliery. On the eastern wall, above the elevated altar area, is an angled plain white surface used for magic lantern shows, generated using a replica of the double-lensed acetylene gas powered lanterns of the period, mounted in the aisle of the main seating area. Off the western end of the hall is the vestry, featuring a small library and communion sets from Trimdon Colliery and Catchgate.
Fish bar
Presented as Davey's Fried Fish & Chip Potato Restaurant, the fish and chip shop opened in 2011, and represents the typical style of shop found in the era as they were becoming rapidly popular in the region - the brick built Victorian style fryery would most often have previously been used for another trade, and the attached corrugated iron hut serves as a saloon with tables and benches, where customers would eat and socialise. Featuring coal fired ranges using beef-dripping, the shop is named in honour of the last coal fired shop in Tyneside, in Winlaton Mill, and which closed in 2007. Latterly run by brothers Brian and Ramsay Davy, it had been established by their grandfather in 1937. The serving counter and one of the shop's three fryers, a 1934 Nuttal, came from the original Davy shop. The other two fryers are a 1920s Mabbott used near Chester until the 1960s, and a GW Atkinson New Castle Range, donated from a shop in Prudhoe in 1973. The latter is one of only two known late Victorian examples to survive. The decorative wall tiles in the fryery came to the museum in 1979 from Cowes Fish and Game Shop in Berwick upon Tweed. The shop also features both an early electric and hand-powered potato rumblers (cleaners), and a gas powered chip chopper built around 1900. Built behind the chapel, the fryery is arranged so the counter faces the rear, stretching the full length of the building. Outside is a brick built row of outdoor toilets. Supplementing the fish bar is the restored Berriman's mobile chip van, used in Spennymoor until the early 1970s.
Band hall
The Hetton Silver Band Hall opened in 2013, and features displays reflecting the role colliery bands played in mining life. Built in 1912, it was relocated from its original location in South Market Street, Hetton-le-Hole, where it was used by the Hetton Silver Band, founded in 1887. They built the hall using prize money from a music competition, and the band decided to donate the hall to the museum after they merged with Broughtons Brass Band of South Hetton (to form the Durham Miners' Association Brass Band). It is believed to be the only purpose built band hall in the region. The structure consists of the main hall, plus a small kitchen to the rear; as part of the museum it is still used for performances.
Pit pony stables
The Pit Pony Stables were built in 2013/14, and house the museum's pit ponies. They replace a wooden stable a few metres away in the field opposite the school (the wooden structure remaining). It represents the sort of stables that were used in drift mines (ponies in deep mines living their whole lives underground), pit ponies having been in use in the north east as late as 1994, in Ellington Colliery. The structure is a recreation of an original building that stood at Rickless Drift Mine, between High Spen and Greenside; it was built using a yellow brick that was common across the Durham coalfield.
Other
Doubling as one of the museum's refreshment buildings, Sinker's Bait Cabin represents the temporary structures that would have served as living quarters, canteens and drying areas for sinkers, the itinerant workforce that would dig new vertical mine shafts.
Representing other traditional past-times, the village fields include a quoits pitch, with another refreshment hut alongside it, resembling a wooden clubhouse.
In one of the fields in the village stands the Cupola, a small round flat topped brick built tower; such structures were commonly placed on top of disused or ventilation shafts, also used as an emergency exit from the upper seams.
The Georgian North (1825)
A late Georgian landscape based around the original Pockerley farm represents the period of change in the region as transport links were improved and as agriculture changed as machinery and field management developed, and breeding stock was improved. It became part of the museum in 1990, having latterly been occupied by a tenant farmer, and was opened as an exhibit in 1995. The hill top position suggests the site was the location of an Iron Age fort - the first recorded mention of a dwelling is in the 1183 Buke of Boldon (the region's equivalent of the Domesday Book). The name Pockerley has Saxon origins - "Pock" or "Pokor" meaning "pimple of bag-like" hill, and "Ley" meaning woodland clearing.
The surrounding farmlands have been returned to a post-enclosure landscape with ridge and furrow topography, divided into smaller fields by traditional riven oak fencing. The land is worked and grazed by traditional methods and breeds.
Pockerley Old Hall
The estate of Pockerley Old Hall is presented as that of a well off tenant farmer, in a position to take advantage of the agricultural advances of the era. The hall itself consists of the Old House, which is adjoined (but not connected to) the New House, both south facing two storey sandstone built buildings, the Old House also having a small north–south aligned extension. Roof timbers in the sandstone built Old House have been dated to the 1440s, but the lower storey (the undercroft) may be from even earlier. The New House dates to the late 1700s, and replaced a medieval manor house to the east of the Old House as the main farm house - once replaced itself, the Old House is believed to have been let to the farm manager. Visitors can access all rooms in the New and Old House, except the north–south extension which is now a toilet block. Displays include traditional cooking, such as the drying of oatcakes over a wooden rack (flake) over the fireplace in the Old House.
Inside the New House the downstairs consists of a main kitchen and a secondary kitchen (scullery) with pantry. It also includes a living room, although as the main room of the house, most meals would have been eaten in the main kitchen, equipped with an early range, boiler and hot air oven. Upstairs is a main bedroom and a second bedroom for children; to the rear (i.e. the colder, north side), are bedrooms for a servant and the servant lad respectively. Above the kitchen (for transferred warmth) is a grain and fleece store, with attached bacon loft, a narrow space behind the wall where bacon or hams, usually salted first, would be hung to be smoked by the kitchen fire (entering through a small door in the chimney).
Presented as having sparse and more old fashioned furnishings, the Old House is presented as being occupied in the upper story only, consisting of a main room used as the kitchen, bedroom and for washing, with the only other rooms being an adjoining second bedroom and an overhanging toilet. The main bed is an oak box bed dating to 1712, obtained from Star House in Baldersdale in 1962. Originally a defensive house in its own right, the lower level of the Old House is an undercroft, or vaulted basement chamber, with 1.5 metre thick walls - in times of attack the original tenant family would have retreated here with their valuables, although in its later use as the farm managers house, it is now presented as a storage and work room, housing a large wooden cheese press.[68] More children would have slept in the attic of the Old House (not accessible as a display).
To the front of the hall is a terraced garden featuring an ornamental garden with herbs and flowers, a vegetable garden, and an orchard, all laid out and planted according to the designs of William Falla of Gateshead, who had the largest nursery in Britain from 1804 to 1830.
The buildings to the east of the hall, across a north–south track, are the original farmstead buildings dating from around 1800. These include stables and a cart shed arranged around a fold yard. The horses and carts on display are typical of North Eastern farms of the era, Fells or Dales ponies and Cleveland Bay horses, and two wheeled long carts for hilly terrain (as opposed to four wheel carts).
Pockerley Waggonway
The Pockerley Waggonway opened in 2001, and represents the year 1825, as the year the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened. Waggonways had appeared around 1600, and by the 1800s were common in mining areas - prior to 1800 they had been either horse or gravity powered, before the invention of steam engines (initially used as static winding engines), and later mobile steam locomotives.
Housing the locomotives and rolling stock is the Great Shed, which opened in 2001 and is based on Timothy Hackworth's erecting shop, Shildon railway works, and incorporating some material from Robert Stephenson and Company's Newcastle works. Visitors can walk around the locomotives in the shed, and when in steam, can take rides to the end of the track and back in the line's assorted rolling stock - situated next to the Great Shed is a single platform for passenger use. In the corner of the main shed is a corner office, presented as a locomotive designer's office (only visible to visitors through windows). Off the pedestrian entrance in the southern side is a room presented as the engine crew's break room. Atop the Great Shed is a weather vane depicting a waggonway train approaching a cow, a reference to a famous quote by George Stephenson when asked by parliament in 1825 what would happen in such an eventuality - "very awkward indeed - for the coo!".
At the far end of the waggonway is the (fictional) coal mine Pockerley Gin Pit, which the waggonway notionally exists to serve. The pit head features a horse powered wooden whim gin, which was the method used before steam engines for hauling men and material up and down mineshafts - coal was carried in corves (wicker baskets), while miners held onto the rope with their foot in an attached loop.
Wooden waggonway
Following creation of the Pockerley Waggonway, the museum went back a chapter in railway history to create a horse-worked wooden waggonway.
St Helen's Church
St Helen's Church represents a typical type of country church found in North Yorkshire, and was relocated from its original site in Eston, North Yorkshire. It is the oldest and most complex building moved to the museum. It opened in November 2015, but will not be consecrated as this would place restrictions on what could be done with the building under church law.
The church had existed on its original site since around 1100. As the congregation grew, it was replaced by two nearby churches, and latterly became a cemetery chapel. After closing in 1985, it fell into disrepair and by 1996 was burnt out and vandalised leading to the decision by the local authority in 1998 to demolish it. Working to a deadline of a threatened demolition within six months, the building was deconstructed and moved to Beamish, reconstruction being authorised in 2011, with the exterior build completed by 2012.
While the structure was found to contain some stones from the 1100 era, the building itself however dates from three distinct building phases - the chancel on the east end dates from around 1450, while the nave, which was built at the same time, was modernised in 1822 in the Churchwarden style, adding a vestry. The bell tower dates from the late 1600s - one of the two bells is a rare dated Tudor example. Gargoyles, originally hidden in the walls and believed to have been pranks by the original builders, have been made visible in the reconstruction.
Restored to its 1822 condition, the interior has been furnished with Georgian box pews sourced from a church in Somerset. Visitors can access all parts except the bell tower. The nave includes a small gallery level, at the tower end, while the chancel includes a church office.
Joe the Quilter's Cottage
The most recent addition to the area opened to the public in 2018 is a recreation of a heather-thatched cottage which features stones from the Georgian quilter Joseph Hedley's original home in Northumberland. It was uncovered during an archaeological dig by Beamish. His original cottage was demolished in 1872 and has been carefully recreated with the help of a drawing on a postcard. The exhibit tells the story of quilting and the growth of cottage industries in the early 1800s. Within there is often a volunteer or member of staff not only telling the story of how Joe was murdered in 1826, a crime that remains unsolved to this day, but also giving visitors the opportunity to learn more and even have a go at quilting.
Other
A pack pony track passes through the scene - pack horses having been the mode of transport for all manner of heavy goods where no waggonway exists, being also able to reach places where carriages and wagons could not access. Beside the waggonway is a gibbet.
Farm (1940s)
Presented as Home Farm, this represents the role of North East farms as part of the British Home Front during World War II, depicting life indoors, and outside on the land. Much of the farmstead is original, and opened as a museum display in 1983. The farm is laid out across a north–south public road; to the west is the farmhouse and most of the farm buildings, while on the east side are a pair of cottages, the British Kitchen, an outdoor toilet ("netty"), a bull field, duck pond and large shed.
The farm complex was rebuilt in the mid-19th century as a model farm incorporating a horse mill and a steam-powered threshing mill. It was not presented as a 1940s farm until early 2014.
The farmhouse is presented as having been modernised, following the installation of electric power and an Aga cooker in the scullery, although the main kitchen still has the typical coal-fired black range. Lino flooring allowed quicker cleaning times, while a radio set allowed the family to keep up to date with wartime news. An office next to the kitchen would have served both as the administration centre for the wartime farm, and as a local Home Guard office. Outside the farmhouse is an improvised Home Guard pillbox fashioned from half an egg-ended steam boiler, relocated from its original position near Durham.
The farm is equipped with three tractors which would have all seen service during the war: a Case, a Fordson N and a 1924 Fordson F. The farm also features horse-drawn traps, reflecting the effect wartime rationing of petrol would have had on car use. The farming equipment in the cart and machinery sheds reflects the transition of the time from horse-drawn to tractor-pulled implements, with some older equipment put back into use due to the war, as well as a large Foster thresher, vital for cereal crops, and built specifically for the war effort, sold at the Newcastle Show. Although the wartime focus was on crops, the farm also features breeds of sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry that would have been typical for the time. The farm also has a portable steam engine, not in use, but presented as having been left out for collection as part of a wartime scrap metal drive.
The cottages would have housed farm labourers, but are presented as having new uses for the war: Orchard Cottage housing a family of evacuees, and Garden Cottage serving as a billet for members of the Women's Land Army (Land Girls). Orchard Cottage is named for an orchard next to it, which also contains an Anderson shelter, reconstructed from partial pieces of ones recovered from around the region. Orchard Cottage, which has both front and back kitchens, is presented as having an up to date blue enameled kitchen range, with hot water supplied from a coke stove, as well as a modern accessible bathroom. Orchard Cottage is also used to stage recreations of wartime activities for schools, elderly groups and those living with dementia. Garden Cottage is sparsely furnished with a mix of items, reflecting the few possessions Land Girls were able to take with them, although unusually the cottage is depicted with a bathroom, and electricity (due to proximity to a colliery).
The British Kitchen is both a display and one of the museum's catering facilities; it represents an installation of one of the wartime British Restaurants, complete with propaganda posters and a suitably patriotic menu.
Town (1950s)
As part of the Remaking Beamish project, with significant funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the museum is creating a 1950s town. Opened in July 2019, the Welfare Hall is an exact replica of the Leasingthorne Colliery Welfare Hall and Community Centre which was built in 1957 near Bishop Auckland. Visitors can 'take part in activities including dancing, crafts, Meccano, beetle drive, keep fit and amateur dramatics' while also taking a look at the National Health Service exhibition on display, recreating the environment of an NHS clinic. A recreation and play park, named Coronation Park was opened in May 2022 to coincide with the celebrations around the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
The museum's first 1950s terrace opened in February 2022. This included a fish and chip shop from Middleton St George, a cafe, a replica of Norman Cornish's home, and a hairdressers. Future developments opposite the existing 1950s terrace will see a recreation of The Grand Cinema, from Ryhope, in Sunderland, and toy and electricians shops. Also underdevelopment are a 1950s bowling green and pavilion, police houses and aged miner's cottages. Also under construction are semi-detached houses; for this exhibit, a competition was held to recreate a particular home at Beamish, which was won by a family from Sunderland.
As well as the town, a 1950s Northern bus depot has been opened on the western side of the museum – the purpose of this is to provide additional capacity for bus, trolleybus and tram storage once the planned trolleybus extension and the new area are completed, providing extra capacity and meeting the need for modified routing.
Spain's Field Farm
In March 2022, the museum opened Spain's Field Farm. It had stood for centuries at Eastgate in Weardale, and was moved to Beamish stone-by-stone. It is exhibited as it would have been in the 1950s.
1820s Expansion
In the area surrounding the current Pockerley Old Hall and Steam Wagon Way more development is on the way. The first of these was planned to be a Georgian Coaching Inn that would be the museum's first venture into overnight accommodation. However following the COVID-19 pandemic this was abandoned, in favour of self-catering accommodation in existing cottages.
There are also plans for 1820s industries including a blacksmith's forge and a pottery.
Museum stores
There are two stores on the museum site, used to house donated objects. In contrast to the traditional rotation practice used in museums where items are exchanged regularly between store and display, it is Beamish policy that most of their exhibits are to be in use and on display - those items that must be stored are to be used in the museum's future developments.
Open Store
Housed in the Regional Resource Centre, the Open Store is accessible to visitors. Objects are housed on racks along one wall, while the bulk of items are in a rolling archive, with one set of shelves opened, with perspex across their fronts to permit viewing without touching.
Regional Museums Store
The real purposes of the building presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works next to Rowley Station is as the Regional Museums Store, completed in 2002, which Beamish shares with Tyne and Wear Museums. This houses, amongst other things, a large marine diesel engine by William Doxford & Sons of Pallion, Sunderland (1977); and several boats including the Tyne wherry (a traditional local type of lighter) Elswick No. 2 (1930). The store is only open at selected times, and for special tours which can be arranged through the museum; however, a number of viewing windows have been provided for use at other times.
Transport collection
Main article: Beamish Museum transport collection
The museum contains much of transport interest, and the size of its site makes good internal transportation for visitors and staff purposes a necessity.
The collection contains a variety of historical vehicles for road, rail and tramways. In addition there are some modern working replicas to enhance the various scenes in the museum.
Agriculture
The museum's two farms help to preserve traditional northcountry and in some cases rare livestock breeds such as Durham Shorthorn Cattle; Clydesdale and Cleveland Bay working horses; Dales ponies; Teeswater sheep; Saddleback pigs; and poultry.
Regional heritage
Other large exhibits collected by the museum include a tracked steam shovel, and a coal drop from Seaham Harbour.
In 2001 a new-build Regional Resource Centre (accessible to visitors by appointment) opened on the site to provide accommodation for the museum's core collections of smaller items. These include over 300,000 historic photographs, printed books and ephemera, and oral history recordings. The object collections cover the museum's specialities. These include quilts; "clippy mats" (rag rugs); Trade union banners; floor cloth; advertising (including archives from United Biscuits and Rowntree's); locally made pottery; folk art; and occupational costume. Much of the collection is viewable online and the arts of quilting, rug making and cookery in the local traditions are demonstrated at the museum.
Filming location
The site has been used as the backdrop for many film and television productions, particularly Catherine Cookson dramas, produced by Tyne Tees Television, and the final episode and the feature film version of Downton Abbey. Some of the children's television series Supergran was shot here.
Visitor numbers
On its opening day the museum set a record by attracting a two-hour queue. Visitor numbers rose rapidly to around 450,000 p.a. during the first decade of opening to the public, with the millionth visitor arriving in 1978.
Awards
Museum of the Year1986
European Museum of the Year Award1987
Living Museum of the Year2002
Large Visitor Attraction of the YearNorth East England Tourism awards2014 & 2015
Large Visitor Attraction of the Year (bronze)VisitEngland awards2016
It was designated by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 1997 as a museum with outstanding collections.
Critical responses
In responding to criticism that it trades on nostalgia the museum is unapologetic. A former director has written: "As individuals and communities we have a deep need and desire to understand ourselves in time."
According to the BBC writing in its 40th anniversary year, Beamish was a mould-breaking museum that became a great success due to its collection policy, and what sets it apart from other museums is the use of costumed people to impart knowledge to visitors, rather than labels or interpretive panels (although some such panels do exist on the site), which means it "engages the visitor with history in a unique way".
Legacy
Beamish was influential on the Black Country Living Museum, Blists Hill Victorian Town and, in the view of museologist Kenneth Hudson, more widely in the museum community and is a significant educational resource locally. It can also demonstrate its benefit to the contemporary local economy.
The unselective collecting policy has created a lasting bond between museum and community.
BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE
Adel Abdessemed brings photography and sculpture together in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, a title she borrowed from a key work by Sigmund Freud published in 1920. Most of the photographs were made in the same place : the street outside her Paris studio. Many feature animals, which are now foreign to the urban setting in which she places them and no longer have a relationship to man, who has become unaware and unaccustomed to them. Abdessemed often expresses the tensions arising from those issues and their most common manifestation, the cry, as the starting point and raw material for all creation. Tension and original pain seem to culminate in the work itself, a transcendent, fictionalized form of the pleasure from which the Arles exhibition draws its title that could, like Freud, whom she quotes, lead any observer to think that the search for pleasure—in this case art—might be nothing but the end of pain.