Miss Garraway's Lantern Slides

As part of my volunteering in the collections department, I was given the opportunity to write a blog about any artefact in the Roman Baths collection. Although I was initially overwhelmed by the choice of interesting objects, I soon came across an intriguing collection of 7 lantern slides featuring the palace of Versailles. 

Lantern slides are photos printed onto glass and projected using light. They have been around for hundreds of years, and before photography was discovered they were made by hand painting an image onto glass. These slides were donated to the Roman Baths in 1989 by a Miss Garraway.

Lantern slide of La salon de guerre at Versailles

 The photos were taken by a French photographer called Adolphe Braun, who used contemporary methods to market his pictures worldwide. Some of Braun’s Versailles lantern slides were taken in an area of the estate called Le Petit Trianon, like the photo of le temple d’amour (the love monument).

Le Petit Trianon was given to Marie Antoinette in 1774 when she married Louis XVI of France. It already included a small castle surrounded by gardens that Louis XV had been developing since the 1750s.

Lantern slide of le temple d'amour

Marie Antoinette dramatically changed the gardens of the Le Petit Trianon, commissioning the architect Richard Mique to redesign them to her taste. She was responsible for the addition of the Love monument as well as The Queen’s Hamlet, a small village of 10 buildings that included a working farm and dairy. It is widely believed that the Queen would amuse herself by pretending to be a farmer here, but really the Hamlet was used for hosting guests and educating the royal children. Unfortunately, there is not a photo of the Hamlet in Miss Garraway’s collection, although I did find a Braun photo of the Hamlet online.

Miss Garraway donated lots of items to the museum in 1989, including an Egyptian mud brick, a flint arrowhead and a total of 120 glass lantern slides. On a trip to the Record Office, we found that the collection had belonged to her father, who was headmaster at St. Saviour’s school.

A Bath Chronicle article about Mr Garraway, 1st November 1947

It is still unclear why these artefacts were in his possession. It is possible that he used these items in his school to help educate children. The fact that the photographer Braun was known for using contemporary methods to market his pictures worldwide does explain how the Garraways were able to access these photos.

Ella

Volunteer

Christmas in the Collections Office

Unlike the rest of Bath we in the Collections team breathe a sigh of relief when Christmas approaches: it means quieter days when the phone doesn’t ring, less emails come through the enquiries box, when half or more of our colleagues are away and even the buskers seem to be quieter: perhaps they are Christmas shopping as well.

The Baths are quieter (and in the early morning the Great Bath is wonderfully steamy); so we can do some of the glamorous parts of our job with impunity; dusting the inscriptions and models, checking silica gel in the cases (this is a dessicant which ensures that despite being damp outside, our cases stay dry and this protects all the metal objects) and checking the Roman monument.  We look forward to having a chance to do this during the dark January mornings and evenings.

With more than  36 volunteers and 5 placements working with us this year, its inevitable some mistakes are made: records have been left incomplete, things have ended up in the wrong boxes…..

On this year’s "to do" list is location checking: which is just like stocktaking in a shop: checking that objects are where the database says they are and that they’re in good condition.  We’ve started with photographs which were mainly taken by previous marketing teams.

Checking photographs is always fun, you never know what will turn up! An early photo of Swallow Street with sedan/bathchair hybrid and the Roman Baths in the background

We’ll be checking weights of the Beau Street Hoard coins ready for full publication of the coins to be published next year.

Verity's desk all ready (?) for Christmas 

And we have a chance to review and plan for the new year.  As a Museum Accredited with Arts Council England, we have a documentation plan that lists all the recording we have to do.  With over 64,000 records on our database, there’s only about 10,000 more objects to go!  A lot of this work will be done by volunteers so each object to be documented has to have its paperwork and history is ready for them.

So whilst you're munching on your mince pies, think of us ...

But we're looking forward to welcoming back our volunteers in mid January (a Collections Team is for life not just for Christmas)

Verity & Susan

Connecting Collections - Magic Lantern Slides Part II

Old photographs can often be dated by advertising or incidental details, a good example of this being the photograph of A.Goodman’s Confectioners shop. This shows a large advertisement for Fry’s Chocolate. (Frys Chocolate Cream bars being first sold around 1866). Several were taken in Cornwall, two showing groups of people who were presumably also on holiday. In one example, they are shown enjoying a picnic luncheon, complete with large straw picnic hampers, in true Victorian style, complete (including / along with?) with flagon.

A. Goodman's Shop

Photographs taken often also document a changing world, and this is illustrated by two slides in particular. One is that of boys listening to a phonograph, invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. This was the first device to reproduce recorded sound, clearly quite a technical innovation. The boys gathered round are listening to the phonograph playing waxed cylinders. The cylinders had grooves etched into them, into which a metal stylus fitted, as with a record player. That the world is about to change is particularly well illustrated in another slide entitled, “War of Nations” Recruits Trench Digging.” This, together with the Castle Combe photograph, are particularly relevant at present, with the release of the Steven Spielberg film, “War Horse”, as scenes for the film were filmed there.

Boys Listening to Phonograph

Recruits Trench Digging WWI

Another example of a changing world, is the slide of the post boy who may well be delivering telegrams as well as post. We live in an age of rapid communication and tend to think of this as a modern innovation our Victorian ancestors would have been amazed by. For them, however, the development of the telephone and the telegraph system must have been just as interesting. Our ancestors were just as keen on developing technology as we are today. Indeed, the slides themselves are indicative of a changing world, if we remember by the 1880’s, cameras were becoming more widely available and more portable. Being easier to carry meant it was easier to take them to other parts of the world, as illustrated in these slides.

Post Boy

Connecting Collections - Magic Lantern Slides Part I

Magic lanterns were an early form of slide projector, used in conjunction with glass slides to project an image. The glass slides were made by putting a light-sensitive solution onto glass plates, taking a picture and creating a negative which was then printed onto another glass plate.

The pictures here are from a collection of magic lantern slides, donated to the Roman Baths Museum in 1984, by a Miss Garroway. They belonged to her father, the Rev.George Garroway, and range in date from around 1880 to at least the beginning of the First World War in 1914, and may well have been taken by different photographers. Some of the photographers must have travelled widely, as the places photographed range widely. Some were taken in the West Indies and the Caribbean, others in Schull, County Cork, Ireland, Cornwall, Jersey, North America and Versailles, France.

The slides taken locally, include what may be a family group portrait taken in Warleigh, views of Castle Combe and Great Wishford, in Wiltshire. One particularly interesting slide is that of a Roman Mosaic found near Box, Wiltshire, in 1898. It has since been reburied to help preserve it. Another, also taken in Box, shows the Market Place with, of course, a group of children as often seen in Victorian and Edwardian photographs.

Roman Mosaic at Box

Others are of Bristol, one in particular showing a horse drawn open carriage being driven on the Suspension Bridge - not a sight to be seen very often now! Another sight long gone, is the Bristol High Cross. The one photographed is a replica which stood near College Green. The original, which stood at the junction of four roads, was moved to Stourhead, Wiltshire, in the 1770’s. The replica itself has been dismantled, but a remnant can be found in Berkeley Square Gardens, Bristol.

Clifton Suspension Bridge

Bristol High Cross

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow.......

The mountains of Caradhras from "the Lord of the Rings", Narnia, Christmas Town from "the Nightmare before Christmas"; what do they have in common? They are all miracle places and environments of snow and winter but with one common fault; they're all only fictitious.

A snowy scene - Keynsham

But the world we see around us can be a winter wonderland too if you know the right places to look. And no, I don't mean you should travel all the way to Antarctica. Many places such as woods, parks, even towns can make a dramatic transformation with a little help from the snow. When the snow began to fall around Bath, I was eager to see what attractions such as the Great Bath would look like in snowy weather. Unfortunately, being a bath full of hot water and steam, a first-ever photograph of the Baths in the snow was a futile wish; thank you very much laws of nature. At least the Roman Emperor and Governors statues around the Great Bath terrace were willing to play along with my latest photographic experiment.

Snow on the statues around the Great Bath

But that wouldn't stop me from finding some other snowy area to capture in pictures. Last year, in November, when I went to see the Don McCullin: Shaped by War exhibit at the Victorian Art Gallery and got the chance to look at some of his work with black and white winter photographs; it inspired me, the following month, to take a few snaps around the parks and fields of my hometown; Keynsham. And as you can see by the included photos, the results were quite successful.

The banks of the River Avon in the snow

A lot of people may look on this season and weather as a traffic disruption and a slippery risk. But what a snowy winter lacks in travel convenience, it makes up for in giving photographers opportunities like this. They say "an artist must suffer for their work"; and after falling over at least seven time's whist taking these photos, I think I've done the suffering part. And it's been worth it.

A winter wonderland

Sir Mortimer Wheeler and Bath

Black and white photograph. Sir Mortimer Wheeler giving opening address at 1958 Bath Festival in Abbey Churchyard. Council dignitaries including Mayor of Bath on platform behind speaker. (Televised event) - image from Roman Baths Collection.

 The 1958 Bath Festival included a televised opening ceremony, in Abbey Churchyard, carried out by Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1890-1976), the eminent archaeologist.

His speech included the statement that Bath could become ‘a mere archaeological specimen’. He then went on to say:

‘I am going to be quite frank with you about this. If there’s one thing I dislike more than another, it is archaeology. The moment you think of a place as mere archaeology, you may be sure that the place is dead. But Bath, you’ll agree with me, is not dead. It is a Roman city; it is a Georgian city; but Bath is also a modern city.’

Bullamore 1999, pp.53

Sir Mortimer Wheeler is often viewed as being one of the first ‘modern archaeologists’. One of the reasons for this is his encouraging the use of volunteer diggers rather than cheap labour. Previously, many amateur excavations were funded by inviting contributions from wealthy investors, who would then get a share of any proceeds if anything of value was found. Another reason is his development of the ‘Box grid system’.

The site is divided into squares which are then dug leaving just a dividing wall, similar to an ice cube tray. By using this method the site could be dug, but with layers of earth still preserved, so it is still possible to see how a site has changed over the years.

His career began as in 1919 as Director of Archaeology at the National Museum of Wales, then becoming Keeper of Archaeology at the Museum of London in 1926. He undertook a five year excavation at Maiden Castle, near Dorchester, Dorset. He also worked in India as Director General Archaeological Survey of India and establishing the Archaeological Department of Pakistan and the National Museum of Pakistan.

Sir Mortimer Wheeler

He died in 1976.
Bullamore, T. 1999 Fifty Festival – The History of the Bath Festival. Mushroom Publishing: Finland

Lights, Camera, Action!

Back in November 2010 we were introduced to the very first Illuminate Bath Arts Festival. Parts of Bath (including the Roman Baths and Pump Room) became a canvas for many new works of art, this included some impressive light shows, which I am afraid I missed out on seeing. Looking at the photos in magazines or in leaflets is one thing, but it holds no comparison to seeing the real thing. However I did manage to see a magical light transformation of sorts in Stall Street…..

Christmas lights in Stall Street

So it’s November and it’s the run up to Christmas; it was only a matter of time before the City installed the Christmas lights. A carousel joined the Christmas festivities along with the Christmas market and served to light up Stall Street.

Christmas carousel in Stall Street

In the past I’ve never really explored the city during the Christmas season – I know what you’re thinking at this point; you should get out more……. Now working at the Roman Baths there was no excuse for me to miss out on what I saw. The mixture of the Christmas illuminations with the crazy spinning lights of the carousel, lit up the street at a time of year known for being dark and dreary. It made things feel less like the forests of Pandora in James Cameron’s Avatar and more like the T-rex holding cell escape scene from Jurassic Park.

Bath Christmas lights

It’s funny really; whilst missing out I don’t feel I missed out. I let too many opportunities to see the light displays of Illuminate Bath pass me by. But, on my short journey from the Baths to the Bus Station I was always delighted by the prospect of viewing Bath’s very own little light show. Lesson to be learnt for the next time the Arts Festival is in town - the next time a great opportunity to see new things comes my way, I won’t let it pass me by!

Bath Christmas lights

James

Remembering Bath Abbey Vaults.

I’ve only ever visited Bath Abbey and its vaults on two occasions. The first time I was in absolute awe at both above and below ground; but I didn’t think to have my camera with me…….. Yes, I am that stupid. Fortunately the opportunity to return to visit; this time with my camera at the ready.


Bath Abbey Vaults

I have recently received the news that the museum held within the vaults is closed for redevelopment. Whether or not it will reopen is currently hanging in the balance. Personally I think permanent closure of the Vaults Museum is unthinkable.

Stone Cross - Bath Abbey Vaults

Many people spend so much time contemplating the sites they see, but they very rarely stop to think about what goes on behind or, in this case, underneath it all. Take the Roman Baths for example, the Great Bath and the head of Minerva are on most tourists ‘must see’ list but they too were once buried underground waiting to be discovered. It makes you think; How would they have looked standing new and proud, before nature took over?

Bath Abbey Vaults

Okay, so the vaults may not be the equivalent of a vast underground civilisation but, people remember small details too. I think back to the Lord of Rings film adaptation; I remember the dwarven city underneath the Mines of Moria and Sam’s words “Now there’s an eye opener, make no mistake.”


Then there is Balin’s Tomb and the skeleton that Pippin accidentally knocked into the well……. You only have to look at the photo’s I have uploaded for this blog to see what amazing artefacts were on display.

Medieval tiles - Bath Abbey Vaults

Again, I don’t know whether the vaults will remain closed permanently, but I hope not. These artefacts were on display for a reason; to be preserved, admired, to educate and not to be locked away and forgotten.



James