National Museums Liverpool Blog - Thursday, February 01, 2007

The mason's mark H4

Museum archaeologists excavating Manchester Dock have been pleased to find the inner walls of the lock gate are in very good condition. Many of the stones not only feature the original chisel marks but also the identifying marks of the individual masons. Stonemasons would mark the stones they had dressed so their daily output could be accurately tallied and they would be paid accordingly.

Some are simple shapes (like the triangle one featured on our Flickr page). Others are a mix of letters and numbers like this example.

The internal dock gates at Manchester Dock are exposed

In yesterday's dig post we showed you the outline of Manchester Dock with its two sets of docks gates. Well yesterday archaeologists set to work uncovering those original gates which are still in situ. Most of the timbers survive, some of which are up to 0.3metres thick and hardwood, probably Greenheart (a very hardwood often used in dock construction).

More images from yesterday, including the depth marker from the dock, can be found on our Flickr page.

Sir Paul McCartney is one of a number of celebrities to have submitted dog pictures and paintings to the Alive + Well Dog Project, to be auctioned in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital. The dogs have all been created using the same bizarre template – although they also have their own peculiarities.

According to one report, Paul’s contains ‘wings, breasts and an evil eye’. Personally I think the sketch looks remarkably like another local character –anyone else think it resembles a Liver Bird?

Other celebs that have been dabbling with the paint include Keith Allen  and Damien Hirst. The Celebrity Dog pictures can be seen until 7th Feb at The Hospital, Covent Garden. For more information visit www.thehospital.co.uk

For more on the art of Paul McCartney visit our archive exhibition web pages.

Actually, if you're not a teacher who has recently brought a class on a visit to one of our venues you can stop reading now.

Our Learning department is running a monthly draw to win free coach travel next time one of your classes visits one of our venues. To be entered all you have to do is get your class to complete a really simple and pretty fun online survey all about their visit. What's more, the feedback can be supplied to you so even if you don't win you still get to find out just how much attention they were really paying. More details here.

A bird's eye view of the footprint of the new museum on the waterfront

It's been a bit windy lately so the going has been a tad rough down at the dock. For the past two weeks archaeologists have been working hard to remove the tarmac which once covered the car park at Mann Island on the waterfront (that's the River Mersey at the top right of the image). A 62 metre high mobile access platform was then brought in to give a unique bird's eye view of the dock and its associated yards and structures. The photographs (which include this one) will be used to produce a detailed plan/drawing of the area using computer software.

From left to right this image shows:
* Manchester Dock is the large brown structure on the left. 'A' indicates the position of the two sets of lock gates.
* On either side of the dock you can see a pair of holes in the ground (marked 'B'). These are the sites of the operating mechanisms for the inner set of lock gates.
* Moving right across the site 'C' indicates the foundations of Shed 1
* 'D' shows a cobbled yard surface
* 'E' indicates the foundation of Shed 2
* On the far right, currently beneath a pile of earth, is 'F', Chester Basin.

More photographs are available on our Flickr page, and if you STILL don't know what this project is all about check out our main site.

Scale model of the Great Eastern.
Image copyright Liverpool Daily Post & Echo

The Great Eastern was the wonder of the age when she was launched in 1858 and for me, Stephen Guy, this is one of the great stories of the sea.

There had never been a ship of this length and size – an amazing 692 feet long. The immense 18,915 ton vessel was not equalled for almost 40 years.

Great Eastern was designed by the visionary engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806 – 1859). The stress and strain probably killed him.

With her four towering funnels and six huge masts, Great Eastern was to be dogged by misfortune throughout her 30 years in a world not yet ready for such giants.

An incredible six times larger than any ship ever built, she was originally called Leviathan. Her launch was an epic feat, taking three months to complete after she became stuck on the slipway. Then the money ran out.

During sea trials a huge explosion sent a funnel shooting into the air like a rocket. Scalded men ran screaming from below decks – one leapt over the side and was mangled up by the paddle wheels.

People must have been wary of the vast ship because Great Eastern was nearly empty when she made her maiden voyage to New York in 1860. She never carried her full compliment of 4,000 passengers.

Great Eastern successfully laid transatlantic cables before ending her days on the River Mersey as a vast floating advertising hoarding for Lewis’s department store. There was a public exhibition on board and attractions such as trapeze artists in the rigging.

As a girl of 18, my grandmother, May Kendrick saw her many times and the extraordinary sight remained with her always. Great Eastern was scrapped at Tranmere in 1888.

Mythical stories relate how one or two skeletons were found in the double bottom. One version says they were a riveter and his apprentice, another that it was a man with a bag of gold!

There is a model of the Great Eastern at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. Also in the collection is a section of the ship’s transatlantic cable.

Relics of the Great Eastern include a meat dish decorated with a picture of the ship, a silver-plated coffee pot and a candle lantern. An ibex horn is inscribed with a view of the floating colossus.

If you've not already seen it following the link at the top of this post, you should check out this photograph of the Great Eastern, which is part of our Maritime Archive photography collection.

A new Maritime Tale appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

The view from the ferry this morning

Coming in on the ferry this morning, I couldn't help wondering what the Liverpool skyline would look like if Lutyens' Cathedral that never was had actually been built. It's hard to imagine something that big towering over everything around it.

The new Museum of Liverpool is another significant building that at the moment only exists as a model. However, it took a step closer to becoming a reality yesterday, when the HLF announced that a major grant has been earmarked to support the fit-out of the new museum. Read more about HLF announcement in our newsroom.

How long would you spend getting ready for an evening event at the Walker Art Gallery? A few hours perhaps? How about thirteen years? That's how long it has taken to conserve the huge and intricately detailed Lutyens cathedral model pictured here. However, everybody who attended the preview of the exhibition The cathedral that never was yesterday evening agreed that it was time very well spent, as the model is truly breathtaking.

I managed to pin down four of the conservators who worked on the model, David Parsons, John Whitehead, Chris Moseley and Bernie Morgan, at the end of the evening for this photo. You can see the whole team of ten conservators involved in the project and behind the scenes pictures of them at work in the Lutyens cathedral model image gallery.

The exhibition looking at art and climate change finishes this Sunday, 28 January 2007.

Print of Robert Burns from the Customs and Excise Museum collection, accession number CENM1996.928

Here's a bit of trivia to impress your whisky drinking chums with when you're out celebrating Burns night this evening. If you ask most people for 3 facts about Robert Burns, they would probably tell you that he was Scottish, he was a poet and he has a night held in his honour every year to celebrate his birthday. But did you know that he worked as an Excise Officer?

In 1789 Burns was appointed Excise Officer in Dumfries. His job was to gauge the vessels used by brewers and other traders in the manufacture of liquors on which Excise duty was charged and to charge the duty on the liquors when manufactured. A very conscientious officer, Burns was selected for promotion to supervisor, the official in charge of an excise district, but unfortunately died before he could take up his post.

His way with words didn't appear to rub off on those around him, as his confidential character assessment from 1792 simply states "The Poet. Does pretty well".

If you'd like to know more about Scotland's national bard have a look at the Burns Night feature on the BBC website. Or to find out how modern day customs officers are still 'doing pretty well' at protecting our ports and airports, you could pay a visit to the Customs and Excise Museum.

'The Enchanted Garden', John William Waterhouse

At the second attempt, I managed to record Sandra Penketh's picture of the month talk yesterday at the Lady Lever Art Gallery on John William Waterhouse's 'The Decameron' and 'The Enchanted Garden' (mp3/transcript/links).

The paintings are companion pieces, 'The Enchanted Garden' depicting a scene from Boccaccio's Decameron. Sandra's talk looks at the contemporary influences on Waterhouse, the story of the Enchanted Garden and Lord Lever's unusual approach to buying from Waterhouse's widow.

Fans of Cute Overload! shouldn't miss this photo buried in the podcast's suggested links (although whether 'mouse about to be savaged by cat' counts as cute is debatable).

The object of the month talk at 1pm in the Walker tomorrow (Thursday 25 January 2007) is on a Vivienne Westwood outfit from her Buffalo Girls collection.

I must confess, I was a little tired this morning after dancing, singing myself hoarse and generally getting over excited watching Kylie perform the last date of her Showgirl Homecoming tour in Manchester yesterday. Words couldn't describe how thrilled we were that the postponed concert was rescheduled, so I'm expressing my joy through this suitably antipodean picture of a black-footed rock wallaby, photographed in the wild by Clem Fisher during her Australian adventure last year.

Fans of Ms Minogue have another treat in store, when Kylie - The Exhibition opens in the V&A in London next month. Is it sad that I'm looking forward to seeing Charlene's overalls from Neighbours almost as much as her designer frocks?

Did you know that Kylie performed at the Liverpool Empire quite early on in her career? The occasion was captured by Echo photographer Stephen Shakeshaft, who showcased some of his best celebrity pictures in the exhibition Shooting Stars at the National Conservation Centre a few years ago. Read his entertaining reminiscences on the exhibition website.

We might not have any of Kylie's fabulous clothing here in Liverpool, but you can see designer clothing from the last forty years in the Inspiration display at the Walker.

The frond under UV light

A couple of month ago I told you about a monster of a 50 year old palm frond we had just acquired. Plans are to put the frond on display at World Museum Liverpool but first it needed some TLC in the form of treatment at the National Conservation Centre. This primarily involved removing the enhancing layer of acrylic paint to expose the original fossil (it's much paler).

This image shows the frond under UV light before work began. The purple areas are the acrylic overpainting and retouches. Images of the conservation work in progress and the finished article can be found on our Flickr page.

Update 23.01.07: apologies, that should have read 50 MILLION year old palm frond.

An emigrant's trunk from the last century.
Image courtesy of Liverpool Daily Post & Echo

When I, Stephen Guy, was a child growing up in West Derby, Liverpool, in the 1950s our neighbour had an old wooden seaman’s chest stored outside.

It was slowly rotting away but when you lifted the creaking lid another world was revealed. Inside the top was a colourful painting of a ship with billowing sails racing across an azure sea. This battered object had the power to conjure up images of distant ports and a lost way of life.

 Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
 Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
 Drink and the devil had done for the rest
 Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum …

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island, wrote these famous lines in 1881. They capture perfectly images of ancient sea chests brimming with golden doubloons and other loot.

Merseyside Maritime Museum has a number of chests and trunks on display. Sea chests were usually made from wood then tarred or painted to keep water out.  A seaman’s chest dating from about 1880 was used by seafarer Ted Garland to carry his personal belongings while at sea.

Ditty boxes were used by mariners to keep valuable items along with letters and photographs. One on display dates from the 1930s.

There is a stylish passenger trunk owned by Gertrude Walker and her daughters Doris and Winifred, members of a wealthy family who frequently travelled on passenger liners. Gertrude first went to Chile, South America, in 1911. During the next 50 years she and her daughters crossed the Atlantic many times. The trunk, donated by Mrs JV Bucknall of Heswall, is displayed with some of the clothing and accessories it once contained – a fascinating time capsule from a bygone age.

Another is a passenger’s state room black oval bag with a Cunard White Star label still in place. The bag was used by Mrs Hadwin, a third class passenger on the Athenia sailing to Montreal on 23 July 1923.

An emigrants’ trunk from 100 years ago (shown) contains some of the simple belongings carried by people seeking a new life abroad – photographs, books, crockery and a wall plaque bearing the fitting Biblical quotation, 'My God shall supply all your need'.

A new Maritime Tale appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.