National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, April 02, 2007

Liverpool style icon Coleen McLoughlin celebrated her 21st birthday at Thornton Manor this weekend and I can exclusively reveal that pictures from inside the house are now on show at the Lady Lever Art Gallery.
 
Ok, you’ve rumbled me. We couldn’t quite match the offer Hello! put on the table to secure the rights to capture Rooney serenading the birthday girl or Peter Crouch celebrating his Liverpool hat-trick with more hilarious robotics. But we can treat you to a glimpse of the music room at Lord Leverhulme’s former residence as part of the Merchant Palaces exhibition. Who wants to see a bunch of WAGs and B-listers drunkenly cavorting when you can see some true Victorian splendour anyway? 

Music room minus the Sugababes and P Diddy

The Lottie Sleigh explosion.
Image courtesy of Liverpool Daily Post & Echo

Loud bangs and crashes are something which I, Stephen Guy, hate so this was one event in Liverpool’s history that I would not have wanted to witness. It was a noise to almost waken the dead – an incredible, ear-splitting blast that could be heard more than 30 miles away. People covered their ears and cowered in terror as the terrible explosion followed by a huge gust of air wrecked property and smashed thousands of windows in Liverpool and beyond.

The cause of all this mayhem was a blast that destroyed the sailing ship Lottie Sleigh moored in the Mersey. The most miraculous thing about that terrible day in January 1864 was that nobody was killed.

It all started with a simple accident on board the ship as she lay at anchor in the river. Fire broke out after a steward upset and ignited a can of oil as he trimmed a paraffin lamp. The fire spread quickly and a passing ferry took off the crew. Doubtless it quickly dawned on them what was about to happen – the Lottie Sleigh was carrying 11 tons of gunpowder.

A tremendous explosion tore the ship apart and a contemporary account reads: “The contents of the vessel blew up with a report which it is hardly possible to describe. The simultaneous explosion of 500 pieces of heavy ordnance could not have produced so terrible and alarming a shock.

“Its effects in every part of Liverpool were severely felt and created indescribable terror. At the same time the most solid blocks of warehouses, offices and private dwellings were shaken to their base – doors locked and bolted were thrown wide open – hundreds, yea even thousands of squares of glass were smashed.”

Most of the gas lamps in Liverpool’s streets were put out by the massive rush of air. Considerable damage was also caused on the Birkenhead side of the river. Chester was among the distant places where the explosion was heard. The authorities telegraphed Liverpool to discover what had caused the sound.

The shattered wreck was later beached at New Ferry where it was broken up. Remarkably, the figurehead of the Lottie Sleigh survived and is in the collections of the Merseyside Maritime Museum. The ship dated from 1852 and the figurehead presumably shows the lady after whom the ship was named.

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

Poster accession number RD00042.0012

The Easter holidays start this weekend, and as you'd expect, we've got lots of free activities at our venues to keep the kids entertained while they're off school.

In the spirit of the season, the National Conservation Centre are holding five Easter craft afternoons from Wed 4 April, which include card making and egg painting. You could also take part in an Easter rummage at the Customs and Excise Museum over the next 3 Sundays. Please check the What's On listings for the times of each session.

It's a busy time so if you are travelling into town, this poster from the Museum of Liverpool collections has some good advice, which still rings true sixty years after it was printed. The poster is number 13 in a series produced by Liverpool Corporation Passenger Transport in the late 1940s, aimed at passengers to help reduce queues and peak time travel for workers.

Anyone for a slice of cathedral?

Today is architect Sir Edwin Lutyens's birthday. Born in 1869, he would have been 138 in the highly unlikely event that he was still around today.

I don't know if anybody out there is up to the challenge, but I think that Angela had the right idea in her blog about potentially edible buildings in Liverpool. The only suitable way to mark the occasion would be with a cathedral-shaped cake, ideally the size of the model in the Walker's exhibition The cathedral that never was (I'm being practical, not greedy - the cake needs to be big to fit all the candles on).

Or you could just treat yourself to a normal size piece of cake in the Walker cafe in Lutyens's honour if you don't have an industrial size oven of course.

Head of sculpture conservation Sam Sportun gives Pomona a quick clean

Most people decorate their garden with a nice pot from the garden centre, or maybe an ornamental bird bath or fountain. The gardens at Het Loo Palace in the Netherlands are pretty spectacular however, so they have commissioned a specially made replica marble sculpture from conservation technologies at the National Conservation Centre to grace their lawn.

The replica is a life sized copy of a 17th century marble statue of the goddess Pomona, part of the Royal Collection, that's on display in the Orangery of Kensington Palace, London.

The original statue was laser scanned to produce an accurate 3D computer model. As it is such a large sculpture it had to be divided into 8 pieces that were machined separately out of Carrara marble. These were then carefully assembled, rather like a huge 3D jigsaw puzzle that weighs around 400 kg. The joins are cleverly hidden in the sculpture, so you would think it was carved from a solid piece of marble.

You can see a Flickr slideshow of photos of Pomona being carefully packed into a crate ready for the trip to the Netherlands. 

Update: see pictures documenting the replication of Pomona and read more about the process in a new case study on the National Conservation Centre website.

If you live in the Granada television region tonight's viewing might include the current affairs programme, Granada Editions at 7.30pm. Tonight's show is a special edition looking at the role of the North West in the transatlantic slave trade.  Poet Lemn Sissay looks at how the profits of the trade are still evident around the region. Tony Tibbles, keeper of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, and assistant curator, Stephen Welsh, both feature.

I’m delighted to reveal Port Sunlight has made it into the BBC News website’s top 20 hidden tourist gems. After asking a gaggle of celebrities to pick their favourite places off the typical tourist track readers were invited to nominate secluded spots of their own. It’s heartening to hear that the Lady Lever Art Gallery is gaining a reputation on both sides of the Atlantic and I couldn’t agree more with Daniel from Charleston, USA, that the gallery does have a ‘surprisingly good art collection’. I’ll let him off for calling us a museum.

As for Tony ‘Time Team’ Robinson’s rather random choice of Newbury Park Bus Station, think I'll give that one a miss.

This weekend marked the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in the UK. Given Liverpool's role in the trade there was strong media focus on the city, with the Merseyside Maritime Museum featuring heavily. The following radio programmes are available to 'listen again' by following the links.

The Sunday Programme on BBC Radio 4 was broadcast live from the Merseyside Maritime Museum. The programme looked at why some Christians supported slavery and others didn't, slavery in Islam, Liverpool and the slave trade, and the legacy of slavery. 

Next Sunday Worship - Set All Free, also from the Merseyside Maritime Museum, featured Bishop of Liverpool, Rt Revd James Jones and Senior Pastor of the Temple of Praise Church, Dr Tani Omideyi. The Love and Joy Gospel Choir provided the vocals for a programme looking at the legacy of slavery in a city whose fortunes and success rested on the slave trade.

Also on Sunday, Radio Five Live's Worricker Programme was broadcast from the Elmina fort in Ghana. Playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah visited the transatlantic slavery gallery at the Merseyside Maritime Museum and interviewed the keeper of the museum, Tony Tibbles, talking about the trade and the new slavery museum. Deputy PM John Prescott, Miss Dynamite and former Leeds and Ghanaian footballer, Tony Yeboah also featured.

BBC Radio Merseyside's Claire Hamilton also focused on the trade and interviewed Richard Benjamin, keeper of the forthcoming International Slavery Museum.  Wayne Clark looked at the role of abolitionist, William Wilberforce, in his Daybreak programme. Keeper of the Maritime, Tony Tibbles, was also interviewed.

HMS Liverpool's bell

The ringing of a ship’s bell had a key role in the lives of seafarers and to me, Stephen Guy, some bells have a haunting quality. 

Ships’ bells served a very practical purpose keeping crews informed of the passing of the hours when they were on watch. As far back as the 15th century, bells sounded the time on board ships. There were no chronometers or watches in those days and time was kept with an hourglass. The bell was sounded every half hour of the four-hour watch. The day was divided into five four-hour watches plus the dog watch between 4 pm and 8 pm. This was split into two, two-hour watches to allow crew members to have an evening meal and to switch watch times for crew each day, on a rota system. The first bell was rung after half an hour, two bells after one hour. Bells that followed were punctuated by pauses – for example, after 90 minutes it was two bells – pause – one bell. The maximum came at the end of the four-hour watch – a sequence of two bells rung four times, with pauses between. In other words, eight bells which meant the end of the watch.

There are many ships’ bells in the collections of the Merseyside Maritime Museum. The bell from the famous liner Mauretania (1907) was presented to Bebington Parish Church, Wirral, by Sir Percy Bates, chairman of the Cunard Line, in 1936. The bell of the sixth HMS Liverpool (1938) hangs in a frame of oak timbers (shown). The frame was made from wood from the gatehouse of the Old Hutte, a 14th century manor house, controversially demolished to make way for the Ford motor factory at Halewood in 1961. For many years the bell hung in the Liverpool Stock Exchange until its closure in 1991.

A Royal Navy bell with a fascinating story is from the battleship HMS Rodney (1927 – 48). She and another battleship, HMS King George V, pounded the German pocket battleship, Bismarck, into a blazing wreck. The cruiser HMS Dorsetshire then torpedoed Bismarck, which finally capsized and sank with her colours flying. Bismarck’s end was hastened by her crew detonating scuttling charges and opening water-tight doors. More than 2,000 crew died and only 118 were saved.

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

Digital, 35mm or good old pinhole, pick up your camera, I’m declaring 2007 the year of the photograph.

We've got Bernard Fallon’s atmospheric images of Liverpool going down a storm at the National Conservation Centre and the images of Merchant Palaces at the Lady Lever Art Gallery provide a fascinating insight into the way the other half lived.

If you fancy a shot at photography and are lucky enough to be aged between 12 and 16 there’s a Victorian photography workshop at the Lady Lever on Thursday 12 April. Places are limited so call our learning department on 0151 478 4178 to snap up a place. 

Never fear oldies, there's also opportunities for those of us old enough to remember when Polaroid’s were cutting edge to develop our skills. Shoot Liverpool is an interactive photographic treasure hunt happening in May and promises a fantastic day of creativity and camaraderie on the streets of Liverpool. Sounds like a reel good time.

If your photographic thirst hasn’t been quenched by that fine lot I visited the BALTIC in Gateshead last week to see the Vik Muniz exhibition. Check out a chocolate Elvis  and Che Guevara reborn through the magic of black beans. Definitely the best exhibition I’ve seen all year – apart from our own of course.

Bernard Fallon's Crosby babes