Category: Magic n that

Apr 08

The time-travelling spinsters of Brompton Cemetery

On an appropriately gloomy day a few weeks ago I finally visited Brompton Cemetery, one of the ‘Magnificent Seven‘ Victorian graveyards of which Highgate is the poster cemetery. Highgate has got so big for its boots these days you need to pay to get in, but happily the other six are free and have their own creepy mausoleums and sad stone angels and 19thC celebrity graves. Though I don’t think they have anything to top the giant Marx head, it’s true. Did you see today someone left him a commemorative bag of Mini Eggs?

Impressively Brompton managed to maintain an air of refined melancholy with hundreds of Chelsea fans trooping through it post-match on the day we were there. Compared to wonderful half-wild Abney Park, the only other Magnificent Sevener I’ve made it to, Brompton was orderly and well-kept. Even the memorials were pretty restrained. We had a look about for any fanciful tombs adorned with weeping maidens or dryads, distracted with grief at the loss of this paunchy ambassador or that balding banker, but there were none (here’s a good one though. I mean, really – her top’s fallen off as well!)

There was a tomb with an enormous lion on top, but we were informed by a passerby that it belonged to a world-famous boxing champ so it seemed a bit more appropriate.

The Time Machine, an impressively large rectangular granite mausoleumHowever, there is one mausoleum in Brompton that is so OTT it has generated its own fascinating mythology: the Brompton Time Machine.

It certainly looks the part. Peculiar and imposing, it does have quite a presence when you’re stood beside it. The design is bizarre, especially the odd ‘portholes’ at the top and the not-quite-hieroglyphs around the door. Like Bad Witch, I first heard the time machine theory at the London Folklore Conference at the Bishopsgate Institute a few years ago, and Bad Witch has a good summary of the theory put forward there about its time-travelling properties. As well as just looking a bit weird the key points that make it a bit oooooh are:

  • It’s the only tomb in the cemetery for which there is no record of it being built.
  • The key is missing, so it hasn’t been opened for 120 years.
  • Inside are three fabulously wealthy spinsters about whom virtually nothing is known.
  • On the nearby grave of famous Egyptologist Joseph Bonomi there is a relief of Anubis, whose godly snout is pointing towards the tomb. A gesture which supposedly indicates “a soul out of time”.
  • Also buried nearby in an unmarked grave is eccentric inventor Samuel Warner, who sounds like JUST the kind of guy who might convince a wealthy spinster to fund a secret project to use ancient Egyptian wisdom build a time machine in the guise of an elaborate tomb.

However, The Clerkenwell Kid reveals that the time travel theory is totally wrong. It’s actually a teleportation chamber.

Doing a little digging (online, not at the cemetery – I’m not *that* inquisitive) I found a lot about Bonomi and a little about Warner, though not as much as you’d expect given that he sounds like a bonafide mad scientist. But it was the time machine’s inhabitants I really wanted to know more about, though I didn’t have much success. Thankfully some descendants of one of their relatives have been doing some family tree stuff so there’s a bit more now than a few years ago.

The mausoleum was commissioned by Hannah Peters/Courtoy, who was the third (and final) mistress of millionaire wigmaker John Courtoy – originally called Nicholas Jacquinet, he changed his name after arriving in England from France – who had two previous families with two other women. They weren’t married, but when he died she inherited his fortune. And it sounds like she earned it, as there was a 50 year age difference between them. Groo. Hannah reportedly died of cholera in 1848.

Also in the tomb are two of her daughters, Mary Ann and Elizabeth, about whom I could find nothing at all, sadly. However the aforementioned descendants did find a photograph of Hannah’s third daughter Susannah. Look! The past has a face! And a bonnet.

And the moral of the story is: who needs a time machine when you have the internet? Hopefully this will be the first of a series as my cemetery-visiting companion and I are aiming to get round all of the Magnificent Seven this year.

0
comments

Posted in History, London, Magic n that

Jun 18

The Milk of Sorrow

This sad and strange Peruvian film is showing at the Stratford Picturehouse on Thursday. I’m miffed that I can’t go so I am sharing it with you, my tiny reading public.

The protagonist, a young woman called Fausta,  is ill with a disease contracted from her mother’s breast milk known as “the milk of sorrow”,  a condition that only affects those women in Peru who were abused or raped during the years of terrorist struggle.  This Grauniad review says “This Peruvian lament examining how distress passes down the generations is subtle and wonderfully moving.”

Here’s the trailer. Please go and support the screening of weird films at Stratford Picturehouse!*

* ‘Weird’ is intended to be entirely complimentary, btw

0
comments

Posted in Art, Feminism, Film, Folklore, Stories, Stratford

Feb 23

The Southwark Mysteries

Ten years since these modern mystery plays were first performed, John Constable’s raucous mystical caravan will be returning to Southwark Cathedral this April. Website sez:

Inspired by the medieval mystery plays, this modern drama is rooted in the history of Bankside – London’s “outlaw borough” – mixing Bible stories with local folklore and contemporary humour.

Crossbones Graveyard Gates

Crossbones Graveyard Gates

It’s not Shakespeare (although he is in it, and Chaucer too – both had strong ties to the area) but it should be an entertaining performance.

The play stitches together symbols from across the centuries, from high art and street scurf, and it’s full of church spires and rags, goddesses, whores, history and magic.

It was inspired by the discovery of the Crossbones Graveyard in Borough. The play was written partly to restore a voice and a memory to the 15,000 nameless people buried there outside consecrated ground – prostitutes and criminals, the sick and the mad.

The whole project is an amazing example of modern myth-making, of a community of misfits and an urban space reclaimed for the non-specific spiritual. One day I’m going to tie a ribbon to the gate and commemorate one of the thousands of born-forgotten women who are buried there.

0
comments

Posted in Art, Drama, Folklore, History, London, Magic n that, Myths, Southwark, Stories

Feb 07

Google books: embeddable fairytales

Today I learnt a new thing: Google books allows you to embed a entire book into a webpage, so that your visitors can read it online. So taken am I with this new toy, I’ve tracked down one of my favourite fairytale books from when I was a nipper to share with you in this very blog post. Enjoy!

0
comments

Posted in Fairytales, Reading, Stories

Nov 04

V&A LATE event: In The Dead of Night

Norns weaving destiny - Arthur Rackham (1912)

Norns weaving destiny - Arthur Rackham (1912)

Another one of those “hooray for living in London! oh blast there’s all these other people that live here too” evenings. Turns out that fantastic free cultural events tend to be really popular.

Anyway, on Friday 30 October I ambled along to a hallowe’en-themed addition to the London museums LATES programme at the lovely Victoria & Albert Museum, but didn’t amble fast enough to sign up for anything. I also ambled into the middle of some performance art, which was a bit unfortunate, although I don’t think anyone noticed.

So I missed a few interesting things, including a talk on witchcraft by the curator of the wonderful Witchcraft Museum in Boscastle. It got utterly swept away in the flood a few years ago, so I’m very glad to see it’s back on its feet. There was a talk about Noh masks and Japanese demons that I caught snatches of through the gallery noise and the large crowd, but gave up after a while and went to a room upstairs to look at an exhibition of witch and fairy illustrations which was beautiful.

Highlights for me were some original sketches by Arthur Rackham, watercolours by Edmund Dulac, Brothers Grimm etchings by David Hockney, and Paula Rego’s black and white witch pictures. You can see Rego’s images online on the Tate website. They were  illustrations for Blake Morrison’s book of poems about Lancashire’s famous Pendle Witches.

It was worth going just for this little exhibition, and the chance to look around the gallery in the evening (no kids!) but the party atmosphere, high goth count and foyerDJ playing Joy Division, Tears for Fears and the Ghostbusters theme tune made it a lot of fun. The next V&A Friday Late is 27 November, called ‘Making A Scene’ – about gender identity, subversion and performativity, I’m told, although there’s no information up yet. Sounds right up my street.

0
comments

Posted in Art, Fairytales, London, Magic n that, Myths, Witches

Sep 26

Fantastical furniture at V&A Telling Tales exhibition

Supposedly taking its inspiration from “the spirit of story-telling” the free Telling Tales design exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum is well worth a visit before it’s packed up on 18 October.

Taking up a small space near the main entrance of the museum, the exhibition is divided into three sections – ‘The Forest Glade’, ‘The Enchanted Castle’, and ‘Heaven and Hell’, featuring intriguing, appealing, appalling and entertaining objects from a range of designers. Each apparently “tells a tale through their use of decorative devices, historical allusions or choice of materials, sharing common themes such as fantasy, parody and a concern with mortality.”

It’s difficult to pin down the thread running through the collection, but I loved it. It was gorgeous and grim and quite otherwordly, and UNCANNY in huge neon flashing letters, so right up my street. Perhaps the best I can do is link to a few of my favourite pieces to give you a flavour:

Linen Cupboard-House – I just wanted to climb inside!

‘Smoke’ Mirror – A mirror with a deliberately charred and blackened frame, which is surprisingly evocative.

‘Moulded Mole’ Slippers – I think the artistic merit / craft credentials of these are less clear, but I’m a sucker for taxidermy.

I’d also recommend taking a peek at the Princess Chair, the pig’s skull teapot, and the ‘Lover’s Rug’, which still makes me feel a bit queasy. There was a good mix of highly desirable objects, and thought-provoking items which were closer to art in the way it is normally understood, and clever things had been done with a very small exhibition space.

The themes seemed to break down a bit towards the end, but there was plenty to mull over. Here’s a video by the curator and others explaining some of the ideas behind the exhibition, and if you want to find out more about fairytales (and what sort of empty-souled person doesn’t?) you can hand over £45 for a study day linked to the exhibition on Sat 3 October.

0
comments

Posted in Art, Craft, London, Magic n that, Museum, Stories

Apr 29

London lore

Bishopsgate InstituteLast week  I left the sunny, comfy, biscuit-and-teaness of a normal Saturday morning behind to head down to the London Lore conference at the beautiful Bishopsgate Institute near Liverpool St.

Organised by the Folklore Society and the South East London Folklore Society (SELFS), it sold out weeks beforehand, so there were about 200 of us there in the Institute’s modestly ornate pale green great hall. The amateur enthusiasts, middle-aged men with thick glasses and shirts tucked into their jeans were out in force, as were a number of wild-eyed men sporting exciting hairstyles of both scalp and face. However, I was pleased to discover the audience also contained large numbers of pale bookish girls (that’s me), elderly women in strange purple garments, and goth couples, one half of whom sitting behind me was sporting a fantastic skeletal hand hairclip (like this one).

I won’t write up the whole event, as Bad Witch has already done a good summary of the speakers and topics, but overall I was very very impressed with the quality of talks and speakers. Everyone was clear, engaging, entertaining and kept to time. There was a good variety of topics, my favourites being a talk by Noel Rooney about the way the traditional character of the fox has been adapted for an urban setting and John Constable’s introduction to the Southwark Mysteries although the Chair pressed him into singing a song which I’m not sure the quiet audience really wanted.

There were also intriguing glimpses of two London museums from a folklore perspective – one, the Wellcome Collection, is already on my list of badass places, but the other – the Cuming Museum – was new to me.  Everyone seemed good-natured and lightly eccentric and the whole event had a lovely atmosphere.

The Newham Bookshop were running a stall at the back where all the speaker’s books were available and I very nearly spent a fortune. I did get quite a few copies of 21st century ‘penny dreadful’ One Eye Grey, but haven’t read many of the stories yet.

SELFS hold monthly talks at the King’s Head pub on Borough High Street, which is very near my office, so I shall go along and see what they’re like. Encouraged by the quality of the conference, less so by the fact that the second message I received after joining their email list was a lame sexist joke. Sigh.

2
comments

Posted in Folklore, History, London, Stories