Discovering Neroche
Revealing the landscape
Alder Roots in Quants
Neroche Lead Artist Michael Fairfax created this natural artwork in August 2007.
Two Alders had fallen in opposite directions exposing the root plates and creating a natural path between them. Michael spent time carefully removing earth to reveal the delicate lattice structure of the roots.
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The sculpture can be found a short distance from the public bridleway at Quants.
| Grid reference: | ST 185176 |
| Location: | Quants Nature Reserve |
Britty Stone and Ash Root Meander
This subtle sculpture was built in May 2007 by Neroche Lead Artist Michael Fairfax, as a homage to the ruin of Britty Farm, which is gradually being reclaimed by nature.
The sculpture can be found in the left hand bank on the track leading down to Britty Farm from the south.
| Grid reference: | ST 257159 |
| Location: | On the bridleway between Staple Common and Mount Fancy |
Measle Tree - Blackdown Common
This natural sculpture was created in January 2008 using a Rowan Tree hidden in the Forest near Blackdown Common. The lower branches were pruned and short sections re-inserted into the trunk to create a textured surface.
The tree would have been felled in 2009 as part of the wider conifer felling in the area but will now be retained. Once felling is complete, the tree will become a focal point and simple seating will be provided around the tree.
Oak Limb in Chert Pen
This sculpture was carved in Oct 2007 from an Oak limb that had fallen from the tree above, but not quite reached the ground.
It had to be carefully freed from its temporary home, hung up in the tree, with a winch and brute force!
The sculpture can be found on the right hand side of the bridleway that runs down across Quarts Moor (opposite Wallaces Farm shop)
| Grid reference: | ST 154 172 |
| Location: | Quarts Moor |
The Neroche Camera Obscura
Landscape – its appreciation and safeguard – is at the heart of the Neroche Scheme’s objectives. But while landscape is something just about everyone appreciates in some way, it is so taken for granted that it can be hard to focus people’s attention on it, and its components, in a fresh and arresting way. This project sets out to use an ancient technology, and public art, to create a versatile tool for bringing the Blackdown Hills landscape to life.
Camera obscuras are primitive cameras, which project light from a pinhole onto a screen inside a darkened chamber. They capture the scene outside and magically bring it to life as an inverted moving image inside.
Camera obscuras have been used as seaside attractions and educational tools for centuries. Promoted in the nineteenth century as ‘The Magic Mirror of Life’, they are invariably a source of fascination to audiences in any location.
In the context of a special protected landscape like the Blackdown Hills however, a camera obscura offers a serious but entertaining tool for animating the subject of landscape characterisation, and helping public audiences to look at ‘the view’ afresh.
This camera obscura is built in the shape of a foreshortened obelisk, 4.5 metres high, with affinities to the famous Wellington Monument. The framework of the obelisk is clad with Devon Douglas fir, with a doorway entrance allowing users to walk into its darkened interior. At the apex, light enters horizontally through a pinhole and is projected vertically downwards, through a lens, to a concave receiving table at the base. Viewers inside are presented with an image of the landscape view outside, on the table below their gaze. The apex assembly can be rotated, allowing images from 360 degrees around the obelisk to be captured.
Woodcarving in Quants Wood
A fallen but suspended tree branch provided the canvas for a unique carving in the wood. The text reads " The long procession of years tied down in the slow growth of wood"
