Ghosts in the Nuclear Bunker

It was a still, grey day and I had been warned about what I was embarking on. 

Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has an extraordinary online catalogue of their many thousands of items. I had already been in contact with Lily, from the museum discussing potential subjects for a series of paintings. In this series I’m trying to keep all the objects as local as possible and I was spoiled for choice! 

Their vast collection no longer fits inside their modest premises in town and so they now have storage facilities outside the museum, inside Cambridge Nuclear Bunker. A bizarre postwar building created to house the seat of government in the case of a nuclear attack. It’s one of  two (the other is in Leicester), thankfully it has never needed to be used for government. But should a nuclear attack be imminent, now you also know where to go. Meet you there.

The building is everything you would imagine it would be, forbidding, intimidating, oppressive, windowless.

I was made to feel very welcome by Lily, Senior Collections Assistant, who after she had got me through several locks and I had discarded all the items I couldn’t take through to the research room; showed me to an enormous padded table; on which she had laid out the objects we had discussed. 

The bunker was obviously designed to protect from the outside world. It was bizarrely quiet, and still inside, separated from the autumn rustle of the trees outside and calling of the kite circling overhead as I went in. The building had its own industrial humming, ticking and buzzing sounds, constant temperature and neon lights. A spooky unfluctuating parallel universe. We could have been the last two people in the world, or at the bottom of the sea.

Working under artificial strip-light is quite hard on the eyes and I was very glad that I had brought my own lamp with me.  

It was hard to know how long I was in there for, with no daylight reference or clock. I was certainly very glad to get out and explore the area for a quick walk and some fresh air at lunchtime.  

My session started by working from a remarkable and modest object. A Roman spoon-bowl. It was in a grave, found having been repurposed by an Anglo-Saxon. Strung onto a necklace as a pendant with beads and buried with its wearer. I imagine the Anglo-Saxon woman it was found with touching this talisman around her neck, as she pondered, or worried. Her thumb fitting neatly into the curve of the bowl as mine does. The glimmering metal, heavy and cold when she first put it on, and then conducting her body heat, warm against her throat. This broken spoon, already 200 years old when it was found in the 6th century, was no longer fit for purpose, but elevated to a decorative role. It’s a deeply tactile thing, and I’m so grateful to Lily for guiding me to it. Who knows how long-gone the Romans were when this was repurposed. Perhaps it was a connection to someone, an heirloom, a reminder of another era. Or maybe just found by chance.

It will form part of my Spell To Remember. I love the layers of history this small, modest item encompasses. It is well over 1500 years old and was worn before the Norman invasion. Found just down the road from me in Little Wilbraham it felt like time travelling to hold it in my hand. Who knows who it fed and who it adorned. 

I was also spoilt for choice with a vast collection of keys, beautiful objects in themselves, one can’t help but think of the impressive doors these must have allowed access to. Just think of the power of having such a giant key dangling around your waist! What a status symbol! What control, access to forbidden places. This 15th Century Medieval key was found in Cambridge. The door that it opened is long since gone. It’s funny how the keys outlast the locks and doors. Even my own (much less impressive) key collection contains keys, the locks for which are broken, or no longer exist. It feels wrong to throw them away!

This is part of my Spell for Security, featuring an array of measures we take to help us feel safe. 

I spent the afternoon looking at a small heart shaped brooch which will form part of my Spell for the Heart and I started looking at a very delicate ring. These items will be finished in the studio as my focus was waining by this point, and my longing for daylight and fresh air won out.

There are more objects from this immense collection I would like to draw but thankfully they are stored in the main site, so I will have an upcoming drawing trip with the bonus of daylight too! 

What an extraordinary experience, I’m so glad I was able to visit this bunker, and be steeped in so many different historical stories in one intense day. Many thanks to Lily Pencliffe and the museum for making it possible.

To see timelapses of my drawing sessions click on the images below