Skip to content

Home / Journal / 20240714 Long Melford

20240714 Long Melford
by Andy Corrigan

“On the Green at Long Melford are three great elms, probably U. procera. About 5ft diam. Two are probably over 100ft high.”
Oliver Rackham, Notebook 112, 1967 (CCCC14/6/2/1/112)

1)

Look up, look around, look down.

Image: Three square black and white photos of plants arranged in an "L" shape, repeated three more times, increasingly smaller, creating a sense of perspective.

A fresh young Oak leaf emerging, graceful Common water-plantain, and a white waterlily flower reflecting in stillness.

2)

Form and texture.

Image: Four square photos of flowers, arranged together in a square. The top left is a black and white photo of a cushion-like scabious, the bottom right is a black and white photo of a spiky globe thistle, and the other two are photos of yellow yarrow flower heads, one more open than the other.

A soft pillowy yellow/cream scabious flower, two yellow flower heads of yarrow, and a spiky globe thistle.

3)

Reflections of jewelled bodies.

Image: Four square photos of flowers, arranged together in a square. The four photos are repeated and overlain twice, each increasingly smaller towards the centre. The top left is a stained glass window detail of an elaborated decorated and jewelled dress. The top right photo is a detail of a chess/chequer board with black squares alternating with ones comprising of mosaic pieces of mother of pearl. The bottom left photo shows some long grass/reeds reflected in a water surface. The bottom right photo shows a bright blue and black striped dragonfly resting on a reed.

A stained glass window detail of an elaborated decorated and jewelled dress, a mother of pearl chess/chequers board, long grass/reeds reflected in a water surface, and a dragonfly resting on a reed.

“Motion may be lost by reflection. […] In all reflections of any bodies wth ever this rule is true that ye com on center of two or more bodies changeth not its state of motion or rest by ye reflection of those bodies one amongst another.”
Isaac Newton, ‘The Lawes of Motion’, Early Papers (MS Add. 3958)

4)

Choices: Reflections and ripples.

Image: Two black and white photos of the same scene arranged one above the other. The scene shows two of Melford Hall's turrets and flag pole reflected in the surface of the pond - The upper photo is focussed on the reflection, the lower is focussed on the water surface, which has ripples and a pond skater.

“Granada, Spain. Comares patio (reflection in pool)”, Garth Fowden

5)

Upstairs, downstairs.

Image: A black and white photo showing a variety of different carved forms of baluster in a single banister. The image is reflected horizontally, and repeated once vertically.

6)

Still we see clearly, we clearly still see.

Image: Two black and white photos, one above the other. The top image shows part of a glass/crystal chandelier. The cut edges of the pieces are clean and clear, but the light shows up some chipped edges. The lower image shows a close-up of the part of a drinking glass where the stem meets the bowl. The reflected and refracted light on the form of the glass creates a sense of vibrating motion, even though the glass is still.

“Besides the Refractions hitherto described, there is a refraction of another kind made in Island-glass, wch is a sort of Talc or pellucid stone found in Island, in the form of an parallelopiped easily clear as crystall splitting in glossy planes parallel to any of its six sides. […] If a beam of light fall perpendicularly upon any surface of this glass, this beam passing through that shall part into two beams… “
Isaac Newton, ‘Hydrostatics, Optics, Sound and Heat’ (MS Add. 3970)

7)

Inside out, outside in.

Image: A background photo of a bright purple pyramidal orchid flower is overlain by two additional smaller photos in the top-left and bottom-right quarters. The top-left image shows a gatekeeper butterfly feeding from a yellow hawkweed flower. The butterfly has orange wings edged with brown, and has a distinctive black spot with two white "pupil" markings on each forewing, and the petals of the flowers is each tipped with five lobe shaped scalloped edge, resembling very tiny flattened marigold washing up gloves. The bottom right image shows a wooden chair in front of some period interior wall mouldings, the chair has been elaborately decorated with finely detailed marquetry in floral and foliage designs, the chair splat additionally features an urn design at the base and a small bird in the upper centre.

Atop a luminous pyramidal orchid, a beady-eyed gatekeeper butterfly feeds from washing-up glove flowers - hawkweed - and nature enshrined in marquetry casts a shadow on the wall from the window light.

8)

Floral forms.

Image: Three square photos arranged in a backwards "L" shape. They are repeated three more times, each increasingly smaller towards the top left corner, creating a sense of perspective. The photo in the top right is black and white, and shows a circular carved stone moulding that consist of concentric layers of foliage that increasingly swirl towards the edge. The photo in the bottom right corner of the arrangement shows a close-up of a soft pink rose flower from an angle. The bottom left photo is a black and white close-up photo of the same rose flower, but directly on, emphasising its circular form and swirling petal arrangement and somewhat mirroring the form of the stone moulding.

Gulistan (Rose Garden) of Sa‘di (RAS Persian 258)

9)

A refracted exterior, an invitation in.

Image: Two colour photos, with a similar colour palette, arranged one above the other. The top photo appears blurred, but it has been taken through an old window pane with an uneven surface and the image focus is on the surface of the glass, which creates an effect similar to a reflection in rippling water. The forms not in focus suggest a red brick building and some large rounded areas of foliage. The bottom photo is centred on a flight of steps that lead up and directly through an open doorway of an old red brick banqueting house that has many gables and small chimneys. The straight bright green grass path that leads up to the building is flanked on either side by neat rows of tall and tightly clipped darker green conifer trees.

Lawrence Bragg’s interpretation of the X-ray diffraction pattern of cubical zinc blende (1912) (P1914 (a), (b))

10)

Two sentinels.

Image: Two black and white photos side by side, each of a different dead tree. The trees are still standing but have had most of their branches removed. In the background are the tops of some living trees on the horizon and the sky with wispy clouds. Each photo is reflected by a direct copy below it, creating an effect that makes the dead trees appear to be isolated and floating in the sky, adding to a sense of their suggestive anthropomorphic forms.

“Few elms remain alive in the area of Melford Hall.”
Oliver Rackham, Notebook 239, 1977 (CCCC14/6/2/1/239)

11)

In search of the elms.

Before setting off, I’d searched the web for “elm trees Long Melford” and luckily one of the first returned results was a painting called Long Melford Green on a Frosty Morning, Suffolk by the artist Stanley Roy Badmin that is in the collections of the V&A.

I could try to find the site of the elm trees and see if any evidence of them remains?

Image: Three colour photos arranged in a square, there are two smaller square photos, above which is a wider image. The upper image shows the northern end of Long Melford's village green, which has a pub and row of houses leading into the distance where there is a church tower and a grander brick building (an old hospital). The grassed area of land nearest the buildings is used as a car park. The bottom-left photo shows a closer view of the car park, with the hospital, church and houses in the background. In the foreground, the surface level of the ground is very uneven. The bottom right image shows a piece of worn/rotten wood, which is riddled with insect holes, lying on some grass.

There is a suspiciously uneven area of ground in the otherwise smooth grassed village green which, on my initial reading of Badmin’s painting, is tantalisingly in the area that the trees might have once stood so proudly. There is even a large lump of light coloured worn and rotten wood that is riddled with insect holes … had I found a piece of one of the trees?

12)

Addendum: The place I didn’t go.

When I was writing this up, I decided to do a bit more digging. The Wikipedia page for Long Melford mentions the group of elm trees, noting that it included one of the tallest in the country. There are several citations for this all of which hint at photos of the elms - the first even refers to a photo in one of Oliver Rackham’s books, ‘A History of the Countryside’ (1986) (NB, login required). Sure enough there they are, bare of leaves but standing tall and proud in Plate XXIh, taken in March 1974. There is a row of houses behind the trees, but since the focus of the image is the trees, there are few other distinguishing features.

The second Wikipedia page citation regarding the elms refers to the Francis Frith Collection - Francis Frith is famous for having the incite, early on in the history of photography, to try and photograph every town and village in England, a handy resource! The photo of the Long Melford elms turns out to date to c.1955, long after Frith’s endeavour began and he had lived, but tradition is a fabulous thing. In the photo Long Melford, The Green And Melford Hall c.1955 Photo ref: L101004 we can see the same “Y” shaped form of the group, but we can also clearly see Melford Hall’s gatehouse next to them, and that means I was looking at the wrong end of the green - Damn artists and their creative sense of perspective!

A digital literacy lesson in not solely relying on your first impressions of the first thing you find…

The Francis Frith Collection website encourages users to share memories that images might spark, and something else along these lines came up when I searched the web for “Long Melford elms” - a recent facebook post in a public group called the Long Melford Historical & Archaeological Society, which has a number of older images of the village, including several of the elm trees. The group are clearly quite engaged, because many people have been commenting and sharing their memories of the elm trees, which adds a lovely level of personal depth to their existence. It is perhaps a shame that social media posts such as this are so ephemeral.

The writing of this post has been funded by the AHRC-RLUK Professional Practice Fellowship Scheme for research and academic libraries.