HULKED

This film is part of a pilot creative heritage project about the Thames sailing barges called 'Hulked'. The film is shot around and within the hulk of the Surrey barge which was left to rot on Glass Bottle Beach in Lower Halstow, Kent UK. The piece was conceived by Anna Braithwaite who also performed in the film and created the soundtrack, with additional ideas and instrumental performance by Dr. Jeremy Scott. 'Hulked' was filmed and edited by Matt Rowe, it was informed by the research Anna undertook with Hulked project partners Ed Gransden of Tiller and Wheel, Dr. Jeremy Scott (University of Kent) and Prof. Katharine Cockin (University of Essex).

The Hulked team were awarded a commission by University of Essex, University of Kent and Creative Estuary (Ideas Lab) for a pilot heritage/arts project about the Thames Barges called 'Hulked'. Work began in summer 2022 and culminated with a performance event on the Thames barge 'Edith May' in Oct. 2022.

Images by Matt Rowe

In late 2023 the team were awarded Arts Council England funding to extend the project. They are currently guiding members of the North Kent community in the building of a co-created geolocated sound walk along the Medway estuary and brickfields of Swale. Below are some of the recordings which will become part of the immersive sound walk alongside field recordings and spoken text. Watch this space to find out more and save the launch date in your diary, 25th May 2024!

Extract from a monologue written for the project by Jeremy Scott:

The sea-reach of the Thames stretches before us. The beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing, the sea and the sky are welded together without a joint. In the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seem to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rests on the low shores that run out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air is dark above Gravesend. 
The flood has made. The wind is nearly calm. We’re bound down the river, so the only thing for it is to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.
The sun sets; the dusk falls on the stream, and lights begin to appear along the shore. Lights of ships move in the fairway - a great stir of lights going up and going down. Farther west on the upper reaches the place of a monstrous town is still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.
The air is dark above Gravesend. 

Limehouse to Mucking. Back upstream. As far as Tower Bridge. Or on to the buoys at Woolwich. Coasters are the hardest sailers of all. Up to the Humber and Kings Lynn. To dangerous silting ports like Wells in the Wash. Down Channel with cement for Exeter. Cattle food for Poole. Linseed to Northam. Pick the wrong time to arrive, or the wrong sort of weather, and you can founder and be lost with all hands. Other times, you have to crack on with every inch of sail drawing just to get there at the right time to enter, or to beat another barge in for first turn to unload. Or you might have to stand out to sea and heave to to wait for the tide. Or for the weather to change so you can get in. 

These are the lives of the bargemen.
These are the lives of the barges.