After the black Gold revisited
Via Francigena Arts Trail
DAD has been asked by the Kent Downs AONB and North Downs Way National Trail to organise an event on March 18th at the After the Black Gold sculpture on the recreation ground at Woolage Village.
The project flyer has been posted through letterboxes in the parish of Womanswold : Woolage Village, Woolage Gree, Ropersole and Womanswold as well as in Aylesham. DAD After The Black Gold_flyer_A5
It will be a commemorative event that will herald a new beginning for After the Black Gold within the community.
Over the past year there have been slates broken on the sculpture’s roof. The sculpture is the work of Channel, Sam Little and Ryan Cook, and was launched in December 2021. The work is a tribute to the mining community and is sited with a view from one side across the fields to the old colliery buildings at Snowdown and from the other side the view is directly into Woolage Village built especially for the mining community and named by them ‘White City’. Sam Little, whose respectful interest for the mining community was intrinsic to this work, died suddenly soon after After the Black Gold was launched and the sculpture remains his only public work.
It was decided, together with Ryan Cook, that the slates should be exchanged for red chestnut tiles, which we understand was the wood that was most often coppiced for pit props.
Cormac Martin, who replaced the slates with the chestnut tiles, will bring his experience with young people, as forest school leader and director of the Silverback project, to workshops in Aylesham and Woolage Green that he is leading with Charlotte Chapman at the beginning of March. They will be engraving, with young people, symbols into red chestnut tiles that will be attached to the inside roof of the structure. The symbols were selected from the Mining Heritage Centre at Aylesham where Cormac, Charlotte and Simon Bill (DAD) were met by former miner Philip Sutcliffe and his nephew Peter Sutcliffe who lives in Woolage Village and is also a member of Womanswold parish council.
Peter Sutcliffe commented: It was a real pleasure & privilege to meet Simon, Charlotte & Cormac last Wednesday at the Aylesham Heritage Centre. Philip & myself were really impressed with the interest & enthusiasm that Simon, Charlotte & Cormac expressed in the mining heritage & history of our communities & their desire to make the After the Black Gold event an inspiring success !
Simon Bill commented : One of many thoughts I have come away with is an appreciation of just how hard the work was. The heat was astounding, such that they would often work wearing helmet, boots and belt alone, and they did eight hours in those conditions with one 20 minute break.
Charlotte Chapman commented: It was so interesting meeting Phillip and Peter and hearing personal stories from miners and members of their families. I loved the stories, not just about the work in the mines, but about what people in the community did in their free time, from making pasties, to whippet and pigeon racing and growing vegetables.
The workshops will offer young people from Aylesham, Womanswold, Ropersole, Woolage Village and Woolage Green a chance to add to the After the Black gold sculptural tribute to the mining community. The items they will engrave onto tiles include:
Helmets
Lamps
Boots
Pit heads
Self rescuers
Coal truck
Women sewing
Pasties and tuck box
Peter Morris – North Downs Way Manager : It’s fantastic to see the sculpture in its new form and to be able to work with locals and heritage groups to tell the story of the miners and their communities. We’re keen local residents and visitors understand how this sculpture speaks of these people and this place.
Photos from Simon Bill, Charlotte Chapman & Cormac Martin
Co-financed by the European Union & the European Development Fund
