The Alchemical Theatre: A Journey Through the Derwent Valley.
Mineral pinks metamorphose through the rivers, rocks, bricks and skies of the Derwent Valley, stirring as the full moon rises and falls. This cosmological and geological drama so fascinated the painter Joseph Wright, The Lunar Society and local industrialists, igniting the region’s enlightenment and giving birth to Britain's Industrial Revolution.
A steady stream of tourists and leisure seekers were to follow in the industrialists’ footsteps, finding sublime beauty where those earlier had found protoscience and commercial opportunity. This 'little Switzerland' of the British Grand Tour thus helped consolidate the English Landscape Tradition, its spa resort and rail connections making it an early incubator of mass tourism. The valley's geological formations still have a cult status among climbers, who know the local gritstone as 'God's own rock'.
This newer leisure landscape coexists with the older industrial one. ‘Shopping villages’ bloom in the machine halls of the old cotton mills and tourist ‘Trails’ map themselves onto former mining rail tracks. Highly visible wind turbines surround quarries and mines on the hills and reinstated water wheels in the form of hydroelectric turbines close the loop on a long, energetic tradition flowing through the River Derwent - the world’s first factories having been powered by the force of the River Derwent before being incentivised to burn coal. Before that, windmills dotted the landscape tops; their gritstone mills grinding grain for the local villages before their occupants were drawn down in to the fiery valley mills.
As we entangle with the minerals of the uncanny landscape that evolves us, one cannot help but wonder; have we only ever been circling in eddies in the crucible of The Alchemical Theatre?
This project was kindly supported by Stories of Change, an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Connected Communities project.
With special thanks to Professor Joe Smith and Dr George Revill for their support and collaboration.
