Lyme Hall and Vernon Mill

These last few months, I have been working out what subjects to print next and what type of printmaking to exploit. I recently purchased some very thin clear plastic sheeting from Intaglio Printmakers to produce a new series of dry points for my project. My first print will be of Lyme Hall. I will be using a pencil sketch of the hall I created last summer as a starting point. My second dry point will be of Vernon Mill which has an established artist community. I visited the Spring Open Studio at Vernon Mill on Friday evening and met up with some old friends. I also visited the Manchester Print Fair No.9 at the People’s Museum yesterday. There was a lot of original and unique work for sale from a lot of talent artists. It maybe worth my while participating in one of these fairs in the future.

 

Researching the castle

A few weeks ago, I did some research on the history of Stockport castle to aid me in producing a print.

I found out that Stockport was originally called ‘Stokeport’, which roughly means ‘Stock’ (Stockdale – so called from Old English stocc ‘tree trunk’ + dæl ‘valley’. ) and ‘port’ (Wood)

Stockport castle means “A castle in the wood”. The son of King Henry II, local landlord ‘Geoffrey de Constentin’ held the fortification against the king in 1173 during the ‘barons rebellion’.

The Norman wooden fort was replaced by a stone construction in the early 13th century. Apparently, Halton castle was built in the same style as Stockport castle.

The castle no longer exists and was demolished in 1775. Few plans or images of the castle are available so a bit of artistic license may be required to reproduce an etching.

I have created a few drawings of what I think the castle may have looked like. More posts to follow…

Prints produced so far…

So far in this project, the following subjects have been printed as etching aquatints.

War Memorial and Art Gallery
‘The Cage’ at Lyme Park
Bramall Hall
Chadkirk Chapel
Macclesfield Canal
Viaduct and Bus Terminal *
The Pyramid
Hatworks museum
Town Hall *%
The Market
Portwood Cooling Tower
The Armoury (Greek Street)

Key:
* – Cyanotype print produced only
*% – Cyanotype and Etching produced