Field recording and found sounds
recordings of specific locations with distinctive sounds which clearly define the location.
At noon and 3pm a bell in rung in the Chalice Well Gardens, Glastonbury to invoke a minute’s silence for reflection. A wren breaks the silence, and the bell is sounded again at the end of the minute.
The bell was the old school bell, the school buildings were cleared in the 1970s which opened up the bottom of the gardens a lot.
The ritual of the Silent Minute was instigated in WW2 by Wellesley Tudor Pole, who was a key figure in the founding of the Chalice Well Trust.
OKMII binaural microphones
Lake Vrynwy is a RSPB reserve which has a lovely ambience and little noise pollution. Geese and cuckoos in the morning, from the south side of the lake
AT8022 XY
The South-West coast path takes you high up on the cliffs overlooking Beer beach. A robin was signing, with a background of crows and the waves from a distance.
Binaural, OKMII
A lovely little stream near the path to Scorhill stone circle, it was worth a longer recording. Starlings are starting to mass in the Autumn, and they provide some counterpoint to the running water in this binaural recording. Nice not to have to filter anything – straight out of the recorder apart from trimming the timeline and bringing the gain up a little bit.
I was here to visit the Skara Brae prehistoric village. It’s a well-preserved village from 5000 years ago. It was uncovered by a storm in 1850. The nearby car park is on the shingle each, and I stayed the night there. The sound of the waves on the shingle were soporific
The Fonnereau Way has been used since the mid-1800s, although it’s been the subject of a fight when a incoming resident at the Westerfield end tried to block it up and have it stopped on several occasions. Network Rail has also had it in for the pedestrian level crossing but have also failed to have it struck off.
The path is slated to become a feature in the new Ipswich Garden Suburb development and the level crossing will be replaced with a bridge according to this document.
Becoming a housing estate will clearly change this part of the Fonnereau Way, so I walked this to capture some pictures and soon to be historical sounds from the route. The farmland is intensively farmed and heavily sprayed as I’ve observed a few times, it’s quite possible that being turned into a housing estate may actually increase the biodiversity. Although the birds will be persecuted by hundreds of domestic cats and the gardens will no doubt be tiny, the farmland doesn’t support that many birds at the moment.
The Fonnereau Way starts from Christchurch Park, but I started where the changes will be made, where it crosses Valley Road. In the local plan all vehicle access will be from Henley Road rather than Valley Road.
and it’s a noisy place. It gets better quickly as the old path threads its way past some sports facilities and the playing fields
before reaching farmland
There are a few birds in the farmland, but to be honest the urban Brunswick Road Rec has more diversity to my ears, the birds are few and far between
A chiffchaff makes itself known.
The Meare at Thorpeness is only three feet deep and even a light breeze seems to rock these boats making a lot of noise.
A nice place in the summer – not so rammed with people as nearby Aldeburgh can be, and the boating lake is fun. Easy reach of the beach, too. The lake gets a good view of the whimsical House in the Clouds water tower
The Peter Pan-themed lake and the House in the Clouds are the creation of Scottish barrister Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie at the start of the 1900s
There’s something charming about the few pedestrian level crossings that take footpaths over the railway, reminders that the footpaths were here before the railways.
Network Rail have hated this one on the Fonnereau Way for a while, trying to close it in 2012 and now they are back for another bite of the cherry.
In an attempt to show how lethal these things are, or perhaps how much the pedestrians are in need of a Darwin award they have erected this panjandrum to bark out dire audio warnings about walking into the path of an oncoming train while you are glued to your phone, distracted by children and various other hazards.
I stood by the annunicator tripping the PIR sensor to get the full sequence of announcements this thing barks out at passers-by. (recording edited slightly to shorten dead space)
To be honest, if you don’t pick up that something is amiss when you see this
and hear this
then you’re tired of living and shouldn’t spend all of your time in your phone, else go collect your Darwin award.
Network Rail is trying to harangue the local landowners into going along with their scheming
The Fonnereau Way has been used for a long time, although it’s been the subject of a fight when someone into horseyculture bought a property in 2009 at the Westerfield terminal, claiming to be all surprised there was a footpath there, trying to block it up and have it stopped on several occasions. Unsuccessfully, it appears. Nevertheless, Network Rail may yet succeed.
The east coast has to be defended from the sea by placing massive rocks on the beach. Hopton is almost about as far east as you can get. The rocks make little inlets which make for an interesting soundscape, with the rattle of the pebbles against the long swoosh of the incoming waves, with some very low-frequency rumble from the rocks.
Binaural recording
The sound of the sea from a much closer perspective than the picture, only about a metre from the sea.