Enquiring Ear

Field recording and found sounds

Category: urban

In villages, towns and cities, the soundscape naturally has anthropophony

  • Lynton Cliff Railway

    Lynton Cliff Railway

    The Lynton Cliff Railway1 runs between the upstation in Lynton, 500 feet about the downstation in Lynmouth. It’s certainly a walk worth avoiding!

    Start of the journey on the Lynton cliff Railway. Bell rings, gates are closed and the carriage starts to trundle down the track. This was built in 1890 and is water powered – water piped from the river is poured into a 700 gallon tank at the top station, and the carriage descends, which pulls the one at the down station up via the steel ropes. The water is discharged at the bottom.

    the upstation showing the pulley and cables running on rollers down the middle of the tracks

    The queue for the journey back was massive, so I walked back up. I stopped at the bridge over the track to record the sound of the cables running over the rollers along the middle of the track

    Bridge over the track – a z-shaped winding path

    The cars go up and down frequently so it doesn’t take too long to get one, but if the queue reaches the Exmoor information centre at Lynmouth as it did one day, it takes about half an hour to get to the carriage.

    1. Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway website ↩︎
  • Morris dancing, Avebury

    Morris dancing, Avebury

    Avebury features a large prehistoric stone circle encompassing the village.

    These Morris dancers performed English Country Garden near the NT cafe on a warm sunny day in late September. Somehow fitting with the prehistoric circle and the ambiance of the site.

    Binaural OKMII

    on radio aporee

  • Sounds of Seaton Tramway

    Sounds of Seaton Tramway

    Seaton Tramway were running open-top trams on a pleasant sunny September afternoon, bringing an unusual perspective to Colyford level crossing. I normally experience level crossings as a road user, and even from trains it’s usually only audible at one side.

    XY recording, Olympus LS14

    It’s a great way to overlook the Seaton Wetlands nature reserve. The driver pointed out this Kestrel on the tram power poles. We saw little egrets, grey herons, cormorants and some Curlew. They run occasional birdwatching trips on the tramway too.

    Kestrel

    The tramway makes an interesting sound running past – there must be a gearbox between the motor and wheels. The control system is quite rudimentary, you only have about four positions.

    The drivers control throttle, with limited speed positions

    You can hear this under load when the driver runs slowly, pulsing the power on and off.

    The recorded tram, photo taken from the station platform after the driver switched cabs for returning.

    The next recording is taken from the Colyton terminus, with a tram passing the platform to the terminus.

    XY recording, Olympus LS14

    Seaton Tramway has an interesting history. It uses some of the old trackway from Seaton Junction to Seaton. This branch line was taken out in the Beeching axe. Claude Lane was looking for a permanent site; Claude had run trams at Rhyl then at Eastbourne. He bought the trackway fron British Rail and he and an assistant moved the tram from Eastbourne. This took 36 lorry round trips from September 1969. The first passenger service at Seaton ran on the August Bank Holiday of 1970.

    The system voltage is 120V DC, with battery stations along the lines, presumably to minimise line losses at such a low voltage.

  • Clap for Carers NHS Appreciation

    Every Thursday in the coronavirus pandemic there is a clap for carers event at 8pm to show our appreciation of the workers in the NHS

    You can read more about Clap for carers here. It’s a way to show appreciation for everyone who is working for us all at this difficult period.

    XY recording, AT8022, Glastonbury

  • Chalice Well Bell sounding for a Silent Minute’s reflection

    Chalice Well Bell sounding for a Silent Minute’s reflection

    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

  • Harassing hounds

    This pair holler at everybody walking down the footpath by the side of the house. At least there’s a tall wooden fence at the front so they don’t go off at people walking on the main road. The dogs seem to be triggered by sight rather than sound. There’s a little growl on the in-breath that gives me a feeling of aggression behind the yap.

    Unusually for a soundmark, they are reactive to a listener’s presence.

  • Storm Ophelia

    Storm Ophelia

    Wind is normally the enemy of sound recordists, but going through some recordings from last year I found this recording of ex-hurricane Ophelia from the 16th October 2017. Ophelia had been pretty nasty originally and was still bad when it got to Ireland.

    I recorded it in Glastonbury in the south-west, by finding a sheltered spot and pointing the mic in a windshield at a bunch of trees, which made a good recording given the wind. The key was that I had good shelter at the mic, but the trees were exposed to the full force of the wind.

    The storm dragged up a load of Saharan dust, making the sky the sickly yellow in the pic.

  • Fonnereau Way Soundscape

    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.

    The Fonnereau Way is the mainly vertical line to the left, with a bridge to put ‘elf’n’safety at Network Rail out of its misery

    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.

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    the nondescript entrance to the Fonnereau Way from 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

    P1000103_lzn

    before reaching farmland

    P1000105_lzn

    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.

  • Fonnereau Way pedestrian level crossing

    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.

    Fonnereau way (Westerfield) pedestrian level crossing
    Fonnereau way (Westerfield) pedestrian level crossing

    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)

    train

    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

    flyers posted by Network Rail’s henchmen

    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.

  • Resonant sounds of London’s Museumland

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    iconic Queen’s Tower at Imperial

    I went to university at Imperial College, in the chi-chi London district of South Kensington.  The area has much to offer the field recordist in terms of resonant public spaces. If you want to avoid the rain or simply enjoy the soundscape  you can take the long pedestrian tunnel under Exhibition Road from the tube station to the museums.

    I recently returned to Imperial and went to the Alumni reception who served excellent coffee, gratis. It’s a world away from the machine coffee and plastic cups and ‘coffee whitener’ that fuelled my studies in the Physics department many years ago. The entrance to the College from Exhibition Road is now an enclosed space with lots of glass and hard surfaces, it has an interesting acoustic of its own – I recorded this space from next to the statue of Queen Mary

    Footfall Foley wizards will hear the tapping aren’t high heels which most people would associate with the percussive sound but Blakeys on a man’s shoes.

    South Kensington has three lovely Victorian museums. Massive galleried spaces over several floors and often a curved vaulting ceiling. These are just made for binaural stereo!

    I went to the Science Museum in Exhibition Road, part of a cluster of Victorian Museum buildings. The others are the Victoria and Albert and the Natural History Museum. The latter has an amazing curved atrium and a fine acoustic space.

    In the Science Museum on the ground floor near the space exhibition

    the next recording is from the Energy exhibition on the second floor, looking over the massive open space to the steam engines on the ground floor

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    the sharp snap at 00:32 is an art exhibit marked do not touch, which of course everyone touches, resulting in a spark and a slight shock to the curious.

    I enjoyed the visit and the incidental soundscapes. It is also good that Britain ended its dalliance with charging for museum entry.