What the heck is a lek?
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
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Battles between residents, Poole Borough Council and the owners of Poole Foundry had been ongoing for years by 1985 but the sudden decision to close, rather than relocate, the foundry still came as a shock.
Many foundries had sprung up across Poole during the 1800s and early 1900s but by the 1980s Poole Foundry, near St James’s Church, was the last one standing in the Old Town and campaigns against it were intensifying. Resident’s complainants about smoke, noise and fumes litter the pages of local newspapers with one describing it as a ‘blot on the landscape’.
It was against this backdrop that, for the 1984/5 academic year, Geoff Drury a tutor at the then Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design set his students a project to document, through photography, the work and workers of the Foundry.
Seven students, Steve Orino, Gary Norman, Diana Grandi, George Kraniotis, Bruno Bouchet, John Bradshaw, and Esther James were involved, each given the chance to take their own artistic approach to their task. What couldn’t have been predicted, however, was significance their work took on when an announcement was made part way through the project. Rather than moving the foundry to a new location as had been proposed, the owners would instead be closing the foundry completely at the end of 1985 with the loss of all 40 jobs.
"Poole Foundry was a ‘jobbing’ foundry, and labour intensive. The skill and expertise of the workforce was essential to ensure the prosperity of the Company."
- Eric North, Manager Poole Foundry, Men of Iron Exhibition at Poole Arts Centre, 1987
Between them the students produced a remarkable collection of nearly 100 images covering all aspects of life within the foundry. From the ferocious heat and molten metal of the casting floor to relaxing at lunch breaks and even in the showers they captured a remarkable personal perspective of the foundry building and the workers.
"Many of these pictures were first hung, unframed, on the walls of the foundry itself, where young photographers and their friends met to celebrate the last day's work. A gallery has a different ambience, and the pictures will be seen as art works in their own right. But for all those who contributed to the show, the relationships that led to the pictures are equally important and will not be easily forgotten."
- Introduction to the Men of Iron Exhibition at Poole Arts Centre, 1987
Bournemouth and Poole College of Art, now Arts University Bournemouth, have run a world leading photography course since 1959 meaning many renowned contemporary photographers have spent their early careers in Wessex.
Wessex’s links to the art and science of photography, however, go back much further. In fact, it can lay claim to one of the founding fathers of the art of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot. A Dorset born polymath, who lived at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, he found time in between being MP for Chippenham, deciphering cuneiform from Nineveh and writing books on the origins of English words to develop a brand-new photographic process.’
Frustrated by his attempts to use a camera obscura device to trace an Italian landscape in his sketchbook while on his honeymoon he began to imagine a way of ‘caus(ing) these natural images to imprint themselves durably, and remain fixed upon the paper.’
Although his ‘calotypes’ aren’t as famous at the contemporary ‘daguerrotypes’ they were revolutionary in that multiple prints could be made from the same paper negative. This vital innovation, along with his pioneering photographically illustrated books, helped ushed in the ‘Age of the Image
The Men of Iron photographs were chosen to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the project and the reuniting of the original prints for an exhibition at Lighthouse Poole in January 2025. Along with the prints, objects and artworks from the Poole Museum collection will be on display exploring the history of the foundry and give the chance to hear the photographers reflect on the images and their time at the foundry in their own words.
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
The great bustard has a dignified slow walk but tends to run when disturbed, rather than fly.
The hen-bird on display at The Salisbury Museum was one of the last great bustards to be eaten in the town!