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Turn back the clock across the county this week with Eleanor Goncalves.
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00:17Hello and welcome to Kent Chronicles live here on KMTV where we turn back time on all of Kent's
00:22history from the Mesolithic era to the Industrial Revolution and everything in between. I'm Elena
00:27Gonsalves and join me as we turn back time and discuss all things history. This week we're
00:32exploring the world of art and looking into its impact across the county over the years and even
00:36today. And first for this week's long-standing landmark our reporter Lucy Keane went down to
00:42Chartwell, once the family home of Sir Winston Churchill, to learn more about the history of
00:46the site and how it continues to inspire today. Here's this week's long-standing landmark.
00:58I am here at the National Trust Chartwell, the former family home of Sir Winston Churchill. Chartwell
01:04was the Churchill's family home for more than 40 years. It was the place Winston Churchill loved
01:10more than anywhere else in the world and within the beautiful view you can see from the house
01:14is Churchill's own art studio. The studio contains the largest collection of Churchill's paintings
01:21in the world and it is the place that Churchill created so many of his paintings. From paintings
01:26he started while he was abroad and brought back to paintings of Chartwell itself, his studio
01:32now contains over a hundred works of art. This year some new additions have been added to
01:37this collection. Following the Inspired by Chartwell competition last year, eight winning paintings
01:42were selected and have been put on display alongside Churchill's own artwork. I spoke with Catherine
01:48Carter, the property curator at Chartwell and one of the judges of the competition.
01:53We decided to celebrate how Winston Churchill was inspired by the landscape here at Chartwell
01:59by inviting amateur artists to enter our Inspired by Chartwell competition and we had over a hundred
02:05and fifty entries and from that we introduced eight wonderful winners. I loved all of the winners.
02:11I think of those eight finalists that we picked there's one in particular that really captured my heart
02:15and it's a scene of Chartwell in a stormy atmosphere but it also has this really sharp
02:21contrasting bright light hitting the building as well so you've got this shadow and this bright light
02:26and then stormy clouds overhead and to me there's something really interesting about the the metaphor
02:31of the gathering storm which was with which Winston Churchill was so strongly associated. When Winston
02:37Churchill first saw Chartwell in 1921 it was without question the view, the landscape and the natural
02:42beauty that captured his heart and those elements are just as he knew and loved them and continue to
02:48inspire our visitors to Chartwell today. Lucy Keane for KMTV
03:01Next, of all the art the county holds, one painting in Chatham is notable for its age, detail and size.
03:07It depicts the historic dockyard in Chatham at the time it was painted and it comes from a Swedish
03:12painter Elias Martin who spent time here. Our reporter Louis Stevens went down to the historic dockyard
03:17to find out more.
03:27I visited the historic dockyard to see the painting of view of Chatham Dockyard painted in 1774. Elias Martin
03:35was a Swedish painter who came to Britain to study. An early associate of the Royal Academy of Arts in
03:40London,
03:40he sketched the piece here in Chatham before finishing the painting in Sweden. So let's find
03:46out more about the importance of Elias Martin and the painting. We're very fortunate that the dockyards
03:52as it currently is today, the historic dockyard, is very recognisable to what it was in the 18th century.
03:57All the original buildings that are depicted in this painting would have been knocked down and others
04:01replaced. There are a few that are still visible today. Some of these original buildings said for example,
04:07the clock tower building as we call it today, which was a naval storehouse and is still the oldest
04:13surviving naval storehouse of the ages. Why he painted this painting? We're not entirely sure.
04:20It could be that Chatham Dockyard was significant in this period because it was a sort of
04:24centre of proto-industrial revolution. So it was sort of all these crafts, all these industries were all
04:31amalgamated into one place. Another reason why he could have made it, and it has been speculated,
04:36is it could have been a form of soft espionage. So we know that when he finished the painting in
04:42Sweden, it could have been possibly that his sketches, his painting was used for the Swedish
04:49government basically to do a bit of copying, but we're not sure. Elias Martin was known for his
04:55detail in his drawings and that's why, you know, perhaps you could say that it may have had an ulterior
05:01motive, potentially, because of how detailed some of the buildings are. And it's significant really
05:07because there are not many paintings of this detail, of this quality, of this size, dating to the 18th century.
05:15And that was this week's Alluring Artifacts. Louis Stevens for KMTV.
05:28And now, our reporter Nathan Hardy went down to St Peter's and St Paul's Church in Gravesend to learn
05:33about the history of the town's mysterious coat of arms and how it's been explored in local art today.
05:38Here's this week's A Town Through Time.
05:43Initially, it seems to be a mistake. A blue porcupine, hardly native to Kent, has watched over
05:49Gravesend for centuries. The creature first surfaced on the town's coat of arms in 1568, perched on the
05:54helm of a long ferry. Gravesham's version fused the porcupine with a fish, positioned opposite Kent's
05:59horse, Invicta. Artist Sarah Sparks revived the legend. She participated in Hell or High Water, an arts
06:05festival. I spoke to Sarah to find out more. Hell or High Water was a festival in 2020, curated by
06:13Caroline Gregory, and she invited me to be part of this festival. She invited artists to be on board
06:18LV-21, Light Vessel 21, which used to be docked in this sort of harbour in Gravesend.
06:25Why a porcupine? One theory is that the Sydney family of Penshurst Place incorporated the animal
06:30into their crest after ties to Louis XII. In France, the porcupine symbolized invincibility,
06:35and Louis adopted it as his personal badge. I really was totally intrigued with this character,
06:41and I had seen that the figure of the porcupine is at the front of a boat, the prow of
06:47a boat,
06:48and so I wanted to bring her to LV. I saw her as a she. I wanted to bring her
06:52to LV-21,
06:54so I developed the blue sea porcupine character. You can see the headdress here. I wore this
07:01for the festival. There it is. And it's based on a wonderful mosaic in the marketplace in Gravesend.
07:10The Rose tell another story. In 1377, Richard II ordered beacons to be erected along the Thames
07:16at Gravesend to warn of invasion. It failed. French forces sailed upriver, pillaging the town.
07:22In compensation, Richard granted Gravesend residents exclusive rights to ferry passengers
07:26to London by water, a route known as the Long Ferry. Making work on board LV-21,
07:33it's being an amazing light vessel. It absolutely inspires what you make. The blue sea porcupine is
07:39pictured on a ship, at the prow of the ship, the front of the ship. It seemed like a really,
07:44you know, obvious place for the blue sea porcupine to appear. What began as a heraldic oddity has
07:50become something else, an unexplained unshaken symbol. In Gravesend, the blue porcupine still
07:56stands its ground. Nathan Hardy for KMTV.
08:04Now for this week's periodic profile, we take a look at Mary Shelley and her most famous horror story,
08:09Frankenstein. Earlier, I spoke to our reporter Crystal McPherson to find out more about the author
08:15and her famous story. Here is this week's periodic profile.
08:28Hi, Crystal. Thank you for joining us. So first off, could you tell us a bit about Mary Shelley,
08:33who she is and what she's known for? Yeah, absolutely. Mary Shelley was an English
08:37novelist, essayist and dramatist, best known for writing Frankenstein, also known as the modern
08:44Prometheus. Her work became recognised for its huge influence on literature and it really helped the
08:51gothic horror and science fiction genres grow and become recognised. Right, so could you tell us a bit
08:57about her connections with Kent? Yeah, so although she was originally from London, she had quite a few
09:02connections to Kent. When she was 13, she was sent to Miss Caroline Petman's lady school in Ramsgate.
09:09Unfortunately, she was reportedly feeling very isolated and lonely there, so she left after just seven
09:14months. But then in 1828, she spent time recovering in Dover after contracting smallpox. And then in 1832,
09:22she moved to Sandgate near Hythe with her son Percy to escape a cholera epidemic in London and she
09:28described it as a healthy, inexpensive alternative to the city. Interesting. So do you think these connections
09:32with Kent had an impact on her work? Yeah, absolutely. She believed, it's believed that her time at the sea
09:38and her suspected feeling of loneliness at the school inspired some of her work that touched on
09:43themes like exile and banishment. For example, the mourner and the invisible girl and the coastal scenery
09:49she saw was also mentioned in her story, The Parvenu. So how has she been able to have a lasting
09:55impact
09:56200 years on after her passing? So as mentioned earlier, she played a huge role in pioneering the science
10:01fiction and gothic horror genres as Frankenstein is widely recognised as the first true work of
10:06science fiction. It moved beyond supernatural gothic tales and it based its horror on scientific
10:12concepts of the era. And it's also important to know that she really broke barriers in the feminist
10:17space as she was a young woman writing in the 19th century. That's really interesting. Thank you so
10:21much for joining us. Thank you. And now get your thinking cap on for this week's Tea Time Trivia
10:32with Zach Smith. This week we went to Rochester to see if anyone could answer our trivia.
10:42The question. Which famous British author took inspiration from Kent when writing his famous spy story?
10:50I'm going to say Charles Dickens but I know that's wrong. I don't have any other ideas.
10:57Fleming. James Bond. The guy who wrote James Bond. I can't remember his name. Ian Fleming.
11:05Seems Rochester knows its trivia. The answer. Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. Ian Fleming was a
11:12popular British novelist from the 1900s, famous for his creation of the James Bond spy series.
11:18The name 007 allegedly comes from the bus route from London to Kent that ran nearby his house in Dover.
11:24A bus route that still exists today. What a lovely bit of knowledge to take away on my lovely day.
11:31That's all the trivia we have time for. See you next week.
11:36Well, it looks like that was one for the history books. You've been watching Kent Chronicles live on
11:40KMTV. But from me, for now, thank you for watching and have a good evening.
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