The anatomy of Orford Ness
10 December – 25 January 2010 | Gallery
An exhibition by Diploma unit 7.
It was as if I were passing through an undiscovered country, and I still remember that I felt, at the same time, both utterly liberated and deeply despondent… With each step that I took, the emptiness within and the emptiness without grew ever greater and the silence more profound.
W G Sebald on Orford Ness in The Rings of Saturn
Orford Ness is Europe’s largest vegetated shingle spit on the Suffolk coast in Great Britain. The cuspate foreland shingle spit, formed by longshore drift southwards, has been subject to constant change through sediment erosion and deposition. The 901 hectare site is characterised by a number of different habitats: grazing marsh, salt marsh and vegetated shingle. The spit is the best preserved area of vegetated shingle in Britain supporting highly specialised flora communities. Despite these habitats possessing their own particularities the overarching impression of Orford Ness is one of austerity.
Orford Ness has been a site of military occupations and experiments for most of the 20th Century. It was acquired by the War Office in 1913 and vacated (by its successor the Ministry of Defence) in 1993. Experimental work on Orford Ness concentrated on refining technology for aerial warfare. An airfield was constructed on the Kings Marshes, whilst the shingle spit was used as a bombing range. This sustained bombardment has left considerable physical scarring to the landscape. Important tests in the development of radar were also carried out here during the run up to the Second World War.
The site lay dormant after 1945 until the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) were moved here in 1955 from Aldermaston, occupying a site on the shingle spit. It was here that the mechanisms of Britain’s nuclear deterrent were tested. Six laboratories were built between 1955 and 1965. These were designed to test the weapons’ casings and detonation systems under physical impact, vibration, extreme atmospheric conditions and centrifugal forces. Testing continued until the late 1960s by which time AWRE Orford Ness had outlived its use and was officially closed down in October 1971.
Radar was to return in the 1960s. An experimental long-range “over-the-horizon” radar, codenamed Cobra Mist, was constructed for a joint Anglo-American operation to monitor the USSR. The facility was situated to the north of Kings Marshes and consisted of a large, windowless building and a fan-array of steel masts. The Cobra Mist project was to be short lived, operating only between 1971-3. The BBC World Service is now broadcast from this site.
Today Orford Ness is owned by the National Trust and is open to the public as a National Nature Reserve as well as being a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest. Access however is strictly controlled; the National Trust ferry from Orford Quay provides the only link from the mainland to the Ness on designated open days, balancing public access with the protection of its wildlife habitats. The National Trust’s policy has been one of non-disturbance or continuous ruination.
Extensive surveys have been made of this sublime landscape: its buildings, paths and territories. The denouement of this research can be seen here in models, drawings and photography. The 1:50 models of the experimental laboratories, veering between states of simulation and interpretation have served to decode their enigmatic status. The rendered 1:20 sections describe the internal light, the weathering of surfaces, deterioration of material and the weight of shingle bearing down on thick concrete walls. The photographs describe both fragments of space and expansive horizons.
