December 2024: Wreck data published
The Sound Mirror has a map cast in bronze making up the rear of the structure. To create it, data was assembled from a number of sources, principally from the Admiralty, who have long collected shipping data around the British Isles. It has recorded wrecks in extensive detail, including vessel type, lives lost, flag, tonnage, cargo carried and risk to current shipping. With British coastal waters surveyed every few years, the Sound Mirror map and dataset have been updated to reflect the most recent survey. It was only possible to show a fraction of the data in the casting, for reasons of legibility. Owing to this limitation, I decided to create an extensive, free-to-use resource using all available wreck data and publish it on the Deal sculpture website.
This invaluable history has been collated, filtered and published.
By referring to the original data sources, and with further research, I’ve been able to publish the full stories. A few are below.
Steam ship MAHRATTA, 5,730 tons, sunk 1909.
VESSEL, BUILT IN 1892 BY HARLAND & WOLFF, BELFAST. OWNED AT TIME OF LOSS BY T & J BROCKLEBANK. ON PASSAGE FROM CALCUTTA TO LONDON & DUNDEE. WAS WRECKED ON GOODWIN SANDS DUE TO A CONGESTION OF SHIPPING, STRONG TIDES & HER INABILITY TO OBTAIN A PILOT. CREW & PASSENGERS SAFE, ONE SUICIDE.
Trawler HMS OTHELLO II, 205 tons, sunk 1915
STRUCK A MINE LAID BY UC-6, BROKE IN TWO AND SANK WITH THE LOSS OF 9 LIVES. THE DECK BOY WAS SAVED BY 3 OF THE CREW PUSHING THE BOY OUT THROUGH THE TIGHTLY JAMMED BRIDGE DOOR. AS A RESULT THE SLIDING BRIDGE DOORS ON TRAWLERS WERE REPLACED BY CANVAS SCREENS.
SUBMARINE U48, German flag, 940 tons, sunk 1917
PASSAGE WILHELMSHAVEN FOR PATROL & RETURN. BOMBED BY ALLIED AIRCRAFT. WAS FOULED IN THE OLD NET BARRAGE. DRIVEN ASHORE & UNABLE TO REFLOAT. SHE WAS ATTACKED BY HM DRIFTERS ‘MAJESTY’ & ‘PARAMOUNT’ AIDED BY WARSHIPS ‘FEASIBLE’ & ‘GIPSY’, SEVERAL CREW BEING KILLED. Lies on seabed upright & intact
Steam ship HMS GLATTON, 5700 tons, sunk 1918
EX-BJOERGVIN. BUILT IN 1914 BY ARMSTRONG AS COASTAL DEFENCE VESSEL FOR NORWEGIAN NAVY. TRIPLE EXPANSION ENGINE, SINGLE SHAFT. TAKEN OVER BY ADMIRALTY & COMPLETED AS A MONITOR WITH BEAM INCREASED BY 20FT. WHILE LYING IN DOVER HBR AWAITING DISPATCH TO BELGIUM, SHE WAS ROCKED BY A HUGE EXPLOSION, WHICH SHOOK THE WHOLE OF DOVER TOWN. SHE BURNED SO FURIOUSLY THAT SHE WAS IN DANGER OF IGNITING CARGO SHIPS LOADED WITH AMUNITION. THE ARMY WAS CALLED TO CLEAR THE THOUSANDS OF ONLOOKERS, & SHE WAS TORPEDOED TO SINK HER. SHE SANK & TURNED ON HER SIDE. 77 OFFICERS & MEN KILLED. LATER RAISED AND BROKEN UP.
Royal Navy sail warship HMS STIRLING CASTLE, 1059 tons, sunk 1703
BUILT IN 1699 BY JOHN SHISH, DEPTFORD, AS PART OF SAMUEL PEPYS’S PROGRAMME TO REINVIGORATE THE NAVY WITH 30 NEW LARGE SHIPS. 3RD RATE, 70 GUNS. DISMASTED DURING THE GREAT STORM OF 1703 & DRIVEN ONTO GOODWIN SANDS. 70 OUT OF TOTAL CREW OF 419 SAVED. COMPLETELY UNCOVERED DURING THE 1970’S, DURING WHICH TIME IT WAS FOUND SHE WAS ALMOST INTACT. SHE WAS COVERED WITH SAND AGAIN A NUMBER OF YEARS LATER.
Steam ship SAMBUT, 7219 tons, sunk 1944
EX-C J JONES. A LIBERTY SHIP. BUILT IN 1943 BY OREGON SHIP BUILDING CORPORATION, PORTLAND. HANDED OVER TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT (P HENDERSON & CO). TWO BOILERS, TRIPLE EXPANSION ENGINE OF 2500HP, SINGLE SHAFT. PASSAGE SOUTHEND-ON-SEA FOR THE NORMANDY D-DAY BEACHES. SUNK AFTER SHELLING BY SHORE BATTERY. CARGO OF 497 TROOPS AND MILITARY VEHICLES. CREW OF 40, 23 GUNNERS AND 497 TROOPS. 3 CREW AND SOME TROOPS LOST. Intact on seabed, funnel stands amidships
Steam ship PIAVE, 6000 tons, United States flag, carrying mixed goods, sunk 1919
PASSAGE NEW YORK FOR ROTTERDAM ON MAIDEN VOYAGE. RAN AGROUND, BROKE IN TWO & SANK TWO DAYS LATER DURING REFLOATING ATTEMPT.
November: Map artwork completed
The reverse side of the Sound Mirror features a map of wrecks off the coast of Deal with known position and sinking date, over a period of almost five hundred years.
The actual number of wrecks in modern times will never be known for certain. Records, frustratingly incomplete, indicate that since Roman times more than two thousand ships and hundreds of aircraft have foundered, crashed or ditched in this small but extremely dangerous coastal area.
Incorporated into the land side of the map are illustrations of notable events and people associated with this part of east Kent, such as Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson, who often stayed at The Royal Hotel, Deal, Elizabeth Carter (below) a poet, classicist, writer, translator, and linguist, part of the Bluestocking Circle, and Ian Fleming, author and James Bond creator, who bought the lease to his beachside house at St. Margaret’s Bay from Noel Coward, the noted playwright and actor.
This month, I completed the lengthy task of a complete re-drawing of the rear map in vector graphics, following the foundry’s advice that anything other than line art (shapes, in black and white) would look jagged when cast. Early results had been disappointing (below, left).
To avoid the flat effect usually produced by drawing programs such as Illustrator, I converted photographic elements to line art, using an effect similar to that used by Victorian engravers, giving a simulation of shading and tone (above, showing Lady Hamilton). The rest, including the whole of the map from Dover to Broadstairs, was drawn by hand.
Initially the castings will have a dark background but in time the panels will weather to an ‘old penny’ finish. Counter-intuitively, faces had to be black/white inverted, owing to black elements being revealed in bright polished bronze.
After many months’ delay, artwork has finally been delivered. The foundry’s maximum working size means that the map has had to be cut into ten sections, each cast separately.
July: Greatstone Sound Mirrors
I recently visited the three sound mirrors at Greatstone, near Dungeness on the Kent coast. Open for a few days each year, the site is next to the RSPB Dungeness Nature Reserve, accessed by a long walk over shingle, but well worth the effort. Ranging in size from 20 feet (6 metres) to 200 feet (61 metres), they were built between 1928 and 1930, part of Britain’s national defence strategy. The sound mirrors are a scheduled ancient monument, now sadly in a poor state of preservation.
June: Assembling the wreck data
To create a new, accurate map, a number of datasets were brought together with the help of Paul Day of SCGIS Ltd, a bathymetric mapping specialist. Starting from a simple chart using Admiralty data, more and more wrecks were added, building up the number to display around 600 with known positions and dates of sinking. There were contributions from Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust and historical records, digitised using Ai. Previous published maps were largely guesswork, some partly fabricated. Admiralty data showed the greatest amount of up-to-date detail. The full version of the final dataset is now available on this site, detailing the construction year, size and cargo. Some entries show the circumstances of sinking (some examples, below).
HMS Northumberland: “Built in 1679 by Bailey, Bristol. 3rd rate, 70 guns. Driven ashore on The Goodwins in the Great Storm of 1703. All hands lost. Most of the wreck uncovered in the early 1980’s.”
Sunk 27th November 1703
Britannia: Built in 1806 by Wells &Co, London. Owned at the time of loss by English East India Co. Passage Thames for Madras. Blown on to the Goodwins during a gale, while sheltering awaiting fair wind”
Sunk 25th January 1809
Lancaster bomber: “Ditched on approach to Manston airfield. The Lanc is generally accepted to be JB278, PM-L of 103 Squadron which ditched on approach to Manston on 25th April 1944”
Downed 25 April 1944
May: Casting
The foundry, Powderhall Bronze in Edinburgh, used the template to extrude a pattern in clay by rotating the template (above). This was used to cast the mirror in bronze (below). Weighing 170 kilos and just over 1.6 metres in diameter, in August it was transported to Castle Fine Arts, Oswestry, for final assembly.
March: Maths, Waterjet & Clay
The Sound Mirror is a scaled-down version of those constructed between the two World Wars, mainly around the south-east coast of England. Though much smaller than these, it should reflect sound back to anyone standing at its focal point, located about 1.8 metres (6′) to the front. The bronze casting needed to be accurately formed in the shape of a parabola, identical to satellite dishes and reflecting telescopes. A vector shape was drawn using Adobe Illustrator from a mathematical formula which allowed a template to be cut from rigid material using a computer-controlled water-jet process.
December: Steel versus Bronze
Preparations began before Christmas, with hopes that all construction could take place locally. We decided to make the Sound Mirror in bronze rather than an earlier plan for Corten Steel, which can be very striking in appearance but comes with one significant drawback: if deployed in coastal areas, surfaces may never seal properly, leading to extensive staining and corrosion.
My original bronze design throughout was re-instated, having earlier been shelved owing to cost. A search for fabricators then began in earnest. It quickly became apparent that no bronze casting expertise was available in the Deal area, not could any foundry in London produce it within budget. Specialist foundries in England, Scotland and Wales were commissioned. Virtually the whole budget has been committed to casting, fabrication and installation.
January 2023: ‘Seaside Town Seeks Sculptor’
Deal Town Council advertises an open submission for ideas “to create a work of art that would enhance the beauty of the town“.
A local resident, Billy Elliott, had left money in his will to the town for a sculpture to be sited in a prominent place, such as the seafront. It would have to “capture the essence of the town in a beautiful installation that would stand for generations to come“.
With a deadline just two months away, sculptors and artists entered a wide variety of ideas. I was asked by Paul Harvey, a Deal friend, to draw up some concepts.
Early ideas involved listening devices and monolithic objects like the famous slab featured in the film ‘2001’. Before long these were refined into a scaled-down replica of a sound mirror, (below) as constructed along the coasts of the UK last century, between the two world wars.
The Sound Mirror was shortlisted in late Spring. In December 2023, the Council awarded us the commission.
