Sparse, very painterly watercolour showing a wide flat landscape dotted with winter elms and ploughed fields dusted with snow
Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 16
‘First Snow’
Artist: Rowland Hilder
The early winter light over snow has created and almost apricot coloured sky. The country Lane is probably in Kent and we see a small farm yard with oast houses
Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 6
‘Lane in Winter’
Artist: Rowland Hilder
I thought I'd take the opportunity to put together a website representation of these new Rail Clocks which launched yesterday.
railclock.davwheat.dev
Source code (MIT): github.com/davwheat/rai...
And, don't worry, it does have the special flourish every 12 hours!
A shot from the studio rehearsal of Doctor Who: The Daleks' Master Plan episode 'Volcano', showing several actors ont he TARDIS set, with various video cameras around the scene.
The death of multi-camera TV: a thread. I know most of you will know the technical parts of this (and may have read it in the other place) but bear with me. 1/ 🧵
Black and white photograph of Reverend Spooner in 19th century ecclesiastical garb, reading a book
“And now on BBC One, "Kong and Kinkerer”
Trouble is, I can’t listen to this bit of the Rite of Spring without saying “JOHN Fashanu”
(Michael Hordern, reading inscription:)
“Vengabus… advenit…?”
(Tentatively, toots whistle.)
Anyway, that’s probably enough speculation - despite my best efforts, we’ll probably never know exactly what Eric Ravilious saw going over the bridge - it may have been a loco from one of the other LNER constituent companies, or even a composite of various engines - but any ideas welcome!
Or possibly the amusingly proportioned G45 / F7, known by crews as “Crystal Palaces” on account of their huge cabs. www.lner.info/locos/F/f7.php - when seen from the side they definitely fit the profile of Ravilious’s mystery loco.
More likely seems that it would have been something like one of these F5 tank engines (note the Cambridge locomotive with the side window, tall chimney and dome) - and it doesn’t have a tender! www.holdenf5.co.uk/the-history-...
J15 photograph from “Locomotives of British Railways” with a note saying it had an additional side window for the Colne Valley line
Or perhaps one of the ubiquitous 0-6-0 J15s (this book even notes this side window was added for use on the Colne Valley line)
A GER T26 steam locomotive in a museum, it has a 2-4-0 wheel arrangement and open cab design
If Ravilious was using artistic licence with his engine, it does mean he might have omitted a tender to make the locomotive closer to the carriages, but that does open up other candidates - could it have been a lovely T26 “Intermediate”, as preserved at Bressingham? Note the open cab
There is also a 4-4-0 rebuild of an older T19 engine called a D13, which has a similar appearance but importantly has the single cab window and had been relegated to secondary duties by 1935 (most were scrapped though) www.gersociety.org.uk/index.php/lo...
A black and white photograph of a Claud Hamilton steam locomotive in original GER livery in as built condition with small tender, decorative splashers and smaller boiler
If you say Great Eastern 4-4-0, the main contender would be one of the beautiful Claud Hamilton locos…but despite the wheel arrangement being correct, the rest isn’t quite right - it has a tender and these engines were also probably a bit too much of an express to be on a secondary branch line
No. Apparently the LNER took one look at them and they were scrapped soon after grouping, so ten years before Ravilious’s painting. So, assuming they were local engines still, it must have been an ex-Great Eastern locomotive?
So initially I was wondering if it was one of the weird and wonderful locos that the CV&HR owned, they had six engines over their existence, and pictures of them can be seen on Transports of Delight - could it be one of their odd little tank engines? transportsofdelight.smugmug.com/RAILWAYS/LOC...
The Colne Valley and Halstead Railway was a bit of a curiosity in that it was an independent railway right up until the “grouping” of 1923 when it became part of London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) - so was never part of the Great Eastern Railway (although apparently they were on good terms)
Anyway, back to the locomotive - well, it appears to be a 4-4-0 (ie four little wheels at the front and four bigger driving wheels behind). It also doesn’t have a coal/water tender behind so must be a tank engine of some sort…
Alan Powers suggests that Ravilious may have been inspired by a 1920 watercolour called “The Train” by Norfolk artist Claughton Pellew he would have seen exhibited in the 1920s (according to the Trunch history site, the railway location is Overstrand) trunchhistory.weebly.com/artists.html
I’ve seen it described as “toy-like”, and Alan Powers describes it as a moment of “boyish excitement…with machinery for once active rather than cast onto a backyard limbo” (Eric Ravilious, Artist and Designer, 2013)
Now it’s worth saying that, much as I love Ravilious’s paintings, even I have to say this isn’t the most realistic train I’ve ever seen - it’s very much an *impression* of a train, so it’s probably rather futile trying to identify the locomotive class etc - but where’s the fun in that?
A close up of Ravilious’s locomotive from Train Going Over a Bridge at Night
Which brings me on to my next question - we know the “where” now, but what about the “what locomotive is it going over the bridge (at night)”?
Card version of Ravilious’s train going over a bridge, seen on a bookshelf surrounded by ghostly books
In the meantime I’ll have to look at the card version from @rathergoodart Helen got me for
my birthday, which was kind of what prompted this thread.
As for the “where” in terms of “where can I see the painting?” I’m not quite sure! Various books say it’s in a private collection on loan to the Towner art gallery in Eastbourne - they’re currently making a new Ravilious gallery to open in September so hopefully it’ll be in there.
View from the signal box at the Colne Valley Railway looking towards the former Sible and Castle Hedingham station building
Interior of the station building with old posters on the walls, a large mahogany table, a railway clock and a green and cream colour scheme
Happily, the old station building from Sible and Castle
Hedingham was relocated brick-by-brick to the lovely Colne Valley heritage railway just down the road.
Footpath sign as depicted by Ravilious
Concrete footpath sign in 2025
I wonder if this concrete footpath sign is the same as 1935 though?
Overgrown railway abutment
Remaining brickwork of the old railway bridge - somewhat overgrown
The former railway embankment - overgrown with vegetation
But what of the railway? Well, predictably the Colne Valley and Halstead Railway branch line closed in 1965 and the track lifted shortly after that - I don’t know when the bridge was removed, but you can still see the abutments and embankment either side of the road - it’s the red hue he depicts
The railing and road looking towards Sible Hedingham
Train going over a bridge at night by Eric Ravilious
And here it is, the closest matching position I could get for where Ravilious was looking - the railing is still there, and note that concrete footpath sign on the right! Wonder if that small tree is the larger specimen too?
Smaller bump in the road as seen in 2025
But it turns out that discernible hump in the road in the painting isn’t the large humpback bridge over the River Colne - but a much smaller bump in the road just beyond the bridge, so the descriptions that he painted it *from* the bridge turn out to be correct
A humpback bridge with roadworks on
Here’s the humpback bridge on Queen Street between the two villages is- I was initially a bit worried as it looks nothing like the painting, and also had some fairly major looking roadworks…
