SUBTERRANEAN SONIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT (SUBSASS)
Notes compiled by Roger Millington
Recording the sonic impact of the deepest hand-dug well in the world!
Notes compiled by Roger Millington
Recording the sonic impact of the deepest hand-dug well in the world!
The Sounding Space at Queen’s Park offers NISG a unique opportunity to investigate how subterranean human activity can cause the percolation of sound into the Earth.
At the same time, the site demonstrates how
mining activity can release glacial and
submarine sonic phenomena that have been locked in the ground, sometimes
for hundreds of thousands of years.
PERCOLATED
SONIC PHENOMENA:
Early investigations by NISG have detected
an exciting range of percolated sonic
phenomena that appear to have been
generated during the sinking of nearby Woodingdean
Well in the 19th century, the
deepest hand dug well in the world.
These include:
Conversational phenomena Voices of workhouse labourers and
foremen.
Melodic phenomena Singing and work-song refrains.
Ambient
phenomena Water, tool sounds,
hammers and picks, light industrial noise.
Woodingdean
Well lies 2 miles North East of the Queens Park Sounding Space. The well is a
1285ft vertical shaft, the depth of which is greater than the height of the Empire State Building.
The Well was built by forced Workhouse
labour, without the use of machines, between 1858 and 1862. Soil was dug out by
hand, placed in buckets and hand-winched to the top of the shaft. After 2 years’
work, the shaft had sunk 438 feet, but no water had been found. A lateral
chamber was driven 30ft northwards, but this too yielded nothing. Further, unsuccessful,
lateral tunnels were driven westwards and eastwards. Refusing to acknowledge
defeat, the Brighton Guardians ordered the construction of a further 4ft shaft
at the end of the eastern tunnel.
NOTE: It is thought that
this extensive disruption of
subterranean strata has also led to the emergence of wider sonic phenomena,
both at the Well site itself and here in Queen’s Park.
Work continued for several more years with
men working 24 hours a day, by candlelight, in appalling conditions. Teams of
men had to dig, load buckets and lay bricks, working within the confines of a
4ft circle. Winch Men stood on tiny platforms cut into the side of the shaft, calling
instructions and passing spoil up, and bricks down, as the shaft continued
downwards.
At the change of the evening shifts on
Sunday 16th March 1862, a bricklayer noticed that the thin crust of earth he
was standing on was being slowly pushed upwards, like a giant piston.
Scrambling up the numerous ladders to each Winch Man's platform, he quickly
vacated the shaft. Suddenly with a roar, the piston head crumbled and tools,
buckets and ladders flooded up the shaft. Water had at last been found.
NOTE: Conversational, melodic and ambient
sonic phenomena arising from percolation
of this sound-activity have formed the basis of initial NISG explorations
in this area. Echo type data derived
from this proto-historic flood event
has been detected by Ear Trumpet technology within the background sound profile of the Queen’s Park Sounding Space.
The last 850ft of the Woodingdean Well
shaft is below sea level, exposing a
Transmission Layer that emits echo-type evidence of sonic
sedimentation from within submarine geological locations offshore.
IMPORTANT
NOTE: Queen’s Park appears to lie
on a geological fault line that links the Upper Cretaceous Chalk of the
Woodingdean area with the undersea wave-cut platform off Brighton and Newhaven
Marina, allowing us to Listen to the
Seabed!
LISTENING
TO THE SEABED. THE QUEENS PARK TRANSMISSION LAYER; RELEASE OF GLACIAL
SOUND and DETECTION of SUBMARINE SONIC PHENOMENA.
Queen’s
Park
sits on a connecting fault that
transects an 11km stretch of coastal cliffs from Newhaven to Kemptown. The
fault joins up with a wave-cut platform offshore from Brighton Marina. The effect
of the Woodingdean Well disruption has been to expose a Sonic Transmission Layer along this fault, through which glacial and submarine sonic phenomena can
be recorded.
The sonic geology of the Upper Cretaceous
Chalk dates back 70-75 million years, when the uplifting and gentle folding of
the chalk trapped sound in a process of sonic
sedimentation. This process continued beyond the end of
the Cretaceous period (65 million years ago) until as recently as 1.8 million
years ago. Large crystalline sandstone boulders, or sarsen stones, have also
been located in the vicinity of nearby St Nicholas Church.
NOTE: These ‘puddingstones’
are believed to play a significant role in Crystalline
Induction in the Sounding Space (Barrows, S: forthcoming)
The drift geology of the Brighton and Hove
area is varied. On the rising Downland there are dry valley deposits of sand
and gravels, and clay-with-flints. The distinctive dry valleys of the Downs are
a product of peri-glacial erosion.
NOTE: Studies by NISG
have revealed significant imprinting of
bass-frequency sound associated with the movement of ancient glaciers. This ground-breaking research
(no pun intended) is generating a glacial sonic map that reveals processes that
have shaped the very Earth itself (Brunel, H. & Lathenby, B., Journal of Experimental Sonic Geology:
22.1, 75-91).
From Newhaven to Brighton Marina the chalk
cliffs provide an iconic backdrop to the pebble beaches below. The
Queen’s Park Transmission Layer runs through the chalk block, which is eroded
off shore to form a wave-cut platform
with deep chalk gullies. These extend into the sub-tidal zone, where they form
species-rich reef habitats. Sat on a flat, gently shelving coastal platform,
the near-shore waters are shallow, less than 15m in depth.
NOTE:
“Sand
waves” exist in places on the seabed. These formations are believed to act as sonic funnels that induce a frequency response in the Transmission Layer, allowing underwater
sound to be detected, even this far inland at Queen’s Park. Amateur Sonic
Geologists can observe a similar effect with a simple home experiment involving
a plastic tube, a helpful friend and a bath full of sand and warm water (See: Sonic Geology for Amateurs, Training
Guide 4: p31-4).
Most of the seabed is covered by mobile sediments, from flint cobbles to
finer gravels, sands and mud. In places it is dusted with the shattered shells
of Slipper Limpets and the nests of Black Bream (Spondyliosoma cantharus). NOTE: Investigations by the NISG Snorkel Team (Lathenby, B, capt)
have proven that vibrations from these mobile sediments are the primary sonic response within the Transmission Layer. Sonar communication
by Short-snouted Seahorse (Hippocampus hippocampus) and cetaceans including
Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncates) and Harbour Porpoise (Phocoena
phocoena) are also a significant local feature
of this sound profile.
Legend
and Fable:
At NISG we have no truck with folklore or
pseudoscience. We deal in cold, hard,
scientific fact. However, the
myth of The Devil's Dyke does appear
to have some relevance to our study. The Devil’s Dyke is a 300ft-deep valley in
the Downs 5 miles NW of the Sounding Space. It is said that the Devil dug the
chasm to allow the sea to flood the churches of the Weald, but left his
terrible work unfinished when an old lady lit a candle and he fled, thinking it
was the rising sun.
NOTE: In reality the valley
was carved by meltwater during the last Ice Age and deepened by the high speed 'sludging'
of the saturated chalk. This was a VERY
NOISY PROCESS, as at least three NISG volunteer field workers, will confirm
after suffering temporary hearing loss after tuning into these intense, glacial
sonic imprints without the regulation headgear. SONIC SAFETY everyone, please!
The
Sounding Space: Queen’s Park:
Queen’s Park opened as a subscription park
in 1824. Property owner and developer Thomas Attree, known as the ‘King of
Brighton’, acquired the land to build an exclusive residential park, inspired
by Regent's Park in London. Attree commissioned architect Charles Galloway to
design the park and named it after Queen Adelaide
To the north-west
of the park, on Queen's Park Road, stands the Pepper Pot (also called the
"Pepper Box"). It was originally built as a horizontal wind-powered
water pump, and was later used for the publishing of a local newspaper, an
artist's studio and a public convenience.
The German Spa: In the early part of the nineteenth century
there were spas all over Europe, but Brighton lacked the natural spring water
necessary for a spa. Frederick Struve, a research chemist from Saxony, had
invented a chemical process that reproduced the characteristics of natural
mineral water and believed there was enough trade in Brighton to set up an
establishment.
In 1825 Struve
opened the pump room of his 'German Spa' in Queen’s Park, where customers could
obtain the waters of Karlsbad, Marienbad, Bad Pyrmont and other continental
spas. In the first season there were 333 subscribers to the spa and in 1835,
ten years after opening, Struve obtained the patronage of King William IV.
By the 1850s the
practice of taking waters fell out of fashion and the pump room closed. Struve turned
to producing bottled mineral water and fizzy drinks. Only in the Second World
War did the spa stop production, when it became a fire watching station and a
gas-mask issuing station. The pump room was demolished in the mid-1970s, and
only the spa's neo-classical façade remains. The Royal Spa Nursery School was
built on the site in 1977.