2009/11
POMONA
Pomona was the Roman goddess of fruit trees. It is also the name of an area of post-industrial land on the edge of Manchester city centre.
Just why this area is called Pomona is largely lost in time. What is known is that the land was once the site of Pomona Docks, part of The Manchester Ship Canal System until they were closed in the 1970s. Prior to that in the early 1800s it had been the site of The Pomona Pleasure Gardens; perhaps the name goes further back than that? It is also the site of some of the earliest Roman settlements in the area. If you believe in the idea of psychogeography then perhaps this pocket of land has memory, perhaps this land predetermines its own destiny? Fact is the name Pomona sticks and the fruit trees continue to grow.
For thirty years or so after the docks closed this area was ignored by developers and town planners, the apartment blocks never arrived, the fauna and flora returned. It became mine and a few other peoples semi-secret bolt hole. Not a contrived ‘green space’ designed by well-meaning councils or community groups, just land left and forgot.
I marvelled at the amount of plants and bugs and at the trees I’d seen with blossom in the spring baring fruit by September. I returned many times over the next couple of years not initially to make photographs but just to enjoy the place. It became a ritual.
The more time I spent there and looked into its past, the more I came to realise that I was continuing a traditional working class pastime that was popular in Manchester and other parts of England in Victorian times, that of nature walks and the hobbyist amateur naturalist. The photographs and flower pressings are the results of my time there.
Postscript; Late in 2010 the area was cleared back to soil by the lands owners. This work now stands as a document of a brief period in Pomona’s long history.
Pomona was the Roman goddess of fruit trees. It is also the name of an area of post-industrial land on the edge of Manchester city centre.
Just why this area is called Pomona is largely lost in time. What is known is that the land was once the site of Pomona Docks, part of The Manchester Ship Canal System until they were closed in the 1970s. Prior to that in the early 1800s it had been the site of The Pomona Pleasure Gardens; perhaps the name goes further back than that? It is also the site of some of the earliest Roman settlements in the area. If you believe in the idea of psychogeography then perhaps this pocket of land has memory, perhaps this land predetermines its own destiny? Fact is the name Pomona sticks and the fruit trees continue to grow.
For thirty years or so after the docks closed this area was ignored by developers and town planners, the apartment blocks never arrived, the fauna and flora returned. It became mine and a few other peoples semi-secret bolt hole. Not a contrived ‘green space’ designed by well-meaning councils or community groups, just land left and forgot.
I marvelled at the amount of plants and bugs and at the trees I’d seen with blossom in the spring baring fruit by September. I returned many times over the next couple of years not initially to make photographs but just to enjoy the place. It became a ritual.
The more time I spent there and looked into its past, the more I came to realise that I was continuing a traditional working class pastime that was popular in Manchester and other parts of England in Victorian times, that of nature walks and the hobbyist amateur naturalist. The photographs and flower pressings are the results of my time there.
Postscript; Late in 2010 the area was cleared back to soil by the lands owners. This work now stands as a document of a brief period in Pomona’s long history.