Percy Kelly (Whitehaven and St Bees)

Whitehaven and St Bees

Because I had already completed the Whtehaven trail I started the walk from the Candlestick chimney at the south of the harbour. It was a nice clear day.

The Candlestick chimney was a ventilation shaft for a mine that extended 4 miles under the see. It was allegedly modelled on a candlestick from Whitehaven castle.

A short distance past the Candlestick is house which was supposed to be the home of Jonathon Swift the writer of 'Gulliver's Travels'.

The Candlestick and Jonathon Swifts house.

I pushed on towards the Haig pit Museum. Kelly made many sketches of the the pit and its machinery but unfortunately the museum has permanently closed so I was not able to see some of the things he sketched.  

The Haig pit closed in 1986

A sketch by Kelly of some of the
machinery in the pit.

From the Haig pit I walked down to Saltom Pit by the sea front. Saltom pit closed in 1848 and it is said that children as young as ten worked in the coal mine.

The remains of Saltom Pit

In its day Saltom pit was the first undersea pit in England. A engineer called Spedding worked on the pit design.

Sandwith light house is now privately owned and
is no longer operational

The trail then takes us past Sandwith lighthouse, (I wondered if Kelly ever painted a closeup of the lighthouse) and onto Fleswick baye.

Fleswick baye is only accessible by foot or by boat and was apparently used by smugglers.

It is stated that Kelly was obsessive about his appearance and liked to sunbath Fleswick beach would have offered a quiet location to both paint and sunbath.

From Fleswick baye I pushed on to St Bees. I felt relieved to see the village after my long hot walk.

St Bees

Kelly made some sketches of St Bees including this charcoal drawing below. The drawing has quite a dark mood. It has a very simple colour pallet and not much contrast with most of sketch being very dark. The sketch has it's focus on the St Bega's Prioy and has a definite fore, mid and background. I think that the trees were made by a simple rubbing motion and they look quite messy but makes picture more interesting. 

A 'dark' St Bega's priory

Kelly made some much brighter sketches of St Bees. This image below is again quite a simple line drawing typical of Kelly's style. It is easy to find the place where Kelly sketched this image.

This view of Kelly's sketch was easily recognisable