Maplin Sands Airport

Model of the proposed Maplin Sands Airport development on show to the press in the 1970s.

An article in The Guardian, 'King's Cross airport? The outlandish plans for London that almost got built' includes this photograph of a model of the once proposed Maplin Sands airport development, planned for the island of Foulness and the tidal sandbanks in the Essex Archipelago.

Read more about that with some fascinating (but frustratingly small) illustrations here.

Friends of the Earth joined protests against the airport with their Maplin Manifesto.

David Quentin: Silt

 

The 4 Windmill Street gallery in Fitzrovia (guess the address) is briefly (20 March-13 April) hosting Silt an exhibition of photos by David Quentin with accompanying text by Robert Mcfarlane. The photographs themselves are a collaboration between Quentin and Mcfarlane as photographer follows writer on his walk along the Broomway the dangerous path to Foulness over Maplin Sands. Mcfarlane describes the walk in the Silt chapter of his recent book The Old Ways (2012) and an ebook (boo!) edition of the chapter with Quentin's photos has been put out by Penguin (it was originally an essay in Granta 119: Britain, pedantic pop pickers).

Robert Mcfarlane spoke about the walk with Marco Werman on PRI’s The World programme, combining his personal experience with some of the history of the place, revelling in its spectral qualities: