Cash not ash!
Friday, April 16th, 2010That’s what we want from Iceland. To compound our misery, they’ve selected to unleash their least pronounceable volcano upon us. Eyjafjallajoekull does not easily slip off the tongue, and news presenters have been noticeably coy about specifying precisely which Icelandic volcano is threatening the London Book Fair (thank you, Publishing Perspectives).
When I first heard about it I was hoping it was Hecla, partly because it’s easy to pronounce, partly because it’s the only Icelandic volcano I’ve heard of, but mainly because Hecla gave its name to a garden volcano.
Garden volcanoes are a little studied aspect of garden history, and the world’s living expert is my joint best man (today was the day), the distinguished Dutch art historian Wim Meulenkamp.
He has several examples to show us, which is several more than you may have imagined, but I have only visited two, one in Scotland and one in Germany.
In case you’re wondering what a garden volcano might be, you can think of it as a permanent firework.
Wörlitz in the former East Germany has the Stein, the finest example of them all, an artificial mountain built on the flat plains of the Elbe configured to erupt to order. Basically it is an adapted chimney flue above a roaring fire hidden inside a building clad with random rocks and boulders to resemble a mountain. Inside the building workers could throw chemicals and salts into the fire so wondrous fiery effects — including fake lava — could spew out of the top. It is still in working order (there’s not a lot to go wrong) and even though it was built over two hundred years ago it is still called into action on high days and holidays. The last time I heard it was fired up was to celebrate the birthday of Erich Honecker, the President of the German Democratic Republic.
Scotland’s contribution to the genre is sadly not as impressive. In fact it’s little more than a decorated garden shed in the shadow of the gigantic smoke-belching Cockenzie and Port Seton power station with the word “HECLA” above the entrance. That’s the closest it gets to being a volcano. To quote from Headley & Meulenkamp’s Follies Grottoes & Garden Buildings:
Behind a whalebone arch beneath the trees … is a small, above-ground grotto with a shell interior. The interior decoration has largely gone, but enough of the pattern and species of shell remain for an authentic restoration to be carried out.
Built of burned stone and pumice, with tufa-covered walls, the edifice was presumably intended to simulate a recent eruption, yet it cannot be said to be a successful imitation. The builder, aware of this, reinforced the point by inscribing HECLA in a huge raised arc of letters over the whalebone arch entrance, referring to the Icelandic volcano of that name. The tufa is said to have come from the same mountain, although there is another, closer Hecla on South Uist in the Hebrides, which is the more likely source.
Hecla (Hekla in Icelandic) is generally assumed to be the gateway to hell and is the most active Icelandic volcano, erupting regularly since records began in the twelfth century. It will be annoyed that the upstart Eyjafjallajoekull has stolen its thunder.
There will be fearful times ahead.
