#381: The Bottle Kiln
Shifting purposes
Holes normally look into the ground. They are dark places defined by an absence of substance. Often an absence of dirt and soil. Looking up through the hole in the top of an eighteenth-century kiln in Corbridge, however, I did not look into darkness, I looked into the sky.
This “hole” might be more accurately called a chimney, but even then, it defies my expected image of a chimney — a sooty chute that I would not dare to poke my head up. Peering through the kiln I was reminded more of the image of a sky breaking through trees in a wood. Something natural. Because, after all, how could humans possibly scoop away dirt to form a tunnel into the heavens?
The kilns in Corbridge were used to make everyday objects like pipes and bricks. They were not built as telescopes to frame the sky and my own fancies. Though they feel like large artistic structures to me, the tourist, they were not intended that way. With the passing of over a hundred years, I see these kilns differently to those who built them.
The Historic England website states “Survival” as one of the reasons for their designation as a “Scheduled Monument”. The mere fact these kilns stood the test of time is why I am able to ponder them, to read a noticeboard about them on my walk in 2021. Their survival is why I can stand inside the brick structures and stare at the sky. They were built well for their original purpose, but this has allowed them to remain for another.
Perhaps I am romanticising instead of connecting and understanding the industry of our past. Perhaps this is okay. Instead of building pipes for substances to run through, now these kilns make a tunnel through which the sky pours.
