Preamble: For an interesting recent article, published half a year later of writing this article (Dec 2020), detailing a similar phenomenologically-inspired journey across the ancient Attic countryside via a modern (Athenian) one with interdisciplinary links with literature and philosophy, see Geoffrey Bakewell’s ‘I went down to Piraeus yesterday: Routes, Roads, and Plato’s Republic’, Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 89.4 (2020): 725–755.
Sure, Durham has the wonderful Oriental Museum up by Aidan’s; the Archaeology Museum, if you’ve popped in, is equally rewarding.
But who knew that there was a full-blown, 19th-century, Greek-style temple just a stone’s throw away?
And what’s more, it’s certainly worth the hike there. As I’ll show throughout this short guide, Penshaw Monument is perhaps one of the most fascinating engagements with Classical archaeology in the region —involving a temple in the heart of Athens’ agora and secret stairways, to Freemasons and some rather unusual English Earls and Prime Ministers.
Hang on a second! Now that you’ve provided the map: is it really worth that 12.1 mile (19.5km) — or 4-hour — hike each way? It’s not even in Durham: welcome to the City of Sunderland (my reply: Sunderland was recently a nominee of the UK City of Culture, as my HoD once informed me!).
To be fair, the past few days after my sojourn there on 31 May, when I’ve been writing this, have helped me understand a bit better why Heracles’ moaned so much in the Trachiniae— 8-hour sun-burnt skin really is excruciating.
And yet it is also remarkably healing. This was my first walk outside of Durham in six months. The shock of realising just how small and claustrophobic Durham, and our regrettable “Durham bubble” (as recent Durfess comments have shown), are is revealing — and provokes a change in perspective. The bustling villages, farmer’s markets, recently opened garden stores (I visited the day before social distancing measures were further relaxed, in the hopes of catching the site empty), miner memorials, and locals going about their daily business — all respecting social distancing — from High Pittington to Hetton-le-Spring, provided a refreshing perspective and helped me appreciate the North East’s heritage in a new, more open-minded light.
This emphasis on the countryside, and consolidation of a new identity, brings me to my big point & overarching approach in this article, which I conjured up as I walked those 12 miles — it involves the performative aspect of walking there. As I happily listened to Aristophanes’ Birds on LibriVox to pass the time, at the point at which the Athenian Inspector comes to collect tribute from distant Cloud Cuckoo-land, I had a flashback to the Athenian religion lecture in Remembering Athens Year 1 with Prof Cuomo. It dawned on me. As in François de Polignac’s model, I was sort of re-enacting the walks that some ancient Greek communities used to take on religious occasions to their border (frontier) sanctuary, at the limit of their city’s territory. As de Polignac argued in his 1995 Cults, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City-State, the act of crossing the land from the city to a border-sanctuary, the “liminal” edge between the city’s territory and the hinterland, affirmed the city’s ownership and connection to its land, and thereby consolidated its political and cultural identity. Although de Polignac’s terminology has been frequently criticised (especially the “bi-polar” dynamic of city and cult, and the concept of borders), the archetypical example of this is the city of Argos and its frontier sanctuary the Argive Heraion — probably alluded to in Herodotus’ story of Cleobis and Biton, whither they carry their mother for the 45 stades (1.31). The walk from Argos to its Heraion engrained in its inhabitants’ minds Argos’ ownership of the Argive plain since the 8th century BCE (some argue 6th). Similar perhaps is the procession from Athens to Eleusis on the Sacred Way for the Eleusinian Mysteries (funnily enough, I had performed a post-exam celebratory river-jump at Durham, like the Initiates bathed at the Bay of Phaleron before the walk). This comparison of my journey to walking to a border sanctuary will be an overarching metaphor in my discussion, and may bring out interesting interpretations about the Monument.
While I walked far further than the 8 kilometres (45 states) to the Heraion, my journey to the Penshaw Monument, an imitation of the temple of Hephaistos in Athens, was also within a day’s walk of Durham and also to a sanctuary on a hill, beyond which is the next polis Sunderland and the sea (the hinterland). This coincidental parallel helped me think in new ways about the architecture, aims, and relationship to Durham of the fascinating symbol that is Penshaw Monument. What I found justifies why we should give this monument a visit.
With this framework in mind, let’s start exploring Penshaw Monument. I’ll first detail the Monument’s history, its construction, and aims, before moving to its clever architecture and engagement with Classical Reception. Finally, as though reaching the eschatia and look towards the Isthmus, we’ll see what makes the Penshaw Monument such an interesting engagement with Classical archaeology — by questioning where the inspiration, and especially open-air roof, of the Monument comes from, and how it interacts in Sunderland’s local context. This guide is also a nice way for me to close my time at Durham — by applying all that I’ve learnt to a monument close to that town.
And one final thing before we start — do remember to take more than a 500ml water-bottle for the hike — the fervour of the walk will not compensate for that of the day!
History of the site, its dedicatee, and departure from Argos
Halfway between Newcastle and Durham, the first stone of Penshaw Monument was laid on 28 August 1844 to honour Durham’s very first Earl, John George Lambton. Designed by the father and son architects John and Benjamin Green from nearby Newcastle (they also erected the famous column at Grey’s Monument in Newcastle), and built by Thomas Pratt (from even closer Sunderland), the Monument is a proudly local monument. And yet its unmistakably Greek inspiration roots it into a distant and international past. What is going on?
From our perspective at Durham, 20km south, this clash of past and present, British and Greek, is also imprinted in our impressive view of the Monument. If you stand in the right locations, such as at St. Aidan’s college or Observatory Hill, you can see the Monument quite well — and it leaves a fantastic impression, towering on a lone hill rising from the plain. If you stand at Aidan’s, it dramatically falls between the northern-most of the two west towers and the central bell-tower of the Norman cathedral. It’s a scene reminiscent of Deianira sitting on the lofty hill, seen from far around (τηλαυγεῖ, 524), as Heracles and Achelous fight below in the Chorus’ First Stasimon of Trachinae. Point is: this clearly pagan structure seems out of place among the Norman turrets of the cathedral. While the architects may not have planned this well-placed stroke of luck, the overall grandness, visibility, and idiosyncratically Greek flavour of the Monument were certainly intentionally evoked by the Greens and Pratt.
This unusual amalgamation of ancient and modern suggests that perhaps what defines Penshaw Monument best, as we’ll see throughout this guide, is the fascinating connections across time it forges, and the way it does so — and not just relating to academia, Classical reception, and whatnot.
For me, at least, my connection to Penshaw Monument almost seems pre-destined. Answering my first question of this piece, I soon learnt that many people actually did know about Penshaw Monument — including myself.
It was a warm day, after school — 6pm, April 2016. It was the first public lecture I attended at the British School at Rome. It was also my birthday. What better way to spend the day, I thought, than to immerse myself into some cutting-edge perspectives on Classical archaeology? The speaker that night, presenting on the Pantheon and its materiality, was Dr Edmund Thomas, a lecturer at my current university, Durham. The coincidences don’t end there. Little did I realise at the time that (if I recall correctly) he included a slide with the Penshaw Monument in his long (and wonderfully detailed) powerpoint. Four years later, at the end of my BA, I walked there and remembered his slide. This is yet another example of how the Penshaw Monument itself creates, and helps others study, its rich connections with various pasts.
Anyways, the Monument’s strange connections and clashes are very much a product of broader trends of its time. The construction of the Monument, 1844, falls in what scholars often call the Long Nineteenth Century (1789 — 1914, as Hobsbawm in The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848 put it). What was characteristic of this era? Marked by a new literary culture with the birth of poets of Wordsworth and by two major revolutions (the French Revolution in 1789 and British industrial revolution), this time around Europe was packed with revolutionary ideas and movements. It was a time when people were advocating for expanding the right to vote in the political sphere, and were engaging with previous material, like Greek and Roman literature and culture, in different ways. In the UK, prime ministers like Gladstone were engaging with Classical scholarship and Homer. Indeed, Durham Classics organised a conference last year on just this, “Classical Encounters: Receptions of antiquity in the long nineteenth century”, with Professor Martindale and Professor Vout among many other speakers.
How can this context about the long-nineteenth century help us decipher what motivated the construction of this building? And why specifically in this Classical style? Just as surprising was the enormity of the feat — it cost £6,000 (around £604,500 in equivalent terms today, according to Sarah Stoner in “170 Years of Penshaw”). Local farmers “willingly” provided £3,000. Why go to these lengths?
Because one charismatic man, an emblem of the “revolutionary ideas” of the 19th-century, explains why these architects built the Monument and the people of Sunderland financed it: the first earl of Durham. John George Lambton, who died before the monument was erected (d. 1840), was a very popular man in Sunderland and Durham. Alongside his duties as Earl, he was a Member of Parliament between 1812–1828, representing these constituencies (under Durham). Why so popular? His popularity stemmed largely from his persistent campaigning for the people of Sunderland and Durham to have the right to vote in England. In 1832, Lambton drafted the so-called “Great Reform Bill”, which aimed to fix the under-representation of many towns in the British electoral system, which often enrolled multiple MPs for small elite constituencies (“Rotten Boroughs”) while allowing little to no representation from towns with much larger populations like Birmingham and Manchester. His links with top politicians helped him: his father-in-law was Earl Grey, the prime minister (whose name gave the tea brand).
By giving the people of Durham and Sunderland a voice in politics, Lambton created a more democratic “radical” process and ingratiated people to him. In Durham, he also passed reforms to move the power of the Prince Bishops more into the hands of the people. Moreover, he also owned coal mines in Durham and was renowned for respecting the miners’ safety (his men did not join the 1831 miner’s strike) — as a result, he was endearing nicknamed “Radical Jack”. Lambton’s aid to locals paid off — ingratiated Mackems (people around Sunderland) and Wearsiders (dwellers by the Wear, meandering through Durham and Sunderland) raised this large sum out of admiration to honour him after his death. At his funeral in Chester-le-Street, a staggering 30,000 people allegedly attended. Therefore, this monument seems to have been built as a token of gratitude by the people to their local MP who gave them many benefits.
But is it really all this rosy? His past isn’t all that pretty, especially in light of recent events. As founder of the New Zealand Company, he was in charge of the colonisation of the island. Educated at Eton and well rich, his potential disconnect with the people is evident in his claim that “A man might jog along comfortably enough on £40,000 a year” (today 2 million. He also alleged sailed to Canada not just on his own wealth, but also with “an orchestra and a fleet of racehorses”). Although not necessarily viewed suspiciously at the time (restricted pandemic resources restrain me), he was also a Freemason, in fact the Grand Master of the Order (the Old Parish hall at Penshaw housed them since 1906), which has been associated (in conspiracy theories, at least) with secretive revolutionary acts like the French Revolution. Abroad, in the British colony of Canada, however, he was instrumental in negotiating with rebels and in drafting Canada’s independence (the ‘Durham Report’). This work later led to Canada’s independence in 1840 and the Commonwealth of Nations template. While this did create positive outcomes for the Canadians, we must remember that this was confined to the British, and neglects native populations. Although much praise was conferred on him, especially locally around Durham & Sunderland, we must not forget his more problematic actions. Indeed, as local Sunderlandian historian Stuart Miller claimed, “It was built to honour the image of the man [Lambton]; but the image and reality were two very different things.” Instead, he argues that it was not Lambton’s workers who “willingly” funded their Monument from their devotion to him, but rather the fund was raised by subscription of local farmers and the local elites — a bleaker truth.
So behind the rosy image of local devotion lurks a more sinister story often neglected. Perhaps this is why the Monument is commonly known by Penshaw Monument today, and not by the Earl’s name, as we’ll discuss below. This combination of good and bad is aptly captured in the inscription which once marked the foundation stone:
This stone was laid by Thomas, Earl of Zetland, Grandmaster of the Free and Accepted Masons of England, assisted by the Brethren of the Provinces of Durham and Northumberland, on August 28th 1844 being the Foundation Stone of a memorial to be erected to the memory of John George, Earl of Durham, who after representing the County of Durham in Parliament for 15 years was raised to the Peerage, and subsequently held the offices of Lord Privy Seal, Ambassador-Extraordinary and Minister of the Court of Petersburg and Governor-General of Canada. He died July 28th 1840, in the 49th year of his age. This monument will be erected by the private subscriptions of his fellow countrymen, admirers of his distinguished talents and exemplary private virtues.
So goes the life-story of Lambton, and why the people were compelled to erect this monument for him. This conflict between the perfect devotion and a sinister disconnect with the people and unconventionality is something we’ll keep an eye out for in the architecture section.
What about the Greek style of the temple, so distant from the Mediterranean?
One might be surprised to know that it is not nearly the only Classically inspired monument in the vicinity. Only a few kilometres west in Washington, and just a few years before, 1838 saw the construction of the Victoria Bridge viaduct for the Leamside railway. It is remarkably similar to a Roman bridge at first glance, and is indeed based on the bridge at Alcántara in Spain built by the emperor Trajan around 104–6CE — to the extent that the historian Nikolaus Pevsner exclaimed:
“Is there any other place where one can stand beneath a ‘Roman’ viaduct and see a ‘Greek’ temple nearby?”
So, squeezed into obscurity by its bigger northern brother Hadrian’s Wall and southern brother elsewhere, in actuality, the North East does have a few more Classically inspired monuments that we might at first think. This context is important for understanding why it was chosen.
On the one hand, Tony Gillan in the Sunderland Echo argues that the function of building the Monument as a mimic Greek temple is merely to create a “folly”, solely to show off its impressive visuality and Greek idiosyncrasy without considering the cultural implications of a temple. However, as we saw above, the long 19th-century was a time when Classics was being re-evaluated and it was “fashionable” not just to put up and imitate Greek architecture, but also to change it to the current context and show off your learning. Indeed, the HistoricEngland.org site asserts the Monument is “an important manifestation of the Greek revival in the region, and a prominent landmark, visible for many miles around”. Elsewhere, others note that the Monument is “merely the most striking example of a long funereal tradition” (note the pointed antithesis).
From my research, I must admit that it appears that no one really knows for certain why it was built in this Greek style. Most likely, I’d say, this is another brainchild of this 19th-century movement. There is a Masonic minute book recording the construction; however, I could not find any statement that stated the intention behind this Hellenic façade. Arguably, however, since the Monument’s architects had recently built the Earl Grey column in Newcastle, which is modelled (to some degree) on previous Greek and Roman examples, it appears that this new cultural milieu and engagement with Classics seems to be largely behind the choice. This interest in the broader engagement with Classics, rather than a specific programme nurturing one aspect, would explain why another Classical structure, the Victoria viaduct, with little architectural relation to the Monument, was put up soon after. Perhaps it was all a game of “guess the Classical allusion”.
But, in light of this uncertainty, perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the idea that this was just visual stimulation — or more important for locals. One hint of this is in the Monument’s name. Why is it so often called Penshaw Monument, not by its official name “Earl of Durham Monument”? While this may just be another case where geography takes over formal names, the answer also seems to betray a greater interest in the local environment and people’s attachment to the Monument, and less about the dedicatee Lambton. As David Simpson argues, Penshaw comes from the English “Pencher”, indicating the “chair-like terraces” forming the hill; this derives from the Old English “Pen-Cerr”, i.e. “head of the rocks”. So, perhaps it’s really all about the Monument’s “folly” size and importance in defining the people and local landscape of Sunderland, rather than one dead wealthy Earl. Like the Argive Heraion, perhaps it served to define the North East’s territory and identity much more.
So we seem to be at a dead end. Whatever the reason be, whether it reflects the wealth and education of Lambton, or of the Monument’s commissioners, or had a specific cultural allusion, or was the product of a broader cultural milieu, it is hard to say. At least in the literary historic sources. Turning to the actual temple architecture now, we can uncover a few other bits about the Monument’s aims, and just how uniquely it engages with the Classical past and other Greek temples.
The Enigmatic Architecture: Hephaisteion, Thorikos, or Bassai? The Classical Inspiration behind Penshaw Monument’s façade
So, from the above historical section, we know that a Greek temple is deliberately behind the design of this Monument. But what specific Greek temple is it based on? How can this blueprint inform us about the reasons for putting this Greek temple up, and what it’s functions were? Now, we must turn to the architecture. First, I’ll discuss the unusual architectural features, before challenging the Monument’s usual association with the Hephaisteion in Athens, and tentatively propose another temple that played in Penshaw Monument’s inspiration: the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai.
Towering to a height of 21 metres (70 feet), and 136 (446) above the nearby sea, the most impressive aspect of the Monument is how much it stands out.
The architectural choices further imprint the impressive size and outright bulk of the Monument. The Monument, and the arrangement of its columns, form a Doric hexastyle style, in formal nomenclature. Architecturally speaking, this means that it has seven columns on two sides (hexastyle; usually meant to be at the temple’s front, but here the longer sides; we’ll discuss the implications below), and the top part of its columns (capitals) was of the simplest linear style (Doric, as opposed to the voluted Ionic or flowery Corinthian from the akanthus plant). This totals 18 columns, 7 on the long sides and 4 on the short, creating a structure 16 metres wide by 30 long.
So far, it appears to mimic a Greek temple pretty well. But is it really all that close? A closer look at the four constituent parts of the temple’s architecture, however, shows that it is not a perfect model, but actually a very clever and subtle reinterpretation of the Greek model, using contemporary English building techniques. On the lowest level, there’s the stylobate (base of the Monument) and foundations, on which the rest of the structure sits. This is a typical feature of Greek temples; however, the relatively high stylobate of the Monument contrasts to the usually shallow one, usually mounted by three steps, of Greek temples (the high stylobate is more characteristic of Etruscan and Roman temples). Second, there are the tall Doric columns (1), exuding majesty and bulk with their 2-metre diametre and 20-metre height.
Third, is the entablature, with its tripartite sections of (from below to top) architrave, frieze, and projecting cornice. The architrave (2) is a lighter colour than the rest of the temple (light yellow/grey), projecting a visual sense of additional decoration, bright contrast, and depth to the temple. This technique actually does mimic similar use of coloured marble in the entablature of other Greek temples, such as on the grey Eleusinian marble used on the frieze of the white Pentelic East facade of the Erectheion on Athens’ Acropolis. Yet we must also be careful — this yellow frieze was added in 1979 when the original architrave was damaged and made unstable by mining underneath the hill. In any case, a sneaky allusion. The Monument’s frieze (3), however, has no decoration usual in Greek temples; the outer facade’s metopes are left bare, while the triglyphs do not have the characteristic 3 lines. The projecting cornice (4), however, does project outwards. Finally, there are the two pediments on either short side (5). While most (but not all) Greek temples have sculptures inside the pediment, the Monument has none, with an empty triangular indent.
The second element, the columns, are perhaps the most interesting part, and show the learned engagement with and departure from Greek styles. They give the first hint that, in reality, the temple is not really that much of a “Greek” temple, but more of a modern adaption and amalgamation — an experiment. First, the actual composition and use of stones in the columns is unusual and quite striking. Earlier Greek temples used monolithic columns cut out of a single block of stone (a nightmare to transport!): a good example is the columns of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth. Later temples, starting perhaps with that of Aphaia at Aegina, then began using individual blocks welded on top of each other to form the full column. They were cut to fit on top of each other, cylindrical in shape, and one per tier. You can see traces of this nicely in some of the columns of the Parthenon, as I had the wonderful opportunity to enter on the BSA Undergraduate Course 2018. The Monument’s columns, however, are made of various blocks on each tier (ie various blocks are used to make each tier, rather than one single block per tier). Each block’s centre is placed over the edge of the one below it. Second, each block is joined to the other by white-looking substance — anachronistic concrete! (Only really fully used in Rome; Greek temples usually had metal rods & instruments holding the components together). Arguably, this style is not as aesthetic as the Greek version. However, the combination and honey-comb pattern of these additional layers of stone, accentuated by the contrasting white lines, arguably add more decoration, depth, and symmetry to the Monument’s Columns. They almost look like the impressive bee-hive stone arrangement in the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae.
Therefore, the monument does engage with other Classical techniques, whether conscious or not (and we’ll see my own interpretation of this at the end soon). And, actually, like ancient columns, steel pins and brackets were originally used in the Monument’s columns — they were just renovated or removed when they had deteriorated in 1978.
Therefore, the Monument uses different colours and arrangements of its stone to create an aesthetic, perhaps grid-like, effect. Yet it does so specifically by departing from the Greek model—hinting that this Monument is as much a product of the England of the 1840s, as a perfect Greek replica.
Perhaps the most telling aspect of the Monument’s rogue innovation and departure from the Greek model, with its aim catering to English concerns and needs, is seen in one column in particular. This detail hints that the temple was meant to function more as a place for pleasure and viewing, than a solemn memorial— and is marred by a sinister tragedy. On the inside of the second to most Eastern column on the South facade, there is a mysterious door. Its white lintel marks it out strikingly from the other columns, and indeed the rest of this column. Inside spirals up a daunting staircase to the top of the Monument. Two aspects here are different to usual Greek temples. First, the way Greek columns were built (detailed above) meant that they could not hold staircases inside of them. Second, it seems that the roofs and top parts of temples were not readily accessible to ordinary people, and could only really be reached by exterior scaffolding. So, an innovation here. But is it really all that imperfect? It does show that the architects were not passively modifying Greek temples, but actively adding more — specifically for the 19th-century and locals’ interest in viewing their surrounding land. The spiral staircase shows that this Monument was as much designed as an observatory and to enjoy the spectacular views to almost 50 miles around (to Cheviot Hills). It interacted with the viewer beyond simply being a memorial; it was meant to be spectacular — not simply to be viewed from outside as a folly monument, as Tom Gillan suggests — but also to view the surrounding countryside (back to the Heraion). It was equally a local instrument for Mackems and others to view Sunderland from another perspective. Yet the success — or perhaps consequences — of this innovation brings its own troubles. On Easter Monday 1926, a 15-year-old boy, Temperley Arthur Scott, from nearby Fatfield fell from the top of the monument to his death from the admittedly very narrow walkway on the top (without railings or protective wall along the pediments) — an unholy act, in any Greek temple. It was traumatic, as the proceedings of the Inquest held on 7 April 1926 attest — his three friends, and 20 bystanders, witnessed the death. The following investigation forced shut the staircase and access to the top until recently in 2011, when the National Heritage Trust reopened it for guided tours. These stories show that the Monument was just as much, if not more, tied into its English context.
Although spiral staircases are stereotypically English inventions, relegated to cathedral and church spires, this makes us question our knowledge of ancient temples too: did visitors in ancient temples also have similar access? To some degree, the answer must have been affirmative. Architects must have had some mechanisms to get up when decorating the roof. Whether an ancient tourist and pilgrim would have had their opportunity, is more uncertain, especially in the restricted context and access of Greek temples (beyond priests, civilians were rarely allowed to enter temples in the first place).
What does this all suggest? Evidently, while the overall design was based on the archetypal Greek temple, in reality it doesn’t follow it to the word. Instead, it is equally moulded on contemporary construction techniques and geared to the local visitors of Sunderland. Most tellingly, the spiral staircase suggests that it was deliberately meant for viewing, to be seen and see. This fluidity between Greek and English, past and present, engages the Monument in identity formation, as the Argive Heraion did. Perhaps it was already designed as more of a pleasure Monument beyond an austere tomb, meant to be enjoyed. It was, I’d say, an experiment.
With this focus on the Monument’s innovation in mind, we can now tackle the deepest underlying inspiration of the temple: what Greek temple was the Monument based on, or meant to resemble? On the one hand, it’s a pretty standard pattern — you’ll find temples all over Greece in this Doric hexastyle style. However, there are certain temples which are famous for this style, and were considered the epitome of this style. And one, narrowing even further, fits almost proportionally with Penshaw’s dimensions: the Monument is reported to be modelled on the iconic Hephaisteion, the temple of the smith-god Hephaestus on the west side of the Athenian agora, whose foundations date to 480BCE (all the way to the pediments in 420, as Evan Levine recently detailed in a great Twitter thread on 5 June 2020). Indeed, just like the Hephaisteion sits on a small hill overlooking the main agora, Penshaw monument sits on the tallest hill around (in fact, the name “Penshaw” is believed to derive from the old English “Pen-Cerr”, ‘head of the rocks’.).
But, as discussed above, it’s not a perfect model. While the dimensions are almost identical (Hephaisteion is 13.71 by 31.78 metres against the Monument’s 30 to 16 metres), the Monument’s column arrangement (4 by 7) is almost proportionally half of the Hephaisteion’s (6 by 13). This could, however, be read as a clever trick, with the British trying to keep and mould the Hephasteion’s architecture to their landscape: essentially, the Monument takes the Hephasteion’s shorter front side and turns it into its longer side, and then keeps a similar ratio for its own front sides. In other words, Penshaw Monument halves and inverts the Hephasteion’s column arrangement. This clever halving, arguably, is another learned trick by the Newcastle architects, inviting learned viewers to notice the imitation and modification of this famous Athenian temple, and foregrounding his skill. Second, height is another productive difference. The Monument’s columns are but twice as tall (20 metres compared to Hephaisteion’s 10) and half as thick (4 metres vs 2). Along with its location on this huge hill, the effect of these fewer but taller columns makes the Penshaw Monument seem much taller than its counterpart. Moreover, the Hephaisteion’s white Pentelic columns contrast to the grey-black ashlar from nearby Seaham used in the Penshaw Monument. Therefore, size and visibility certainly seem to be more at the forefront of the Monument, when compared to its ancient counterpart; perhaps, as Tom Gillan argued, visual impression and eye-bait was the underlying motive.
But perhaps there’s more to this. On the one hand, it might be more to do with the Hephaisteion’s history and associations itself, and the broader cultural milieu at the time, beyond the architecture. A tempting theory, but perhaps too far fetched, which I came up with when reading Prof Evan Levine’s recent Twitter thread (5 June 2020), lay on what was happening at the Hephaisteion and its relations to England — rather than focusing on Penshaw hill’s dimensions and arguing the Hephasteion’s architecture was moulded to it. In the 18th century, many English Protestants who passed away in Athens were buried in the Hephaisteion. The preservation of this Greek temple, and its specific link with dead Englishmen, perhaps provided a lucrative model for the Greens. However, there are limitations to this interpretation: how widespread or known this tradition was back in England is not well known, and in any case the temple also entombed other philhellenic and non-Orthodox Europeans. Nevertheless, there may have been a broader cultural link or legend with dead Englishmen and the Hephaisteion, inspiring this choice of temple for Lambton’s learned Monument. It’s all a bit tentative, but interesting.
Alternatively, more could have been going on with the association of the Hephasteion’s dedicatee — or at least whom 19th-century Englishmen believed was the dedicatee. At the time, it was believed to be the Theseion, the temple of Theseus the great Athenian hero, the Athenian response to Heracles. Just so, like Heracles, Theseus was often renowned in Classical literature for the benefits that he provided some local Greeks, including clearing the road to Athens from robbers and mischief-makers like Periphetes and Sinis (in a suspiciously similar style to Heracles’ exploits). In other words, he was seen as a benefactor to local populations, making their lives better. Perhaps these links concerning Theseus’ popularity, leadership, and Athenian “greatness” were evoked in the identity of this Monument in order to eulogise and remember Lamberton in similarly magnificent strains. And perhaps the link goes even (too!) deeper than that. Just like Theseus’ exploits on his road from Troezen to Athens, one of John Lambton’s Medieval ancestors, his namesake John Lambton (who also embarked on the Crusades), was also renowned for killing a giant child-eating worm monster that had been afflicting the locals of Sunderland of nearby Worm Hill, as a local folk tale commemorates (The Legend of the Lambton Worm, which David Simpson quotes in full). Was the link between both as slayers of monsters for locals made? Perhaps not. Whatever the case, the many later adoptions of the Hephaisteion suggest that it was a popular Classical building to imitate, perhaps believed to be the best of its kind.
Finally, one architectural feature in particular brings out the Monument’s rich engagement with Classical archaeology and suggests that the Monument was more of an experiment with various Classical pasts— so much so that it prompts, I tentatively argue, another Greek temple as its model. As many Classical students will notice, unlike most Greek temples (so we’re taught), perhaps the most distinctive feature is that the Monument lacks a roof — it is open air.
On the one hand, some historians have suggested that the roof was never completed, and that the Monument is therefore incomplete. The official Sunderland.gov.uk site claims that the original funding ran out and the roof was never finished, implying that the roof was always part of the plan: “However funding ran out and the roof and interior walls were never added”. Alongside the usual roofs on Greek-style temples, the tell-tale sign of this incompleteness might also be discerned in the jutting-out inner cornic that extends along the inside of the temple. Anyone looking at it will remark how flimsy and ill-equipped it is as a walkway or support for one. Instead, it may have originally been intended as the inner part of a stone roof. Whether a deficiency of funds or more sinister reasons were involved, they just never got to roof it. So, the temple is incomplete — and that is another thing which makes it similar to other structures in Greece, such as the Stoa at Thorikos.
Ironically, today part of the Hephaisteion does indeed have no roof — or rather lacks its original. This is due to later alterations, from when it was converted into a Christian church and then fell into dilapidation.
However, there are other historical inconsistencies posed by this intentional roof interpretation. Another flaw in the Marquess Statue point is that the Monument was dedicated to Lambton, not the Marquess — the two men famously had a feud between them, in any case. Architecturally, the manhole in the centre of the temple for rainwater (similar to what you get in the Pantheon under the oculus) demonstrates some good alluvial planning. With all this in mind, perhaps we should adopt the other logical interpretation. Now, I’ll argue that the lack of a roof was a deliberate architectural choice of the original construction, which provokes some interesting reinterpretations.
The Monument’s architecture certainly does fit in with the Hephasteion, as scholars have long noted. But, perhaps this particularly striking and arguably deliberate absence of a roof on the Monument prompts us to look somewhere else for this part of the Monument’s inspiration. One such model, I would argue, is similar to the Hephasteion’s dimensions, but much further south and perhaps less well known today. In the idyllic sweeping mountains of Arcadia, this is the Temple of Apollo Epikouros at Bassai.
Dedicated to Apollo as a military god (epikourios means “he who comes to help men”), this temple was being fully documented and opened to the English public’s knowledge by Charles R. Cockerell and the German Karl Haller von Hallerstein a few years earlier in 1811–12. Would people like Lambton and the Greens have known about this temple? Arguably, yes — apart from the close date of the excavation and Monument’s construction, the excavation of this Temple is arguably shroud in more notoriety and mystery than the Hephaisteion, and might have held the public’s fascination. The story of the excavation and theft of the marbles of the Temple to the British Museum is riddled by loss: one of the most unique architectural features of this temple, the single Corinthian column in the naos which completed all three capital orders in the temple, was lost at sea on the way to England. In other words, this temple was perhaps also captivating the minds of 1840s England — as much as the Hephaisteion.
Before we move onto the roof, on a broad architectural level, there are a few similarities which would suggest that the Penshaw Monument may have been inspired by the Temple of Apollo (or at least by its prototype). Like the Hephasteion, the Temple of Apollo Epikourios has about the same half dimensions as Penshaw Monument: 38.24 by 14.48 metres; the continuous stylobate decoration was moreover 31 metres. The Temple of Apollo, however, has an elongated column ratio of 6:15 (from the usual golden canon of 6:13 like the Hephaisteion, the additional 2 being more characteristic of archaic temples), which fits Penshaw Monument’s 4:7 rato less well. The Temple of Apollo even somewhat fits my journey-to-the-eschatia take, since it was one of the main sanctuaries on the 13 km sacred road from the town of Philgalia (Pausanias 8.41.7–8). But these similarities do not necessarily favour the Temple of Apollo over the Hephasteion. In fact, this temple’s unusual North-South orientation contrasts to the Penshaw Monument’s east-west orientation, like the Hephaistion’s.
But the aspect which brings the Monument and Temple of Apollo Epikourios closer, perhaps partly inspiring the model, is the Temple’s lack of a roof. Unlike the Hephasteion, given the Temple’s North-South orientation and the cella’s subsequent less exposure to the sun, the Temple’s naos/cella may have been open to the air so as to light the magnificently detailed interior frieze depicting the Centauromachy, Amazonomachy, and the painted Corinthian column adequately. You can see the sockets in the wall today — while this suggests that there were probably beams for a roof, that roof did not necessarily have to extend over the entire cella; the interior part beyond the inner columns and frieze may have been open. It could, in technical terms, have been a hypaethral roof (from hypaithros, “under the air”). Experientially, this would have created an unusual interior open space within the enclosed temple, a refuge-like space to enjoy the air and view the friezes in peace, uncommon in other Greek temples but arguably recreated in the Monument (minus the friezes). Part of the explanation for this unusual style, perhaps, might be that this is an Arcadian, not Athenian, temple; the Temple elsewhere features unusual combinations of archaic and Classical styles, especially in the interior columns. Therefore, while other elements of the Temple of Apollo do not match the Monument as well as the Hephasteion does, perhaps some inspiration might have been taken from the recent discovery of the open roof of the Apollo temple. Equally, however, we must be sceptical about this association and not stretch association this too far: the excavator, Cockerell, insisted that it was roofed with wooden beams, creating a flat roof. Certain roof tiles have been found with deliberately-made large holes in them, which suggests the Temple may not have been as open-roofed as believed (this is all from my BSA notes from 2018; I’m unsure whether modern scholarship has advanced to more conclusions).
Nevertheless, this example from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios, and the process of finding similar comparanda, should provoke us always to think of other models and question what we know. After all, even today many people naturally assume the Monument was also originally meant to be roofed, as Sean Seddon notes. Perhaps it’s the processes that we should be looking for, and the architectural vestiges. How does this compare to, and change, our interpretation of what temple this models, and how it fits into this engagement with the Classical past? I’d say that it forces us to think for other comparanda, be open to broader links, inspiration, and motives in Classical reception and archaeology, and to appreciate (and sometimes go for that far fetch!) the ways the Classical past can be moulded into meaningful identities for the present. Yes — just like our walk to the Argive Heraion.
Whatever the case, and ultimately we may never know, my suggestion of viewing the Temple of Apollo Epikouros is another contribution (by no means the sole; it’s more of a case study I thought fit nicely) to this debate about the architectural inspiration of the Monument, and one that lies close to home. This Temple and the Hephasteion may be the defining original blueprint of the Penshaw Monument, whether or not stated in the building contract (intention does not always have to be our focus). They may be part of the broader intellectual milieu interested in finding the perfect dimensions of the Greek temple at the time. The Temple of Apollo Epikourios may work in conjunction with the Hephaisteoin as a model. Or, quite simply, it may be too far of a stretch. Given the lack of information about the Monument’s constructions and motivations in the 1840s (accessible to me in the lockdown, at least), and the many myths circulating its existence, the furthest we can go with certainty is that the Monument was a product of its time and interest in Classical architecture, especially Greek temples. The very abundance of these current, and often contradictory, myths about Penshaw’s construction is a testament to just how wondrous this monument is in this landscape and how much it means to the local context, and just how it will continue to make us wonder and be an enigma.
Conclusions: Towards the Sea and Athens, or the Temptation of Catching a Ferry from Sunderland to Athens, summer, and ring compositions
And so Penshaw Monument is a whole amalgamation of different inspirations — ultimately, it tells more about us, and what we want to read into it, rather than being a definitive, graspable model. Ultimately, we may never know what inspired the Greens and Pratt to build this — but it certainly has left its mark, and part of the enigma of Penshaw, even the simple fact of having a Greek temple in the middle of rural North England, creates that. From Sunderland’s Football Club decision to proudly emblazoned the Monument on its badge, to its iconic nature for Sunderland Tourism, it’s uniqueness makes it stick, and defines us.
Just so, I thought to myself, passing along the ridge of High Pittington, as I looked backwards to my university from a height, was Durham actually to me. As I walked, funnily enough, I had the opposite of de Polignac’s argument —apart from admiring the raw beauty of County Durham, I realised just how special Durham Classics was, and how much I would miss it. Reverse frontier sanctuary. Interesting how Durham it felt like I was moving away from Durham, and yet it was still my home.
So my overarching argument is that Penshaw Monument is as much a product of its own time, rather than being a simple imitation of a Greek temple, as I have tried to show in my analysis of its history and architecture. It is, essentially, an experiment, and aimed for the local community of Sunderland. And this local orientation to the present continues: the abundant graffiti on the temple highlights that it is a national treasure and belongs to the people of Sunderland. It’s home for them, not so much a symbol of Greece. As one article brilliantly starts off, “When you first spot Penshaw during a long car journey, it means the kids can stop asking when they’ll be home.”.
And perhaps that’s exactly what the Argive Heraion was doing — it marked one’s homeland and local identity. Travelling to it was meant to consolidate your identity, to see the bigger picture. That, at least, is what I thought of immediately as I walked those 24 miles round trip to Penshaw Monument. Most importantly, the Monument makes you think in different ways, to exit your comfort zone and forge new identities, risky ones. That’s what it does so best — its applicability helps us open our minds and see different connections, and think about today. How can we relate a distant past to today’s culture and identity? Can this help change the world?
And in this spirit of looking at the other side, I end on the photo of the other perspective — Durham and Durham’s cathedral from the Penshaw Monument, or looking onto Argos from the Heraion. It was here that I found the other side and moved forwards. And that’s perhaps what Durham Classics has best taught me to do at my time here — thank you.
Now off onto Epidauros and the Saronic gulf
Further reading
Porritt, Edward. “Reviewed Work: Life and Letters of the First Earl of Durham: 1792–1840 by Stuart J. Reid”. The American Political Science Review 2, no. 1 (1907): 119–23. Accessed June 6, 2020. doi:10.2307/1944595.
http://www.rcdhn.org.uk/about_the_diocese/penshaw_monument.php
https://www.sunnisidelocalhistorysociety.co.uk/monuments.html
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/penshaw-monument-supposed-roof-look-12223280
Many thanks for Estelle, Chryssanthi, and Matthew — my BSA tutors from the Undergraduate Summer Course 2018 — for their on-site lectures on the Hephaisteion in Athens and Temple of Apollo at Bassai, and all the views on archaeology. I’m very happy finally to have used the notes from the trip in an Ostraka article — it’s been my main goal for this entire year!
Finally, this short piece is a thank-you to all the lecturers of Durham, and especially those who opened my eyes to the wonders of using archaeology to reconstruct ancient history. I look forward to the Year 3 Graduation Zoom Party, because I suppose the party never ends
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