The Sound Of Running Water
Kees Bierman 1986
Tricky to spot in summer but clear as day in winter, 'The Sound of Running Water' can still be found at Kennels Road car park. It takes the shape of a half-sunken viking longboat, made from stone and secured with wooden posts. A few bits at the edges have started to crumble but otherwise it's as good as new. Dutch artist Kees Bierman said of the piece:
"I want to make things that have something to suppose, of course it is a direct link to the prehistoric time, in which also things were made which are very mysterious at this time. I want to make things that you can follow the shape but it must be something that is not really clear, not really obvious, so I want to make something with mystery in it - is it a burial mound, is it a monument, or is it a sign? I don't know, therefore I make it."
Kennels Road is, as the name suggests, the former site of the Grizedale Hall dog kennels. During the second world war, the Hall was being used as a prisoner-of-war camp and the hounds were kept here, ready to be called into action if a prisoner were to escape.
On the 7th of October 1940, that's precisely what happened. The prisoners were being walked along the road near Satterthwaite, just by the entrance to where the campsite is now, when a visit to a fruit cart gave a detainee by the extravagant name of Franz Xaver Baron von Werra the opportunity to slip away. Werra had already attempted an escape from Maidstone a month earlier, so he was a bit of a dab hand at this; sensing his chance, he jumped the dry stone wall and ran across the field which is now the campsite.
Three days later, two officers found him sheltering from the rain in a hut, but he evaded capture. It was another couple of days before he was caught, after someone reported spotting him on a fellside near Windermere. The police surrounded the fell and found him hiding in the mud.
After another failed attempt in Derbyshire (where he took his flying suit with him and tried to pose as a Dutch pilot) Werra was more successful in Ontario, Canada. He jumped out of a train and crossed a frozen river, before making his way as far as New York, where he turned himself in to police. In classic American style, they tried to nail him with illegally entering the country, of all things, and while his extradition back to Canada was being arranged, the German consul helped him hot-foot it over to Mexico. From there, the Baron managed to get back to Germany via Brazil, Spain and Italy. His exploits were the subject of the 1957 film 'The One That Got Away'.
In October 1941, merely six months after his eventual return to Germany, Werra was taking part in a practice flight over the sea at Vlissenden in the Netherlands (just down the coast from Haarlem, where sculptor Kees Bierman was born a few years earlier in 1936) when he crashed. He was presumed killed, although in classic escapist style, his body was never found.
Also by this artist:
Caged Wall 1986
Black tower With Sarcophagus 1989
Raised Wall 1992