Hulked is a creative heritage project inspired by the histories, stories and songs of the Thames Barges, many of which are now ‘hulked’ along the Medway River.

This work is one of the shortlisted pieces for the Sound Walk September Awards 2024. 
Below, the creators of Hulked, Jeremy Scott and Anna Braithwaite provide background on the piece.

Hulked is a creative heritage arts project inspired by the histories, stories and songs of the Thames Barges, many of which are now ‘hulked’ along the Medway River in Kent, southeast England. The concept arose from the realisation that the incredibly rich history of the Thames Barge industry, which dominated the conveying of goods to and from the many communities around the Thames Estuary and beyond, was in danger of being lost. Once the vessels reached the end of their useful lives and were superseded by rail and the internal combustion engine, many were simply run aground on the mudbanks of the Estuary saltings, rivers and creeks and left to rot away. ‘Hulked’ is our attempt not just to preserve but creatively reanimate the voices of these amazing vessels and the people who worked on them. 

The geo-located sound walk (hosted on Echoes.xyz) weaves together stories, narratives, poems, songs, soundart and music as you follow the self-guided and accessible route through The Old Brickfields at Lower Halstow. Created by writer Jeremy Scott and sound artist Anna Braithwaite, the soundwalk includes contributions from students of Lower Halstow Primary School, the local community, members of the Oast House Community Choir and the Thames Barge Community (including surviving people who sailed and worked on them). 

The project began life during an Ideas Lab workshop organised by Creative Estuary, which was designed to bring together local community businesses, creatives and academics from the Universities of Essex and Kent.  We were successful in securing funding to create a pilot project, which involved archival research, establishing a presence online and performances of original work (creative writing and re-imagined traditional music, based on the testimonies of the local communities around the Estuary and what we had uncovered from archives). We also made a short film to promote and, to some extent, encapsulate the creative ideas and impulses underpinning the project, and a ‘trailer’ film to promote it. These are available here, and here. 

Subsequently, we secured around £27000 in funding from Arts Council England to develop the project as a soundwalk in Lower Halstow, near Rainham, Kent, on the banks of the River Medway (with other outputs and means of dissemination such as performances, workshops, focus open days and showcases included). We partnered with local organisations and groups to create the project. Oast House Community Choir were involved in the creation and production of music and soundscapes, while local primary schools (Lower Halstow Primary School and St Marys Gillingham) also made field recordings on site, creative writing, music recordings and sound art. We also interviewed members of the sailing barge community and carried out archival research; these words, stories and texts were weaved, sometimes verbatim, into the narratives of the soundwalk. 

Hulked sound walk is made up of a variety of creative approaches which reflect different aspects of our practice: sound art, creative writing (prose, poetry, audio drama, verbatim monologues, collage techniques assembled from existing literature of the region), field recordings taken on board the Edith May and in and around the creeks and river bank at the site, traditional music and re-imagined/original folk music written by members of the community. 

We have taken a ‘non-narrative’ approach to the piece; in other words, there is no set route for ‘users’ to follow. Rather, they create their own version of the experience by walking in whichever way they wish, at whatever pace. There is also no need to complete all of the walk to get a sense of its aesthetic and purpose. The driving idea is that the experience is self-curated, leaving space for participants to immerse themselves in both the environment and the sounds we have created. The two aspects should work together. We were clear that we did not want to simply ‘replicate what was already there’; we wanted to complement it, and lend it extra texture and context. One approach was to allow users to access sounds and experiences that are sometimes there in the environment, but not always present or accessible, by creatively reimagining them, redescribing them and re-presenting them; for example, the bells of the local church, the sights of the hulks themselves (sometimes covered by the river), the sounds of the barges (the flapping of sails, the clanking of chains and winches, the rush of the water along their sides, the chatter of the crew), the medieval murals inside the church (which is often locked), the story of St Margaret (patron saint of the church) whose statue (perhaps?) used to rest in the alcove about the church door, the stories of the lives of the sea folk buried in the churchyard, the sounds of the river itself (the area is very tidal, and the mudflats thus uncovered)… The sound walk ‘layers’ the existing environment with echoes of its past and present – and, in some sense, its future. 

In terms of access: we tested the walk before the launch with peers and a group of wheelchair users to ensure accessibility. Unfortunately, only a small proportion of the sound walk is accessible to those in wheelchairs. People with buggies fair slightly better; this is due to the roughness of the ground. However, there are thorough onboarding and access details available on our website and there is also a downloadable map of the entire soundwalk for those who prefer to navigate visually. 

Hulked has had (and will continue to have) other outputs which are designed to complement, promote and reimagine the sound walk, its content and its impact. We have already mentioned the short films. There have also been a series of live performances of material from the sound walk, both aboard the Thames Barge Edith May and in local community venues, and the project has been showcased through live performances and participatory workshops at the Creative Estuary Symposium, Electric Medway and the Totally Thames Festival. We have also run a series of public open days and workshops (with one more to come in May 2025) focussing respectively on heritage, technology and walking the environment and with technical support on hand to help people access the work. We also ran a ‘Make Your Own Soundwalk’ workshop with our project partners Electric Medway, which was an opportunity to pass on the skills and practices we had learned to the community. There is also a publication in progress, which will feature photography, song lyrics, music scores and creative writing from both participants and the project’s creative team. The project website will remain live, providing an ongoing and developing digital archive of the creative heritage of the Thames Barges. The existing walk will be live for at least three years, and we have plans to extend and remount it in different forms at different locations around the Thames Estuary (depending on continuing funding). 

By way of summary: the project was designed to give the local community greater ownership of their heritage, addressing what we found was a lack of connection with the amazingly rich history of the area. It sets out its territory in what has become know as creative heritage: the exploration, preservation, and celebration of cultural traditions and historical legacies through artistic expressions. We also wanted to connect with the idea of place-making: a collaborative and community-centered approach to shaping public spaces to enhance their functionality, aesthetics, and value. We feel that the Hulked project, in its own small way, contributes to these essential processes of re-connection between community and area. What was perhaps in danger of becoming just a space, is on its way to re-becoming a place.

The winner and honourable mention of the SWS Awards 2024 will be announced around the start of 2025.