Christopher Hilton

@chilton-bb.bsky.social

1438 Followers 1168 Following

Head of Archive & Library at The Red House, http://brittenpearsarts.org. Archives, music, metadata; side orders of architecture, landscape history & electronic noise.

A medieval painting of the Last Judgement, on a large arch-shaped board; outlines without paint show where it used to have a crucifix and two flanking figures in front of it.
An expanse of tawny, sunscorched grass, beyond which in the distance are trees, a church spire and very distant office buildings.
A church tower seen over parched stubble and between trees.
A medieval church, its graveyard yellowed by summer heat, surrounded by trees.
A road sign dating from the 1950s: a white band at the top reads "Latton Bush" and below this, on a blue background, an arrow points to Brooklane Field,Upper Mealines and Spinning Wheel Mead. The background is a 1950s housing estate.
A leafy street, with Victorian villas on the left and a London Transport bus stop on the right.
A small church, with a bell turret at the near end, in an overgrown churchyard yellowed by summer.
A red, yellow and black Belgian flag hanging from a window, in a building frontage with many red geraniums in windowboxes.
A pump-action bottle of sanitiser and a box of surgical gloves, on a bench in a church porch.
A view across tracks at a railway station where building works are taking place. A new platform is being built between two widely separated lines. Most of the view is in the open, but down the tracks to the right the lines enter arches within a large blank wall with projecting curved bridges indicating that arched roofs used to cover the whole station.
A view down a street, from a balcony several floors up in a modern metal and glass building. Across the road are older buildings, including one with a classical pediment we look down onto.
A screenshot from the @theredhousealdeburgh Instagram account. On the left, a black and white photo of a conductor and musicians (chiefly cellists) performing to an audience visible beyond the conductor. On the right the text reads: theredhousealdeburgh Today we celebrate Anita Lasker-Wallfisch’s 101st birthday! Here, Lasker-Wallfisch is pictured as the second cellist from the right, rehearsing with Britten and the @englishchamberorchestra for the opening of the Snape Maltings Concert Hall in June 1967. We wish her a very Happy Birthday and thank her for her extraordinary contribution to music. ©Hans Wild #BenjaminBritten #EnglishChamberOrchestra #SnapeMaltings #ConcertHall
A close-up of a stone sculpture on a medieval tomb. The sculpture is of a knight in chain mail, with a surcoat over a breastplate and back-plate; the detail show three carved buckles below his armpit, fastening breastplate and back-plate together.
A view up a small brook valley over steep grassy slopes towards rocky mountains towering in the background.
A view up a small, slow-moving river, fringed with rushes and willow, on a cloudless summer day.
A view from a rough downland pasture off an escarpment over miles of fields and woodland. The view is taken in the early evening on a summer day, with high cumulus clouds in the blue sky and the sun emerging from behind a cloud bank to shine into the eyes of the photographer; slanting golden light illuminates the whole scene.
A view along a path between rough grass pastures towards woodland. At the foot of the woods, beyone a blocky marble gateway, is a cemetery of gleaming white World War I gravestones.
Two Thomas Cook European railway timetable books, each red with text in white and a map of Europe taking up the lower half of the cover. They are dated August 1991 (including, apparently, a 32 page winter supplement) and September 27th - October 31st 1992, the new winter schedules. The map of Europe shows national boundaries and the country Yugoslavia on the first volume has fragmented into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and a much smaller rump Yugoslavia (the current states of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Northern Macedonia).
My Dream of Flying to Wake Island J. G. Ballard M ELVILLE'S dream of flying to Wake Island- a hopeless ambition, given all his handicaps - came alive again when he found the crashed aircraft buried in the dunes above the beach-house. Until then, during these first three months at the abandoned resort built among the sand-hills, his obsession with Wake Island had rested on little more than a collection of fraying photographs of his Pacific atoll, a few vague memories of its immense concrete runways, and an unfulfilled vision of himself at the controls of a light aircraft, flying steadily westwards across the open sea. With the discovery of the crashed bomber in the dunes, everything had changed. Instead of spending his time wandering aimlessly along the beach, or gazing from the balcony at the endless sand-flats that stretched towards the sea at low tide, Melville now devoted all his time to digging the aircraft out of the dunes. He cancelled his evening games of chess with Dr. Laing, his only neighbour at the empty resort, went to bed before the television programmes began and was up by six, dragging his spades and land-lines across the sand to the excavation site. The activity suited Melville, distracting him from the sharp frontal migraines that had begun to affect him again. These returning memories of the prolonged ECT treatment unsettled him more than he had expected, with their unequivocal warning that in the margins of his mind the elements of a less pleasant world were waiting to reconstitute themselves. The dream of escaping to Wake Island was a compass bearing of sorts, but
A large concrete building viewed up a shingle beach, its left side glowing golden in evening sunlight.
A twin-gabled red brick house taken on a grey dismal day.
A screen shot from Google maps, showing junction 7 of the M23 at Merstham. The two motorway carriageways mrtge into the A23 heading north into suburbia, but between them the main motorway continues for a couple of hundred yards, its surface encroached on by greenery, before stopping abruptly.
A screenshot from the Facebook page of The Red House, Aldeburgh. The text reads: “Britten got a standing ovation… Janet Baker was on top class form.” A brilliant glimpse into the Aldeburgh Festival 50 years ago. John, one of our volunteers, has donated the memorabilia he kept from 1976, including his hotel bill from the @wentworthaldeburgh, concert tickets, programme sheets and even his diary. A wonderful reminder of the moments that make the Festival so special. #AldeburghFestival #BenjaminBritten #JanetBaker #SnapeMaltings Below are photographs of two bus tickets and a hotel bill.
A view between trees towards a sunlit lawn with a bench on it.
A man in a turquoise polo shirt standing on a bench in front of a Tudor timbered building, talking to a group of about twenty people. The sky is blue and cloudless and many of the audience are wearing sunhats.
A pub sign showing a sailor in white bellbottoms, blue jacket and hat, and red and white striped shirt, playing a little accordion and dancing on the deck of a ship. The pub name, below him, is The Jolly Sailor.
The cover of "Backtrack" magazine. It reads, on either side of a colour photo of an old 4-4-0 locomotive, RECORDING THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN'S RAILWAYS BackTrack Vol. 40 . No.7 JULY 2026 £5.95 6227 IN THIS ISSUE: The Cairn Valley Light Railway The first railway royals Up the Junction LMS 'Patriot 4-6-0s in colour Trans-Pennine petroleum Naming Great Western 'Halls' PENDRAGON PUBLISHING
A café table with soup, sourdough bread and coffee, with a plastic bag from a specialist book dealer sitting on an adjacent chair.
A bronze statue of James Joyce in Dublin, standing elegantly leaning on a stick and wearing a broad-brimmed hat, outside Café Kylemore.
A view from a rocky beach upwards towards a Martello Tower, positioned at the top of a low cliff overlooking the beach. The sky is blue, with a few fluffy white clouds.
A square-towered church, built of flint with yellow render on the aisle walls, standing in a churchyard full of white ox-eye daisies.
A porphyry grave slab in a grass churchyard, an ornate flowery cross in relief on it.
A display of photographs and documents in an archive reading room. Outside are green shrubs and trees in summer sunshine, seen through floir-length windows.
A screenshot from the Red House Aldeburgh Instagram account. on the left, a picture of a young David Hockney, in a white suit and white T-shirt, sitting in a drawing room sketching the elderly Peter Pears; Pears has his back to the camera, and all that can be seen is the back of his head, slightly out of focus, over the top of his armchair. On the right is the following text: theredhousealdeburgh We were saddened to hear of the passing of Britain’s revered artist, David Hockney, yesterday. We were fortunate to welcome Hockney to The Red House during the 1980 Aldeburgh Festival, where a portrait of Peter Pears was commissioned to mark his 70th birthday. All of us at Britten Pears Arts send our sincere condolences to David Hockney's family and friends. We will continue to cherish his work and influence right across the arts. Nigel Luckhurst © Britten Pears Arts Liked by brittenpearsarts and 148 others
A red-brick former farmhouse seen across a lawn, between trees (a large dark yew stands to the left).
Text in a slightly antique serif font, on a cream background resembling parchment. Headers are in a sober russet colour, while the main text is in black. The text reads: "Your closest counterpart The Quaker c. 1650–1700 · England · inner light Barclay, the Apology You threw over priest, liturgy, and sacrament for a room of people waiting in silence for the Light. You think God speaks now, directly, to anyone who will be still and listen, with no bishop, book, or king in between. Representative figures George Fox, Margaret Fell, James Nayler"
The cover of "London Bridge and its houses: c.1209-1761" by Dorian Gerhold. The cover painting shows a reconstruction of how London Bridge looked when it houses on it. It is seen from the south-west, with a clear stretch between two stone gates closest to the viewpoint; further off the bridge has houses on it and, on the far side, a large chapel. The city beyond fades into the distance. The river is dotted with sailing barges.
A close-up view of a medieval church made of rough flint, seen from the east looking over chancel and nave roofs towards the plain square tower. The black church clock with gold hands and numbers blocks the tower window; above the face is a gable-shaped area with, in gold, a papal tiara flanked by anchors.
A bush of pink fluffy flowers in front of a red-brick former farmhouse: an orange and black butterfly perches on one of the flower-heads.
A group of five slightly lumpy sculptures of nude male figures on a beach, with the sea beyond ghem. They are trudging from left to right; the two in front walk on unbothered, the next two look over their shoulders at us while walking, and the back one has come to a halt and turns to look back over his shoulder behind them.
A Great Western Railway pannier tank, steaming, filling up at a water point.
A screenshot of a stanza from a poem, reading: "Yea, his slim volume with its understated wrapper Bathes in the glare of the brightly jacketed Hitler’s War Machine, His unmistakably individual new voice Shares the same scrapyard with a forlorn skyscraper Of The Kung-Fu Cookbook, His honesty, proclaimed by himself and believed in by others, His renowned abhorrence of all posturing and pretence, Is;there with Pertwee’s Promenades and Pierrots – One Hundred Years of Seaside Entertainment, And (oh, this above all) his sensibility, His sensibility and its hair-like filaments, His delicate, quivering sensibility is now as one With Barbara Windsor’s Book of Boobs, A volume graced by the descriptive rubric ‘My boobs will give everyone hours of fun.’"
A large rectangular sign, sticking out of a lawn in front of trees. The background design scheme shows a repeated motif of a hand-drawn bouquet, in a slightly Picasso style, in orange on brown. The text comprises the word Aldeburgh in big, yellow, serif-font letters split into three blocks (ALD/EBU/RGH) whilst between these lines of text is the word Festival in fine blue sans-serif italic (FEST/IVAL).
A classical style memorial plaque on a church wall, reading "In loving memory of Frederick Edward Horne For 48 years rector of this parish Died Feb: 11th 1913. Aged 77. And of his wife Augusta Fanny Astley Daughter of Sir Astley Paston Cooper Died Aug: 21st 1919. Aged 79."
A red pillar box next to a wall-mounted post box. The latter has a white metal plate on the front carrying the intials "GR" either side of a crown, and below that the text "Post Office / Letter Box. / Notice. Letters containing coin, paper money or jewellery / should not be posted in this box, but should be registered."
A large brown cockchafer beetle, with feathery antennae, sitting on the back of a man's hand. The picture is taken outside at night, under a light: a brick wall, partially in shadow, is beyond.
A tall old manor house, seen across a garden.
A medieval church, seen from close-up in a wooded churchyard, on a sunny day.
A modern brick building seen at night between trees.
A country churchyard on a sunny spring day, the majority of the graves visible being regular lines of concrete crosses carrying a dark metal plaque over the head of the cross.
A poster fastened to an iron railing by a bicycle, plugging a talk about Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears.
A lane rising up a rolling landscape, running unfenced between two arable fields. On the right of the road, a run of small rounded trees stands out against a cloudless blue May sky.
The front door and windows above of an Egyptian style inter-war factory building, with lotus flowers painted blue and maroon forming the pillars and capitals above the door.
The window of a old-fashioned camera shop, full of cameras from the 1970s and 1980s.
A former London underground station: the frontage is all in oxblood tile, with a large boarded-up door below a large semi-circular window.
A screenshot of a post on theredhousealdeburgh Instagram account. On the left is a photograph of Sir David Attenborough, looking lively and spry in his 80s, wearing a pale suit with no tie, sitting in an armchair in the Red House drawing room, talking to someone near the right shoulder of the photographer. On the right is text reading as follows: "Happy 100th birthday to Sir David Attenborough! Attenborough came to the 1971 Aldeburgh Festival and gave a lecture on The Music of Bali to an audience that included Britten and Pears in the @aldeburghjubileehall He later returned in 2011 to talk about artist and long-term friend John Craxton and visited The Red House whilst he was in Aldeburgh. Pears and Attenborough both shared a love for Craxton's work and we now hold a large number of Craxton pieces in our collection, some on display in the House. #DavidAttenborough100 #AttenboroughAt100 #TheRedHouse #AldeburghFestival #JohnCraxton"
A photograph taken from near ground level in a patch of bluebells, which march right up to the camera and are close up, out of focus, at the bottom of the frame. Beyond them across a lawn and between shrubs is a 19th century red-brick former farmhouse.
A place-name sign at the edge of a village: it reads Colmworth, and has the ligo of the Festival of Britain at the left end and that of Bedfordshire County Council on the right.
The logo of the Festival of Britain and the date 1951 in bas relief on a pale modernist building.
The cover to a 1960s Penguin edition of "Hurry On Down" by John Wain: between the title and the author is a black and white block print of a man running (his head cropped out of the picture) past scaffolding and cranes.