A different outlook on the world

By Kate Simon

I do bang on about Ipswich, but how can I not when my adopted town leads the way with initiatives such as the UK’s first live-stream window on the world, which opened last week.

The Portal art installation, a large porthole-shaped sculpture in Cornhill, created by the Lithuanian artist Benediktas Gylys, aims to act as a “bridge to a united planet”, allowing local communities to meet each other while they are thousands of miles apart.

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So far, the people of Ipswich have said hello to passers-by in Vilnius in Lithuania, Lublin in Poland, Dublin in Ireland and Philadelphia in the US. More cities are due to join the scheme – next up, Piauí in Brazil.

It got me thinking about that rather more traditional window on the world, albeit with a somewhat closer geographical scope, the camera obscura.

First recorded in the mists of time by the Chinese philosopher Mozi in 400 BCE and later identified as a groundbreaking tool for drawing in perspective by Leonardo da Vinci, it took the enterprising Victorians little time to spot the camera obscura’s potential as a tourist attraction.

Maria Theresa Short was one of the first to open a camera obscura to the public on Calton Hill in Edinburgh in 1835, fascinating visitors with moving pictures of the city, 60 years before the advent of cinema. The principle is simple: a small hole in the wall of a dark room allows light to enter and project an upside-down image of the outside world, which is then inverted and projected onto a table to be viewed the right way up.

But it seems Short’s sideshow was frowned upon by polite society, especially the local council, which evicted her. Undeterred, she bought a townhouse on Castlehill, added two storeys, popping the Outlook Tower on the top, pictured, and set up shop again.

It’s still there, offering prime views of Edinburgh’s castle, the Royal Mile, the Old and New Towns, Arthur’s Seat and the Firth of Forth. Today, the camera obscura is part of a larger attraction, Camera Obscura & World of Illusions, alongside other features such as a telescope viewing platform and a gallery with those weird plasma tubes where you appear to mould electricity with your hands.

Short may have been a tourism pioneer, yet her camera obscura was not the first in the UK or even in the world. That honour belongs 80 miles to the southwest in the Dumfries Museum, at the top of a windmill.

Opened to the public by Thomas Morton in 1851, you can still climb the spiral staircase to see within what lies outside – though generally only between October and March and not if it’s raining or windy, to protect the fragile equipment.

Scotland has a third camera obscura at Kirriemuir, north of Dundee. Like the previous two, its setting competes with the camera for interest. This one is housed in the attic of the entrance tower at The Barrie Pavilion, a cricket pavilion given to the town by local boy JM Barrie, creator of Peter Pan. You can check out the old weaver’s cottage where the author was born while you’re in the town, too, it’s cared for by the National Trust for Scotland.

There are a few other camera obscuras around the UK. The Clifton Observatory, overlooking Bristol’s famous Suspension Bridge, arguably offers the most dramatic topography to view, while the one at the summit of Constitution Hill in Aberystwyth comes with the chance to ride the rails of the longest electric cliff railway in Britain. They’re fun diversions for a day out from anyone’s perspective.

Phil’s Beer Notes

Not sure whether it’s in sight of the camera obscura, but the Bow Bar is just around the corner from Castlehill, a good place to escape the throng of tourists Edinburgh inevitably attracts and drink cask beers from Scottish brewers dispensed in the traditional way up here, using air pressure to draw it from the cellar.

Across the river from Dumfries Museum you’ll find the Riverside Tap, a smart modern bar with a great range of beers from home and abroad, on cask and keg and in bottle and can.

While your best bet for decent pint in Kirriemuir is probably the Airlie Arms in the centre of town, which usually has a couple of locally brewed ales on the pumps.

“Camera Obscura at night 02” by byronv2 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.