Nash was fascinated by Maiden Castle. He venerated its magnificent scale and magical atmosphere and made three compositions that feature its remarkable man-made topography, one in 1937 and two in 1943 on one of his penultimate visit to the Purbecks and West Dorset.

Amongst the large portfolio of black and white photographs taken by Paul Nash (1,267 negatives held by the Tate Gallery, TGA 7050 PH) there are many of the earthwork (see for example TGA 7050 PH / 102 -107) with various dates. He was fascinated by Mortimer’s archaeological dig and in 1935 took striking photographs of the ‘nest of skeletons – the last defenders of Maiden Castle’ (TGA 7050 PH / 96). The folio of negatives was presented by the Paul Nash Trust in 1970. See: Simon Grant, Informal Beauty: The Photographs of Paul Nash (Tate Publishing: London, 2016).

Paul Nash

Maiden Castle

1937

Pencil and watercolour on paper

54.6 x 76.2 cm 

Robert Hull Fleming Museum, Burlington, VT

References:

Andrew Causey, Paul Nash Catalogue Raisonné (Oxford, 1980) cat. no.907

Penny Denton, ‘Seaside Surrealism’ Paul Nash in Swanage (Durlstone, 2002) cat.no.67

Paul Nash

Maiden Castle

1943

Watercolour, red chalk and pencil on paper with colour notes

Signed Paul Nash at the lower left. H 28.9 x W 40.3 cm

Private Collection

References:

Andrew Causey, Paul Nash Catalogue Raisonné (Oxford, 1980) cat. no.1156

Penny Denton, ‘Seaside Surrealism’ Paul Nash in Swanage (Durlstone, 2002) cat.no.82

https://www.stephenongpin.com/object/790343/0/maiden-castle-dorset

Paul Nash

Maiden Castle

1943

Pencil on tracing paper

Signed Paul Nash at the lower left. Dimensions not known

Dorset Museum & Art Gallery

References:

Andrew Causey, Paul Nash Catalogue Raisonné (Oxford, 1980) cat. no.1157.

Penny Denton, ‘Seaside Surrealism’ Paul Nash in Swanage (Durlstone, 2002) cat.no.83.

Reflections by Paul Nash

“Maiden Castle’, wrote Nash in 1936 in the Shell Guide to Dorset, ‘has been described as the largest and most perfect earthwork in the world. To say it is the finest in Dorset is, perhaps, enough, for in no part of any country, I believe – not even in Wiltshire, where Avebury stands - can be found so complete a sequence of hill architecture…The Maiden…is in the form of an irregular oval. Its measurements are 400 yards wide and 900 yards long. The outer circumference amounts to two miles, enclosing an area of 130 acres. It is a phenomenon which must be seen to be believed if you consider that it was constructed throughout a series of occupations, the earliest of which can be ascribed to a period approaching 2000 B.C. Its presence to-day, after the immense passage of time, is miraculously undisturbed; the huge contours strike awe into even the most vulgar mind; the impervious nitwits who climbed on to the monoliths of Stonehenge to be photographed, slink out of the shadow of the Maiden uneasily.’

A vast, multi-ringed and steeply terraced Iron Age hill fort, Maiden Castle is one of the largest and, in terms of its design, one of the most complex hill forts in Europe. Nash was constantly inspired by its dimensions, location, and its unearthed mysteries. He photographed the site in 1935, while it was being excavated by the Dr Mortimer Wheeler from London’s Institute of Archaeology. Under the joint auspices of the Society of Antiquaries and the Dorset Field Club it became regarded as one of the most famous British archaeological investigations of the twentieth century. A classic ‘Wheeler dig’ in terms of the scale of the operations, with over 100 assistants on site, and its duration – it lasted four seasons between 1935-39 – and the publicity it generated. Published in 1943, the year that Nash made this watercolour, Wheeler’s excavation report, Maiden Castle, Dorset, is now regarded as only a partial account of the development of the site, and subsequent historians have taken issue with some of Wheeler’s interpretations. (See for example, Adam Stout, Creating Prehistory: Druids, Ley Hunters and Archaeologists in Pre-War Britain, Malden and Oxford: Blackwell, 2008, p.217-20).

Nash toured west Dorset with Lance Sieveking, long-standing friend and fellow veteran from the First World War. As a Regional Programme Director for the BBC, Sieveking had a semi-official car and access to petrol coupons. With Margaret Nash, they toured beyond the Isle of Purbeck, across Egdon Heath to Portland Bill, Chesil Bank, and Abbotsbury. This watercolour of Maiden Castle, along with an equally striking and highly rendered painting of the Giant at Cerne Abbas were amongst the last works painted in Dorset.

Nash had previously painted Maiden Castle in 1937 in a vigorously designed painting which is now located in the United States (Paul Nash, Maiden Castle, Pencil and watercolour on paper, 54.6 x 76.2 cm, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, Burlington, Vermont). A very delicate sketch of the earthwork, with subtle pencil strokes on tracing paper, appears to have been made around the same time as the 1943 watercolour. It is now in the collection of the Dorset County Museum and Art Gallery, Dorchester (Causey Cat. No.1157).

In The Eye of the Beholder (Hulton Press, 1957) Sieveking recalled their final forays across the county with great affection:

“…back and forth, across that beautiful county, in sunny days, and warm clear nights, stopping ever and again for Paul to draw, to make notes, to take photographs, and to scan the distance through powerful field-glasses. He said that through field-glasses one sees a landscape that one can see in no other way. And all the while we talked, going to and fro in memory over the past thirty years and laughing and enjoying many of the things we had done together. A weight seemed to lift off Paul’s mind.”