Removing Graffiti

[gus horsley]

Arsenic Gas Poisoning? Not heard of that one before - more details please, it might save someone else!

Got it in one of the Tamar Valley mines (Wheal Bedford). Went in past the "Danger Keep Out" sign and along interesting stopes, up and down climbs, ok for a while then started feeling nauseous. Belting headache, general wobbliness. Made it to the entrance again and puked in the fresh air. For several days people asked me if I'd been eating garlic - that's the giveaway, the smell. I saw a specialist in these matters and he confirmed it was indeed arsenic gas poisoning. The skin absorbs it and then slowly releases it again - hence the pong. Possible long-term effects are general mental feebleness (got it anyway), a furious wife and potential knob corrosion (ouch). And, yes, I was daft enough to not only ignore warning sign at entrance but also to go in on my own. How irresponsible is that?

 

[Peter Burgess]

Graffiti on walls can be removed.

Graffiti on an internet forum is a bit more persistent, unfortunately.

Anyone spotted any offensive cyber-graffiti recently?



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[hole_in_the_rock]

Go to the land registry office and find out who owns land. When they fail the local council usually have contact details of the owners. Emergency services also usually have the contact details of the owners if the site has been visited for rescues in the past.
Seems pretty simple to me.

Paying £35 per enquiry to the Land Registry Office simply isn't going to be done by people who want to visit a cave on unknown land (perhaps you aren't aware of the fuss generated by insurance premium increases which amounted to considerably less than this amount).

My local council do not provide a bypass service to the Land Registry route although they CAN help (i.e. give me the phone number to Land Registry) and as for your suggestion of contacting the emergency services to find out who owns a field at a given grid reference I can only say that you are clearly not serious - I expect anyone reading this read would laugh as they imagine the phone conversation....

You mention that WCMS members tore down signs you put up for an area of land you have a slight interest in... This seems odd, having read it. You obviously know who did this since you mention that you know where he lives. However, you only mention that it was for land you have a slight interest in - I guess from this that you are not the owner of the land and therefore had no right to put up a sign in the first place in which case you have no cause for complaint if someone removes it.

Being a contact point for access enquiries is no big deal - enquiring about access is not the same as asking a landowner for access; the access contact may simply inform someone of the landowner/access procedure they need to follow. It's got nothing to do with acting as an authorised agent. The Land Registry, local council and the emergency services DO NOT provide realistic opportunities for interested parties to find out about underground sites. This leaves signs placed by land owners (and replaced when/if vandalised) or the internet. IIRC an internet site providing access information was on the receiving end of legal threats.

So, if the internet details are erased, there are no signs, Land Registry costs too much, the local council are only "directory enquiries" and the emergency services tell you to sod off then NO, it doesn't seem pretty simple to me.

But then again perhaps I am missing something.

My goodness, you are missing something.
If you do not know how to ask the emergency services without dialing 999 then there is no hope for you. They do have other incomming phone numbers.
Insurance premiums less than the £35 the Land registry want to charge you?? Which are you complaining about, insurance or what they want to charge you for information?
I have spoken to the land registry a few times now, and have had no problem with getting land information for free. Perhaps you need to change your approach? It could be that I was lucky, and that the areas I was interested in had recently been looked at by several other parties.

You guess.... wrong.

Your local council did not help you either? Reigate & Banstead Council have a different approach, and are willing to pass letters on to owners in the event of an enquiry. It does mean that you have to wait for a reply, and I can understand how some people may not be able to wait a few days or so, as their need to enter someone else's property far exceeds any moral or legal issues to them, until they are caught.


Now we are back to the "legal threats" bit again. It tends to creep in.
Yes, the owners were disturbed that their private land was being offered out by WCMS and that WCMS had adverts advertising trips over many websites.
Other websites advertised the exact position of the entrances on this private land, and these site owners were asked (in no uncertain terms) to remove the refernces to their land, as it was encouraging trespassers to visit.
One site concerned, had believed that WCMS had the access rights that they claimed to have, and did not give a damn about the way they were advertising the land to the world. They did not remove the NGR national grid references on their site, despite their false claims to have done so.
The NGRs are available on their site by veiwing the source code of the page. Most Internet browsers do not see the "hidden" parts, so by veiwing the source we can see what info is really on the page.
Good try CSCC, but not well hidden and certainly not removed.
For those interested, try it yourself:
http://cscc.org.uk/Surrey.htm

In IE right click and select view source.

Lets look at the NGR for Godstone, using the code:
>GODSTONE MAIN SERIES</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6">TQ <span style="visibility: hidden"> 3509 5351</span></p

So it's at TQ 3509 5351.

So Chris, imagine it if it was your property....
You discover that people have been using your property whilst you were away. They sold trips to it to children who could not possibly have been insured without your knowledge that people were using the land.. To facilitate more visitors they built a new access shaft, and then advertised globally on as many sites as possible. These invaders of your property did not consent with you, and you knew nothing of the activities they have regularly run on your lands. You go to see what they have been up to, and find modern artefacts discarded (such as thermos flasks, etc). The residents mob you on sight for allowing so many visitors to the land, and the local planning depatment want to know about that public access shaft that was built a few years ago, as they have no plans or permission granted for it.

Then you go home and look up your property on the Internet. You discover all sorts of numbnuts have been using it, all believing that they could do as they liked, because they have a mate who claims to have access rights.
Not one person or society bothers to check out the access situation, and they all go and collect souvineers from their trips to give to their historian friend in a museum, or to take home, or for "experiments".

To top it all NGRs are plastered accross the Internet, leaving exact details of how to enter your property when the people claiming to be responsible are not there looking after it. By checking their diary you can see what days to avoid if you want dont go with them.


Are you really going to thank them all and kiss their butts?
Are you going to make good any damage that they allowed/caused?
Are you going to allow your property to be advertised for all new commers to visit when they like?
And the souvineers? would you want them returned? or will you accept that they should be returned to you?

And what about any graffiti? This was the orignal thread, graffiti. So what would you do with any graffiti? Leave the things from before the visitors, and remove everything there after? Or leave it all/remove it all?

 

[hole_in_the_rock]

Grafitti on walls can be removed.

Grafitti on an internet forum is a bit more persistent, unfortunately.

Anyone spotted any offensive cyber-grafitti recently?

ROTFL,
recently? yes! By a poster with the same name as yours.
ROTFL, some more.

 

[graham]

Hole_in_the_head.

I am willing to bet you a £100 that none of the emergency services hold general records concerning land ownership.

In cases where they have specific emergency plans covering, for example, major chemical plant, the plan doubtless does contain contact details, but whether these are the same as formal ownership records is another matter.

A further point is that, even if they do hold such information in some cases, they will be working under privacy protocols which will preclude them giving this information out to casual enquirers such as yourself.

 

[Brains]

Gus, Thanks for the info on the Arsenic - I had never considered this toxin to be a serious risk as it is normally a solid in its natural forms as metal or the sulphide, or at least no worse than other toxic heavy metals such as lead or barium. Should I be visiting a known arsenic mine again I will be far more cautious! :shock:
Although generally worthwhile this thread does seem to be wandering around somewhat! Perhaps the scrawls should be viewed in the same way as modern art seems to be - if you have to ask of its merits you dont really appreciate the medium? Is a Roman drawing of a knob any more or less worthwhile than a modern rendition? Should man made features be seen as more or less worthy of cleaning than natural places (mines v caves). I feel the presence of such scrawls to generally degrade the experience, but does that empower me to remove anything - morally or legally?
Seems a tricky issue worthy of debate, but not of getting bogged down in the local problems of one site, despite implications to the wider debate

 

[bubba]

Although generally worthwhile this thread does seem to be wandering around somewhat!

I agree - please keep things on topic.

Seems a tricky issue worthy of debate, but not of getting bogged down in the local problems of one site, despite implications to the wider debate

I agree again - please take the issue that is getting heated over to a new topic if you really wish to discuss it.

I refer everyone to the (newly posted) acceptable use policy. Personal insults and deliberate hijacking of topics are not acceptable, so please bear this in mind.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Brains

The value of graffiti has to be a very subjective thing.

The advent of the LED (no, please don't turn this into a technical discussion on LED lamps!) has revealed a great deal more graffiti which had been almost invisible in the light of a normal filament bulb lamp. Much of the graffiti we have found in the last few years in Surrey has been in pencil, and dates from a time when old mine workings were being used to grow mushrooms. We have dates, names, and it's both in English and French. You would think that the presence of foreigners in a village 100 years ago, for several years, would have resulted in local stories, memories, and so on, but this seems not to be the case. Yes, we knew from contemporary accounts that French mushroom growers were in the area, but few people in the area are aware of this today.

So this graffiti is no more than a 100-year old equivalent of Maurice etait ici (scuse my French), yet it gives me a buzz when we come across another such inscription.

It also makes me wonder how visible the writing actually was in the light of an oil lamp if we can't spot it using much brighter Oldham lamps.

I also wonder if the workers were issued with pencils as part of their job. Graffiti can open up all sorts of curious trains of thought.


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[gus horsley]

I agree - please keep things on topic.

Sorry, I think that's probably my fault.

Graffiti? Perhaps we should use the aforementioned cut-off date of 50 years, like our American counterparts. That would conveniently mean that 2nd World War scrawlings in various mines could be retained. But would the same criteria be used for litter? If an ancient fag packet was discovered on a ledge in a cave, should it be removed?

 

[Peter Burgess]

Perhaps we should use the aforementioned cut-off date of 50 years

I think the value of an inscription is best assessed by those who are most aware of the history of whatever site is involved.

For example, a few of the Surrey mines struggled on after the Second World War, the last one closing in 1961. But because they carried on almost unnoticed, more is actually known about the mines from a century ago than is known about their last days in some respects. It would be an interesting exercise to inspect these places (if they were accessible) to determine what graffiti was written whilst the place was working, and what was written by post-closure visitors.

One of the mines used as a mushroom farm was last used as such sometime before 1939, when it was converted into a secure wartime store. The walls of this mine were lime-washed when the mushrooms were being grown. By looking for dates scratched on the wall - which ones have cut through the lime-wash and which ones have been covered by the limewash - we have homed in on 1935 more or less as the date when the wall was last painted.


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[cap n chris]

So Chris, imagine it if it was your property....

Then you go home and look up your property on the Internet. You discover all sorts of numbnuts have been using it, all believing that they could do as they liked, because they have a mate who claims to have access rights.
Not one person or society bothers to check out the access situation, and they all go and collect souvineers from their trips to give to their historian friend in a museum, or to take home, or for "experiments".

To top it all NGRs are plastered accross the Internet, leaving exact details of how to enter your property when the people claiming to be responsible are not there looking after it. By checking their diary you can see what days to avoid if you want dont go with them.


Are you really going to thank them all and kiss their butts?
Are you going to make good any damage that they allowed/caused?
Are you going to allow your property to be advertised for all new commers to visit when they like?
And the souvineers? would you want them returned? or will you accept that they should be returned to you?

And what about any graffiti? This was the orignal thread, graffiti. So what would you do with any graffiti? Leave the things from before the visitors, and remove everything there after? Or leave it all/remove it all?

You don't know me very well.

If I was lucky enough to own an underground site I'd be doing all I could to ENCOURAGE people to visit it. After all, that's what cavers and mine explorers want to do, innit?

High stress isn't good for the heart. I try and avoid it.

 

[cap n chris]

In IE right click and select view source.

Lets look at the NGR for Godstone, using the code:
>GODSTONE MAIN SERIES</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6">TQ <span style="visibility: hidden"> 3509 5351</span></p

So it's at TQ 3509 5351.

Jeez; an expression involving the word "therapy" springs to mind. Frankly there's no way on earth I'd ever see the details above and realise, WITHOUT ALREADY KNOWING IT, that the figures, words, letters and numbers above would come up with a valid grid reference.

BTW, shouldn't you be directing your concerns to Ordnance Survey?

 

[cap n chris]

So it's at TQ 3509 5351.

... there's irony here, isn't there? :wink: If you hadn't pointed this out I certainly wouldn't have known it!

WHATEVER IT IS, IT'S AT TQ 3509 5351. Perhaps this would make a good T-shirt logo.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Please allow me to make a polite request.

If you want to argue about anything other than the ethics of removing graffiti in caves and mines, may I ask that you do it in a new thread?

I think this would be the nicest thing to do.

Bubba said:

Personal insults and deliberate hijacking of topics are not acceptable, so please bear this in mind.

As the person who started this thread, I think I am in the best position to judge whether this thread has been hijacked, and it is my opinion that it has.

Thank you.



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[gus horsley]

As far as retaining or removing graffiti is concerned, I'd be interested to hear opinions as to whether it should be removed from Tywarnhaile Mine (Porthtowan, Cornwall). Although the mine currently has serious access problems due to vandalism of a bunkhouse, it remains one of the most interesting and extensive underground trips in Cornwall. However, when it was being used as a training mine until very recently, the students obviously had plenty of idle time on their hands and have left literally thousands of scrawls in mud, on timbers, etc. The whole place is badly defaced and very little of it provides any sort of historical context, except to show how bored people can get.

 

[cap n chris]

My personal feeling is that graffiti is unwelcome. Whenever possible it should be nipped in the bud so that its presence does not encourage other people to follow suit and add their own bit, piecemeal, resulting in a rash of scribbles adorning the walls, ceiling etc. of an underground chamber. Perhaps I over-react (!) but on discovering new graffiti I remove it immediately. Like the person who placed it, I don't ask the landowner permission for this course of action (and probably never will, to be honest). :roll:

The sad plight of the site you mention, Gus, is a bad case of the cumulative effect of graffiti if unchecked; obviously anyone frequently visiting a site is best placed to observe/curtail these worst excesses but in some instances, the cumulative effect is insidious and only by having (for example) a photographic record of a particular site is it possible to see the slow effects of a little bit of graffiti added here, a little bit there and so on....

But let's not try to put the world to rights :wink: Photographic records of extreme examples of proliferation of graffiti can be used as direct evidence in support of conserving other sites where the answer to the debate "to lock, or not to lock" is in the balance. Now there's a little debate I've just started....

 

[Peter Burgess]

There's a difference between encouraging graffiti in the first place, and then placing a value on it later.

In a way, I would prefer that graffiti isn't written in the first place. But once it is there, it may tell a story, even if it is that students get bored, are not controlled, or whatever.

If we know the history of a site to the extent that the graffiti adds nothing of substance to our understanding, then I say get rid of it.

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[gus horsley]

Chris, Peter, I think we're in agreement here. Problem with Tywarnhaile is that there is no access at the moment and not likely to be in the future. A real shame, but not due to the graffiti. It's got a fine 6ft black manganese stalagmite in it as well which I could never get a decent photo of which was fortunately out of the reach of bored students.

 

[Peter Burgess]

OK here's another scenario. Some pencil graffiti gets removed by someone who doesn't realise its historical value, which is not in dispute, and everyone regrets it after the event.

There is an excellent photographic record of the graffiti.

Do you restore the graffiti using the photograph as a 'template'? Or do you put the whole thing down to experience and try to educate people to be more careful in the future.

It is frustrating to be showing someone new around the place, and saying that there used to be some interesting inscriptions but we can't show them to you anymore.


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[graham]

OK here's another scenario. Some pencil grafitti gets removed by someone who doesn't realise its historical value, which is not in dispute, and everyone regrets it after the event.

There is an excellent photographic record of the grafitti.

Do you restore the grafitti using the photograph as a 'template'? Or do you put the whole thing down to experience and try to educate people to be more careful in the future.

It is frustrating to be showing someone new around the place, and saying that there used to be some interesting inscriptions but we can't show them to you anymore.

Carry a copy of the photo with you. Easy really. :idea: