John Davies (b.1949)

John Davies (b.1949)
DRURIDGE BAY, NORTHUMBERLAND, 1983. Vintage silver gelatin print, image size 26 x 38cm, sheet size 30.5 x 40.5, signed, titled, and dated by the photographer in pencil lower margin recto. Together with window mount signed, titled, and dated by the photographer in pencil, and a handwritten caption slip by the photographer reading, "Just beyond County Durham's boundaries, on the coasts of Cleveland and Northumberland, two nuclear power stations are planned (to make coal-fired power stations redundant.) One of these at Seaton Carew, is now contributing to the national grid - the other is planned for Druridge Bay. The sites at Druridge have large unmined coal resources beneath them. The seven mile stretch of uncommercialised and unpolluted sands are the nearest to Newcastle."

During the early 1980s, Newcastle's Side Gallery commissioned photographers John Davies and Isabella Jedrzejczyk to document the landscape of Druridge Bay, which was at risk of being developed into a nucleaer power plant site. The present image was included in Davies' final selection; the proposed power plant was never constructed, halted by the Sizewell Inquiry.