God Bless Bentley

In 2020 Doncaster was voted England’s 2nd worst place to live. I found this rather surprising. I have lived here all my life apart from a three year stint in Leeds for University. I know that Doncaster doesn’t often reveal its charm to its visitors and most people that call it home often talk about how they can’t wait to escape it. This included my family, my friends and myself. However, the majority of those people somehow find their way back, or never really want leave at all. In recent years the town center and public areas has seen some development, which is beginning to turn the place around. Doncaster’s wide-stretching surrounding suburbs and villages are, in my opinion, the up to the satisfactory standards of simple English life and there are certainly a lot worst places to live. 

In 2018 I met my partner in London who moved up to live with me here, only three months later. Surprisingly, he saw Doncaster’s charm straight away. For him, after living on the outskirts of the capital the town was refreshingly easy to live in. As i’ve got older, my view has aligned with his and after pulling out of purchasing a development in Leeds city center, we bought our first home in Bentley in 2019. I moved from the comforts of my mothers detached four bed american-suburbia-esque area to the wild’s of one of the towns most notoriously bustling but less desirable places. Bentley is the biggest village in Doncaster. It is an ex-mining village that has suffered through more of its fair-share of flooding, most recently in the winter of 2019-2020. When I told my colleague I was moving there she said, “you could build a wall around it and you would never have to leave”. It’s high-street is filled with all the necessities that you could need for day-to-day life; eateries, shops, salons, a post office, chemists, multiple schools and churches. 

We only saved for a year to buy our lovely home. We needed somewhere we could move to as soon as possible and we are happy here, for the time-being. We live close to the train station with links to Leeds and London, so it suits. Although, when I first moved here I wasn’t tempted to take a walk around my neighbourhood once out of the tranquility of my cosy cul-de-sac. However, after loosing my job in January 2020 and due to the lockdown measures brought on by Covid-19, I had no choice but to get familiar with my town.  For 7 months I was at home all day everyday, looking for work, building up my company The Pupil Sphere and studying for my Masters degree. As an artist, my four walls were my sanctuary and not my prison. I in some way felt relieved that I now had the time to focus on the things I wanted to. However, I still took up the governments allowance of 1 hour walk a day and, God Bless Bentley was born. 

The park next to my house, the country trail behind the terraces and the supermarket right across the road became my saving grace and essentially my world. I know I shared this feeling and circumstance with millions of people around the country during the Covid-19 lockdowns. I began photographing in April 2020 and in July, I was awarded  funding for the project from the local council arts organisation, Doncaster Creates, to become one of their ‘Birdsong’ artists. This was a great opportunity to connect with my community even further and develop what was a productivity exercise into a fully-rounded project. 

The making of the photographs became somewhat a pursuit for a certain calmness and sensibility. The often busy high street did not reflect my feelings during the 12 months in which this project was made and so, I focused on the areas where I could experience quiet moments of reflection that often originated around the many religious buildings in Bentley. It was an endeavour on my part as a photographer, to seek out particular places that fulfilled my artistic interests. This, like the majority of my work, is usually found in the foliage and man-made forms that make up the aesthetics of our homes and streets. The photographs also depict the parks and walking paths that I was spending more and more time on in an attempt to escape the confines of my walls which at times carried a certain weight. My concept of this community therefore changed, as I was forced to find nature in-between the bricks, as opposed to driving to national parks and woodlands outside of my constituency. 

I noticed the amount of churches in Bentley (I counted 10 in total). As I spent more time walking the streets in search of an image, I thought more about they way these buildings sculpt the community and create a natural path through the village. I don’t go to Church and I do not follow any religion however, I found the signs informing residents that ‘all services are closed’ very disturbing. Through everything I expected religion to continue, to be of up most importance and although I already knew they were closed, it was an unsettling feeling. One image from the project, of a cross from Bentley Baptist Church that reads ‘God Loves You’ is 350 yards from my home. It has displayed the same message since we moved here and I don’t think it will ever change.  I find this somewhat comforting, refreshing in its simplicity, even though I can’t relate to the message myself. 

That’s what this project became, a comfort. Doing something familiar in a state of change. Everything was quiet for a moment, until I finished photographing and it was busy again. It wasn’t to produce a geographic typology of a place, nor was it to have any particular political message. It was justifiable to me because it was comforting to map out a place to a point that I now feel is complete. I can now move on from this place as it appears settled in my mind, on the page and with my camera. I know it now, and it knows me. 

Amelia Lonsdale.