Veil

By Artist: Flolux

Veil is a light and sound installation in the courtyard of Lancaster Castle. It brings together voices, songs and recordings from across Lancashire, reflecting the county’s history and everyday life. The soundscape mixes music, poetry and local sounds inspired by the landscape and its folklore, with background tones from a sound healing session to create a calming atmosphere.

At its heart, Veil is about connection — between people, places and the experiences that shape Lancashire. 

Artist, Flora Litchfield says: “I’m interested in how stories move through time — told and retold, shared around fires or over cups of tea, quietly remembered and tied to the places we live.

Making this piece has been a real pleasure and I’m grateful to everyone who helped bring it to life. I hope Veil gives a moment to connect — with the past, with each other and with the place itself.”

The soundscape includes:

• Recordings from Elizabeth Roberts, who captured hundreds of oral histories from people who lived and worked locally. Her Working Class Oral History Archive is a valuable record of everyday life and is now being digitised. Elizabeth Roberts Oral History Archive
• Jennifer Reid who performs 19th-century Lancashire dialect songs and ballads, including ‘There’s Nowt Like Spinning Shoddy,’ about the shoddy cotton trade. As she says: “I want you to be motivated by your ancestors.” jenniferballads.com
• Poems by Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, a mill worker, feminist and writer — she was the first working- class female novelist to be published in the 1930s. Read by Georgie Brooke.
• Poems by Flolux including “I walked the moors that cunning folk once touched… I’ve seen the old landscape with eyes that are new..” Lines inspired by Lancashire’s deep-rooted folklore.
• Old Pendle, sung by Del Rickard — a folk-style song written in the 1940s by brothers Milton and Allen Lambert. It celebrates the beauty of Pendle Hill while nodding to the area’s association with witches and old stories.
• She’s a Lassie from Lancashire (1907) — a music hall song about homesickness and love, told from the perspective of a man who moved to America from Lancashire.
• The Clatter of the Clogs, recorded in the 1930s by Rudy Starita and later made famous by Gracie Fields, the iconic entertainer from Lancashire.
• Poems by Louisa Bearman, a Bolton mill worker from age 13, shop assistant, baker and bread delivery driver, wrote poems and stories throughout her life. In 1968, one poem found in a hospital bin led to her first publication.
• Snippets of George Formby (1937), the beloved actor, singer and comedian from Wigan who became world-famous in the 1930s and ’40s.
• Short excerpts from Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain, read by Georgie Brooke, who voices the poems throughout.

The installation was created using Seb Lee-Delisle’s Liberation laser software.

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