Manual Ref* SUscKG001 Show 3 images 904
Title*

Computer Commemoration at Grange Farm
County Suffolk   District Council Suffok Coastal 
Civil Parish or equivalent Kesgrave  Town/Village* Kesgrave 
Road Rope's Drive and Hartree Road 
Precise Location St Isadore's roundabout 
OS Grid Ref TM231452  Postcode IP5 
Previous location(s)  
Setting Roadside  Access Public 
Artist/Maker Role Qualifier
Crispin Rope  Designer(s)   
CED Ltd  Stonemason(s)   

Commissioned by

 Crispin Rope with the support of the Mrs L.D. Rope Third Charitable Settlement 

Design & Constrn period

 2007-2008 

Date of installing

 April 2008 

Exact date of unveiling

  

Category
Abstract Animal Architectural
Commercial Commemorative Composite
Free Functional Funerary
Heraldic Military Natural
Non-Commemorative Performance Portable
Religious Roadside, Wayside Sculptural
Temporary, Mobile Other  

Object Type
Building Clock Tower Architectural
Coat of Arms Cross Fountain
Landscape Marker Medallion
Mural Panel Readymade
Relief Shaft Sculpture
Statue Street Furniture War Memorial
Other Object Sub Type: Commemorative marker

Subject Type
Allegorical Mythological Pictorial
Figurative Non-figurative Portrait
Still-life Symbolic Other

Subject Sub Type
Bust Equestrian Full-length
Group Head Reclining
Seated Standing Torso
Part Material Dimension
Computer commemoration  Granite from Brittany  tallest 9.5 high, others, 8.2 and 8.8 

Work is
Extant Not Sited Lost

Owner/Custodian

 Grange Farm estate 

Listing status
Grade I Grade II* Grade II Don't Know Not Listed

Surface Condition
Corrosion, Deterioration Accretions
Bird Guano Abrasions, cracks, splits
Biological growth Spalling, crumbling
Metallic staining Previous treatments
Other  
Detail:

Structural Condition
Armature exposed Broken or missing parts
Replaced parts Loose elements
Cracks, splits, breaks, holes Spalling, crumbling
Water collection Other
Detail:

Vandalism
Graffiti Structural damage Surface Damage
Detail:

Overall condition
Good Fair Poor

Risk
No Known Risk At Risk Immediate
Signatures/Marks  
Inscriptions  

Description (physical)

 Three tall granite ‘propeller’s shapes are linked by a central post. The top of each is cut with different conics, formed by ‘cutting’ a cone. The cones are a PARABOLA, a CIRCLE (a special case of the ellipse) and a RECTANGULAR HYPERBOLA (a special case of the hype ellipse). Each of the giant ‘propellers’ is made of three separate stones, all prepared in Brittany. They are fixed together with metal rods,and bound by a specially injected resin. During installation early in 2008 two were dropped and had to be recut at the factory in Brittany. They are raised up on a circular mound surrounded by a low metal balustrade with the seventeen storyboards, which unfold the complex story of the computer, available as a PDF file at the Kesgrave website. This sets out the complex inter-relationships between the early pioneers and their machines and includes a complex time-line showing what are arguably the most important machines, ideas and moments in the development of the computer. The roundabout is in the middle of the new development, which has left nothing of the original Grange farm.  

Description (iconographical)

 The inspiration for the memorial, like the early history of computing, is complex. One key figure is Douglas Hartree (1897- 1958), famous for his contributions to numerical analysis. He had returned to Cambridge, where he had trained, from Manchester as Plummer professor of mathematical physics in 1948, making a significant contribution to ENIAC, the American computer which formed part of the development of the modern computer. Crispin Rope studied under Hartree for two terms at Cambridge, and describes him as ‘the best teacher I ever had..I regretted that he seemed rather to be looked down on by eminent Cambridge physicists. Now his Self Consistent Field Method of atomic calculations, improved by the Russian mathematician Foch, is still widely used.’ Later Crispin Rope worked as computer programmer using DEUCE, the commercial version of Alan Turing’s original Pilot ACE programme, and had a spell running a consultancy in Manchester, which gave him a feel for where Alan Turing had worked. The shapes at the top of the memorial were chosen because they represent one of the simplest and oldest pieces of mathematical knowledge applied to curves in two dimensions. This was a subject likely to have been studied at school by Alan Turing (1912-1954), the common school text on the subject at the time having been published when he was 15 years old. Turing’s achievements are among the more outstanding feats of science and it is for this reason that he is especially remembered here. Time Magazine, in naming Turing one of the 100 most influential scientists of the 20th century, stated: 'The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine.' The spot was chosen for two main reasons:the COLOSSUS, the first effective, operational, automatic, electronic, digital computer, was constructed by the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill (now BT research), whose research and development later moved from that site to Martlesham, just east of here. Mrs Rope’s Charitable Trust is used for charitable purposes in south east Suffolk and poor countries overseas. Colossus has been reconstructed as a separate venture at the National Museum of computing, Block H, Bletchley park, Milton Keynes. Mk1 was running by 1996, Mk2 by June 2004 

Photographs

 Date taken:  26/6/2009
Date logged: 

Photographed by:
Sarah Cocke

On Site Inspection

 Date:  26/6/2009

Inspected by:
Rowland Shaw

Sources and References

 Brought to our attention by Rowland Shaw; Information from Crispin Rope and David Brooke-Mee, CED Ltd; www.kesgrave.org.uk/community/monument/index.html for the pdf history of computing; Trustees’ Annual Report For the /Financial year ending 5 April 2005, 18 Jan 2006 The Mrs. L.D. Rope Third Charitable Settlement; http://www.tnmoc.org/ (National Museum of computing website);www/time.com/time/time100/scientists) accessed 

Database

 Date entered:  30/6/2009

Data inputter:
Richard Cocke