The Barking Stink

What we can we learn about the past through our sense of smell? The Barking Stink is a scented history of Barking Creek and the industries that existed alongside it. Discover the layers of smells and stenches that tell the story of Barking's rich industrial past. From the fragrance of thriving fisheries to the stench of the sewage works, manure to match makers, and fertiliser fumes to fizzy pop factories. Explore over 200 years of heritage stories via your sense of smell.

Our innovative heritage project explores and records what Barking’s riverside felt and smelt like throughout the Victorian industrial era and into contemporary factory and domestic life. We have learnt a lot about the potential of scent to how scent helps share stories and brings history to life for children, young people and adults. Whilst you may not be able to smell the bespoke aromas we created for the project, you can learn about the stories and imagine the scents for yourself by listening to our recorded interviews and podcasts and watching our animated films.

As Barking & Dagenham’s waterfront is being transformed, so the memory of its industrial vibrancy, including the pungent smells that reputedly once emanated on and around Barking Creek, is being lost.

The smell of Victorian Barking was so bad that in 1869 Punch magazine wrote a song about it:

The barges by the river

Bring the savoury London muck

Which at pleasant Barking station

Is shifted to the truck

And so pungent is its odour

By that station as you go

That Barking causes biting

To eyes and nose also

Project Objectives

• 5 animated films created in partnership with Monteagle Primary School and Eastbury Community School.
• 20 volunteers trained in archive research, produce oral histories and scented heritage facilitation.
• 650 local children from across 7 different Barking and Dagenham schools participated in scented school visits to the exhibition at Valence House.
• 5 public programme events exploring scent and heritage, including a scented panel discussion at Museum of London with olfactory experts, walking tours, film screenings and talks with authors and historians such as Iain Sinclair, Lee Jackson and Caroline Crampton.
• 2 outdoor exhibitions at Southbank riverside and Valence House in Dagenham, complete with 5 scents to smell alongside the exhibition.
• 12 new oral history recordings featuring ex-workers and local residents.
• 2 reminiscence session group recordings with older people sharing memories.
• 5 podcast episodes featuring edited extracts around different themes.
• 250 archive images digitised from Valence House’s Herbert Hope Lockwood archive.
• Local primary school teachers took part in professional development sessions.
• 100 students and innovators tackling the challenge of scented heritage over 2 days at a Heritage Hackathon.
• 1 website archive to share research, archive photos and resources.

Project Team

Nikki Shaill (Project Manager), Adrian Evans (Project Director), Mark Watson and Karen Rushton (Valence House Museum archive partners), Joshua Knowles (animator and illustrator), Chocolate Films (animations), Helen Ralli (exhibition and logo designer), Jen Kavanagh (exhibition curation and heritage consultant), Brighton Digital Media (podcasts), Odette Toilette, Cecilia Bembibre, Tasha Marks (scent and heritage experts), plus teachers and students at Monteagle Primary School and Eastbury Community School.

Project Volunteers

Bill Onwusah, Ian Jones, Melody Cohen, Felicity Hawksley, Jamie Cho, Austin Reed, Katy Hodges, Dipa Begum, Helen Winskill, Fraser Pitkethly , Fiona Pettitt, Paul Prowsland, Jo Cook, Sandra Prada, Oyin Dami Okusanya, Geneviève Godin, Jasleen Kandhari, Anwen Evans, Cecelia Rooney, Clare Spollen and Poppy Tripp.