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Thursday 19 September 2019

Between known and unknown





Where sheep pasture meets high moorland.

The photo was taken not far from the Barrel Inn during one of our favourite Eyam walks. It always reminds me of the way our view of the natural world has changed over the centuries. 

That sharp division of the land would have been even sharper for our ancestors - almost a border between known and unknown, between civilised and uncivilised . Most of them, especially town dwellers, would have seen the moorland as a wild, remote and dangerous place. Even with a touch of superstitious awe in some cases. An area to be avoided. 

4 comments:

Scrobs. said...

You are so, enviably fortunate Mr H.

Round here, Tunbridge Wells BC are intent on ruining every village by squirting thousands of homes in all directions, while ignoring the obvious places to get development going.

Kent County Council are on the verge of criminal negligence with their insistence that they support all this.

Although my old company's lorries must have infuriated you, I suppose, at least, we were tucked away from the hustle and bustle, and also didn't interfere with such beautiful landscapes which you show above.

Around here, we just get the lorries, then the bikes, then the muck-away lorries, then the supermarket trucks, then the cars at school times, all thanks to our failing county standards.

Sorry about the rant, we're in the middle of a huge campaign against a massive housing influx, and it fills most columns locally.

Sam Vega said...

Same here, Michael, at the other end of the Weald. They are planning to suburbanise the whole of Southern England.

wiggiatlarge said...

Ditto here in Norfolk and everywhere else, even the north Norfolk coast villages have started to expand beyond their already limited infrastructure, not sure where all this leads as even where we are on the fringes of Norwich estate after estate goes up with never anything to support them, hence our surgery with its part time doctors taking on more and more patients and the appointment wait keeps getting longer, one week when we moved here now four unless you create a scene in the empty mostly waiting rooms.

A K Haart said...

Scrobs - round here we can tell there is a lot of construction work going on because of the increase in quarry traffic. It isn't disruptive though - those big lorries don't hand about.

Sam - and this is the kind of issue which should be near the top of the political agenda.

Wiggia - it seems to be going on everywhere yet with all the prattle about sustainability, how is it supposed to be sustainable?