Edgelands

Read “Wire” and “Power” from Edgelands. These short chapters will help you prepare for some of the themes in part 3. Record your responses in your learning log.

Source

Farley P, Symmonds Roberts, M (2011) Edgelands: Journeys into England's True Wilderness, Vintage

Farley and Symmonds Roberts’s book contain short chapters of geographical areas or subjects which can be explained as landscape which does not fit into a book on the English (or Western) countryside. It is pockets of areas, usually found on one side of a town or village and can include old mining areas, industrial units and retail parks etc. In other words, somewhere in which one doesn’t quite feel at ease. Marion Shoard was the first to describe the term “Edgelands” and called for artists and writers to portray them.”Edgelands are part of the gravitational field of all our larger urban areas, a texture we build up speed to escape as we hurry towards the English countryside, the distant wilderness.[…] If we can’t see the edgelands, we can’t imagine them, or allow them any kind of imaginative life. And so they don’t really exist.” Farley P, Symmonds Roberts, M (2011 p5)

I discovered this meaning of edgelands in my research for Assignment 1 (Beauty and / or the sublime) and found this book expanded my current knowledge and understanding of what constituted to an Edgeland. I found the description was limited when researching further into the subject and discovered the uneasy feeling of being watched or watching/listening to others. So I agree that they do not fit into the romantic landscape ideas.

Wire (p93-98)

In Wire, the writers set out to make the reader consider what the wire looks like – cut for access, type of wire, barbed, chain, chicken, razor – whether one can climb over it or scale it, and stories / history it could tell. The wire on the edgeland could be next to a business or derelict building.

• Around buildings, cut, evidence of people
• Security - high or low level? Territorial markers 
• Wire crossed
• Children progress from climbing through to up and over wire
• Jumping over fences associated with danger, deterrent, school bullies, knives, blades
• Games to play - certain sites were out of bounds - surveillance and tracking
• Ribbons, tokens, prayers, tributes, memories, declarations, 
• Roadside shrines - temporary, permanent

It is summed up by noting that “Edgelands are a complex mix of fiercely guarded private grounds and common land by default, or neglect. And the history of these places is held in their wires.”(2011 p98)

Power (p185-193)

Power is defined by coal fired powerstations because they are at the moment in the edgelands.  Farley and Symmonds Roberts describe cooling towers as being a metaphor for positive energy. They also "distort our sense of scale in the English Landscape" (2011 p187) The cooling towers are part of our landscape which are either loved or loathed by the public being seen as "brutal, dirty and ugly eyesores  spoiling the view, which uses our ancient river systems as coolants before releasing their ghosts into the air as a plume that stretch the length of the counties" (2011 p187) Another way of looking at them is like a film set with their strange shapes and noises. Fans of cooling towers tell stories and myths about them; Farley and Symmonds Roberts argue that it could be their connection to water that makes us enjoy them. They could be described as "still and busy".

Great art works have included power stations; from the Becher's cataloging images and John Davies' Sunday football match in the shadow of Agecroft power station (urban and pastoral landscape co-existing), to Toby Smith's atmospheric images of power stations. Indeed, Roger Wagner's Menorah painting shows religion and spirituality imagining the power station to be a menorah candlestick.

1/4/2015 Walk around Staythorpe Power Station, Notts

Over time the cooling towers have evolved or tried to blend in; they mention Didcot power station as being designed by a cathedral architect. Ironbridge, Shropshire possesses pink cooling towers in an effort to make them blend in with the landscape, although that has not helped to protect them from threatened closure. Protesters in the form of eco-warriors favour green power and are never far away. Some have been demolished and replaced with gas fired turbines - Staythorpe on the banks of the River Trent is a prime example of a coal fired power station (which I was lucky enough to have a trip around some years ago) with a shiny new gas fired one. This sits on the edge of a rural village one side and the River Trent the other - the only hint of an edgeland is near the railway depot and not visible from the road.

However, as coal fired powerstations are closed in favour of greener energy, how will the edgelands look? If more wind turbines are erected on rural land, what effect will this have on the landscape? A couple of years ago, Scotland was petitioning against wind turbines and power lines in the lowlands as it spoilt the view of the mountain ranges. The offshore windfarms around the coast of Britain can be seen for miles around and Barrow in Furness's produces enough power for 300,000 homes which is about 3 towns worth of energy.More and more off shore windfarms get the go ahead and whilst it is a cheap source of energy, does it spoil the coastal view?

Only today (1/9/15) the headlines refer to dirty coal being used in Britain's power stations. It seems coal fired powerstations are on the way out with Ferrybridge C due to close in 2016 and energy production to be transferred to nearby Keadby where the gas fired powerstation will be resurrected. It seems that the political side of power is never far from the news.

References

Farley P, Symmonds Roberts, M (2011) Edgelands: Journeys into England's True Wilderness, Vintage p5

Farley P, Symmonds Roberts, M (2011) Edgelands: Journeys into England's True Wilderness, Vintage p98

Farley P, Symmonds Roberts, M (2011) Edgelands: Journeys into England's True Wilderness, Vintage p187

Farley P, Symmonds Roberts, M (2011) Edgelands: Journeys into England's True Wilderness, Vintage p187

Bibliography

Farley P, Symmonds Roberts, M (2011) Edgelands: Journeys into England's True Wilderness, Vintage 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32806766

http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2015/01/05/uncertain-future-for-ironbridge-towers-of-power/

http://www.rogerwagner.co.uk/work/item/17/menorah-1993

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/rampion-offshore-windfarm-south-coast-england