Peeling Back the Layers: A sense of Place
Conway Davies
The thinking behind the course
This paper will discuss the thinking behind the setting up of an academic module which is the first of its kind in Wales. It attempts to explain the role played by humans in moulding and changing diverse landscapes and integrating this with outdoor recreation. We are part of a generation which is leaving behind the view that nature is an objective reality. Today we are living in a more pragmatic, less idealistic age. The very functions of nature are being threatened by global warming and scientific takeovers. In these rapidly changing times it is important that we and young people in particular, should know something of the changes humans have already made to our physical habitat.
This study involves some knowledge of science, archaeology, history and anthropology, with subjects that range from pollen analysis to plant domestication, field systems, settlement patterns and industrial land use. The module’s aim is to provide students with a sense of place which will allow them to handle this diversity of information in a meaningful manner. The appraisal of landscape changes, how and when humans altered and remoulded the surface of the countryside, is an important aspect of this course.
The concept of ‘landscape’ is of course both concrete and abstract. In its Anglo-Saxon origin, landscipe referred to some unit of area that was a natural entity, such as the lands of a tribe or a feudal lord. It was only at the end of the sixteenth century that, through the influence of the Dutch landscape painters, the word also acquired the idea of unit of visual perceptions, of a view. In essence it now refers to the total man-land complex place and time, suggesting spatial interactions, and suggestive of visual features that we can select, such as field and settlement patterns, set in the mosaics of relief, soils and vegetation. Therefore the ‘landscape’ is the point of reference in the selection of widely ranging information. In essence it is the tangible element of man’s association with the earth, the manner by which they have moulded the resources of nature into human usage.
The setting
With an area of 8,000 square miles and a population of 2.9 million, Wales is a small country but when we begin to trace the role of humans in moulding the Welsh landscape to its present form we meet bigger problems than we might expect, for here the smallness of Wales is outweighed by two simple facts. Sharp contrast exists between the nature of its mountains and hills on the one hand and its plains and valleys on the other, while its western coastlands also differ in many respects from the eastern Marches. In the second place the hand of man has been at work for a long time; a span of at least fifty centuries lies between the first scratchings of Neolithic farmers and the industrial complexes of today.
It is difficult to know what the landscape of Wales looked like in earlier times, let alone to try to understand how it was made and the evolution of man’s share in making it. Accurate maps of the whole of the country, were not available until the Surveyors’ Drawings of 1809-20 and from these and the Ordnance Survey maps printed later, we can note the patterns of woods, parks, marshes and moorland. In Wales, estate maps did not appear until the late eighteenth century. Therefore our early knowledge must come from other sources such as the analysis of prehistoric pollen, geological features and archaeology. The course sets out to give students the basics in how to understand the making of the Welsh landscape and at the same time giving them pointers to the cultural changes which took place and which in turn imposed themselves on their natural setting.
How do we set about doing this? It is not as easy a task as one might think. Television has been partly to blame, since the historic landscape is so often presented as the realm of the celebrities and all the rest of us watch them from the comfort of our armchairs rather than getting out and about in the real thing. In the course of all this, it is easy to forget that the foundations of learning about our settings were not put in place by celebrities or even professors, but by amateur enthusiasts. Country doctors might halt their traps beside a quarry to enquire if the quarrymen had found any fossils to sell. Village schoolteachers might brave the tides to hammer geological samples from sea cliffs. Vicars might scour the woods for botanical specimens and realise that different insects or snails were found in different habitats.
The study of our historic countryside by students in Trinity is not just a work-out for their bodies and minds but it also makes them appreciate a sense of identity. Over time people have become more footloose and wafted from place to place by the lures and vagaries of employment and for some this was creating insecurity and a new term ‘identity crisis’ began to become common currency. Over the years I have come to realise that a strong bonding with one’s home-place helps to buttress one’s sense of identity, and hence strengthen one’s strength and well-being. Many of us are strangers in the land of others, but a growing engagement with that setting can greatly help the establishment of new roots. Like a nourishing nerve tonic, our locale is absorbed into our personality. I like to imagine that it enters through the soles of our walking boots, our bikes, canoes or kayaks. Then, if the locals regard you with suspicion or as an outsider, watch their faces when you reel off a string of facts about the history of their locality, their lanes, woods, waterways, seashore and habitats that they do not know about.
What is interesting for those who are going to make a career of the great outdoors is that they can never make definite conclusions about their environment. The face of the countryside changes within the hour, the season, the weather and the transit of the sun as does the knowledge of that environment. To learn, to be enthused and to pass that enthusiasm on to others is a wonderful gift and there is no better lecture theatre to do it in than that of nature itself.
