Ways to See Great Britain E-Book

Alice Stevenson

• Herausgeber: September Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Driven by curiosity, restlessness and a desire to better understand her own country, artist Alice Stevenson spent two years exploring and drawing Great Britain. With an eye for the odd and an antenna for the unexpectedly beautiful, she documented her slow, attentive forays. Her journeying was wide: steam trains in Snowdonia, art galleries on remove Scottish islands, Kent coastlines, Dorset villages, East Anglian saltmarshes, the erstwhile utopias of Harlow and Portmeirion and the wild fells of eastern Cumbria. Yet she found many hidden delights in the dense populations of cities, from Hull and Plymouth, to Belfast and Edinburgh. The result is a book celebrating detail, of landscape and architecture, and creativity, an essential human urge. A rich, artistic journey through a land deep in natural and man-made puzzles and wonders. Please note this is a fixed-format ebook with colour images and may not be well-suited for older e-readers.

Leseprobe

Ways to See Great Britain

Also by Alice StevensonWays to Walk in London

WAYSTO SEEGREATBRITAIN

Curious Places & Surprising Perspectives

Text and illustrations by Alice Stevenson

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

First published in 2017 by September Publishing

Text and illustration © Alice Stevenson 2017

The right of Alice Stevenson to be identified as the authorof this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by anymeans, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording orotherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder

Printed in Poland on paper from responsibly managed,sustainable sources by Hussar Books.

ISBN 978-1-910463-48-2eISBN 978-1-910463-49-9Kindle ISBN 978-1-910463-50-5

September Publishingwww.septemberpublishing.org

In memory of Caroline Cawston

CONTENTS

Introduction 10

1Stourhead— Woodland to Parkland 13

2Southend-on-Sea— Neon and Nothingness 15

3Erith— Esoteric Estuary 19

4Shoreham-by-Sea— Houseboats and Prayer Cushions 22

5Lower Morden Lane— Christmas Street 26

6Liverpool— Pilgrimage to a City of the Imagination 31

7Port Sunlight— The Factory Village 36

8Bath to Bathampton— Waterway Out of the City 40

9Manchester— The Land of Red Brick 43

10Dungeness— Rust and Sea Kale 45

11Portmeirion— The Giant Folly 48

12The Ffestiniog Railway and Tanygrisiau— Steam Train into Snowdonia 52

13Glenariff Waterfalls— Deep into a World of Moss and Water 57

14Belfast— The Most Beautiful Pub in the World 60

15Castle Crom— A Hidden Arboreal World 62

16Edinburgh— Below the City’s Surface 64

17North Berwick— Bass Rock 68

18Orkney— Drystone Walls and Ancient Dwellings 70

19Westray— The Redemptive Power of Puffins 76

20Kirkcudbright— An Artist’s Town 78

21Margate— Surrounded by Shells 83

22Glasgow— Women’s Hidden Histories 84

23Oxford— Finding Calm in Common Ground 87

24Cambridge to Ely— River Cam 89

25Beaulieu to Buckler’s Hard— Looking for Damerosehay 94

26Patterdale— A Tribute to Topsy 98

27Levens Hall— Living and Breathing History 101

28Nine Standards Rigg— The View from the Dinosaur’s Back 102

29Kirkby Stephen to Skipton— The Yorkshire Dales by Train 104

30Birmingham to the M5— A Forgotten Thoroughfare 106

31Fringford and Juniper Hill— A Universe inside a Hamlet 110

32Cardiff— Decorative Details 112

33Cerne Abbas and Imber— Village Mysteries 114

34Harlow— New Town World 116

35Saffron Walden— In Praise of Pargeting 120

36Stiffkey and Blakeney Point— Saltmarshes and Seals 122

37Kingston-upon-Hull— Saturday Night in the City 126

38Spurn Head Spit— Extreme Geography 129

39Sunderland— Histories in Pottery and Glass 132

40Plymouth— An Abstract City 135

Where Alice Went 138

Good Things from a Year of British Travels 154

About the Author 158

Acknowledgements 159

INTRODUCTION

The inspiration to write this book came from an increasing  need to discover my home nation. Growing up and living in  London, I have always been aware of how little of my coun-  try I actually know; so much of my life has played out in this  one densely populated, international little pocket of south-  east England.

I set out in a spirit of openness, to find ways to experience  destinations meaningfully: to discover points of interest or con-  nection to a place, whether it be a remote island or an indus-  trial suburb. As an artist and illustrator, the visual tends to be  my ‘way in’. A detail catches my eye – the texture of a drystone  wall, the strange patterns of switched-off neon signs in the day-  time or decorative, Art Deco tiles in the doorways of unassum-  ing terraces – and it leads to the discovery of the wealth of tales  and layers of history which lie beneath the surface.

As in my previous book, Ways to Walk in London, I set my-  self the challenge of drawing and painting patterns and ab-  stract reinterpretations of what I’d seen, seeking to capture  the essence of a space as opposed to just recreating its sur-  face, figuratively. Of course, it is not just the place itself that  creates an atmosphere; the weather, our mood, the people  we meet all have an impact on a sightseeing experience.

I was exploring Britain in a year when the divide between  London and the rest of the country seemed more pronounced  than ever. It appeared that both the build-up to and aftermath  of the UK referendum on the EU created great social and po-  litical divisions, alienating different groups – even families –  from each other, and exposing ungenerous and limiting  attitudes. But that is not what I saw on my travels: I found a  varied land, contradictory and complex in culture, geogra-  phy, history and ecology. This was deeply heartening.

This book also became an exploration of the pastime of  travel. While it can be stimulating and thought-provoking,  

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I nonetheless could find it bewildering or disappointing when  the reality of being somewhere was less rewarding than my  preconceived ideas.

My destinations came about in a variety of ways. Some  were places I had long intended to visit: these were the  journeys that became, in part, an exercise in managing expec-  tations; of reconciling how the city or area existed in my mind  with the reality of being there.

I also chose places that are frequently missed in favour of  their more celebrated neighbours. I followed recommenda-  tions from friends, and found points of interest on one trip that  motivated me to travel to an entirely different corner of the  country – I loved creating these unexpected links. For exam-  ple, visiting the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral introduced  me to architect Frederick Gibberd, which prompted me to vis-  it the New Town of Harlow, over 200 miles south-east.

I went to remote, rural locales and busy urban centres;  spent time indoors and outside. I discovered places rich in con-  trast, and others that were impossible to neatly categorise.

As a walker and non-driver, I travel in a slow and round-  about way; my choices were limited by what I could reach on  foot or public transport, or where a willing friend would chauf-  feur me. Planning my trips became as much a part of the  creative process as the journeys themselves, yet a network of  locales unfolded exponentially over the course of the year.

Many of my excursions involved walking, as I still find be-  ing on foot the most conducive way of connecting to a place,  but I also saw Great Britain from train windows, inside region-  al art galleries and pubs, and on boats and local buses.

So this is not (just) a travel guide. It is a book about how to  observe the detail and truly experience being in a place. Its aim  is to inspire you to be curious, to take your time and really look.  To see the rich diversity that makes up our land, and perhaps  to get out your notebook and reinterpret it for yourself.

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STOURHEAD

Woodland to Parkland

I had hoped for crisp autumn sunlight today, but it is misty and  damp in Great Bradley Wood. Most of our immediate surround-  ings are distorted in the fog, apart from a carpet of orange  leaves with moss-covered branches randomly arranged un-  derfoot, as if thrown to divine the future. Islands of star moss  appear, and single lines of ivy wind up the trunk of an alder  like decorative embroidery.

The mist makes the world ten metres away become indis-  tinct, then entirely erased, creating a geographical disconnec-  tion to our surroundings. We are in a small woodland bubble  floating through a white void. The trees to our right clear, re-  vealing what should be a dramatic view towards Wiltshire and  King Alfred’s Tower, but instead the fern-covered floor just  stops, revealing only faint grey shadows of the pines on the  downwards slope. A single branch in the shape of a sinister  dinosaur bird materialises from the edge of the flat land.

These ancient woods, part of the Maiden Bradley Estate,  are a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Looking inwards, the  spaces between the skinny young ash are grey and smoky, as  

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if there is a fire in the forest. The distant trees are blurred to-  gether as if rendered in grey-green ink on wet paper or smudgy  chalk pastel. This gives the trees that are closer an ultra-distinct  quality, like they’ve been painted on the blurry backdrop with  thick black ink. The graphic shapes of this scene, emerging  from the mist, bring to mind a painted stage set.

We discover an abandoned book to the side of a path.  This atmosphere of fairy-tale foreboding cannot help but make  random things feel significant. We pass a group of dying fox-  gloves, loitering like a gang of delinquent youths. As we near  the gate we find a hydrangea bush. The tips of its shiny green  leaves are a deep red, as if they’ve been dipped in blood. The  petals of its flowers vary from pale ice blue to deep pink and  purple, as if they have been tie-dyed or the rain has caused  their colours to bleed.

On the road now we walk towards a tunnel of beech, the  world melting away to blankness around it. The trees join to  create a broad arch and at the end of the tunnel the indistinc-  tiveness merges the branches of the two trees together, brush-  strokes of yellow and green with dark marks in a curved  formation, an illusion which dissipates as we walk through it.

In the grounds of Stourhead, the view across the artificial  lake is a perfect arrangement of tall Italian alder and western  hemlock trees in a striking blend of brilliant red to muted green.  In spite of the mist, their edges burn with vitality. The elegant-  ly angular gingko tree is surrounded by a deep golden halo of  leaves. In the wooded area, leading to the grotto, we look out  through a mesh of delightfully arranged and coloured foliage.

This composed arranged scene is the vision of Henry Hoare  II and was laid out between 1741 and 1780 in a classical  eighteenth-century design that is archetypal of the landscape  movement. It is beguiling here, but knowing that this atmos-  phere is entirely contrived takes the edge off the enchantment,  especially after experiencing the way that the mist in Great  Bradley Wood transformed our surroundings into a painted,  fairy-tale stage set.

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SOUTHEND-ON-SEA

Neon and Nothingness

Something glinting catches my eye. I go closer and it is a spi-  der’s web – the tiny strands gently sparkling as I stare deeper  into its hypnotic centre.

We leave the platform and head to the High Street. It’s a  pedestrian shopping street, a combination of 1960s’ blocks and  Victorian buildings which house the ubiquitous chains found  in any town centre alongside pawn and discount gold shops.  It is 1 November, and the Christmas lights are up on the street  lamps. Spiky metal stars orbit one-dimensional Christmas trees,  their edges lumpy with tiny lights. It is so foggy that it seems as  if a sort of blankness is following us. Heading towards Royal  Terrace, I begin to make out tangled shapes of the Adventure  Island amusement park through the thick cloud.

Southend rapidly developed as a seaside resort in the Victorian  era and became a popular holiday and day trip desti-  nation for Londoners. Ross’s father remembers  it as a great day out during his post-war east  London childhood. However, the in-  creased affordability of overseas  holidays in the latter part of the twen-  tieth century saw Southend’s fall  from favour into rather seedy  disrepute. This Sunday,  it strikes me as thriving in  a scrappy sort of way.

We decide to walk a little  along Marine Parade, Adven-  ture Island on our right.  The yellow roller coaster  

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