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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Wittenham Clumps and Castle Hill » wittenham clumps and didcot towers |
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Rhiannon 5291 posts |
Edited Jul 29, 2014, 14:13
Jul 29, 2014, 14:11
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June, I think you must have deleted your news item about the didcot cooling towers being demolished, and people viewing from wittenham clumps? (or someone did). But i was thinking about it this morning, in fact they were talking about it on (imo the wretched) Thought For The Day. I think it's quite interesting to compare the two places. The TFTD person was saying how the towers had been a clear landscape feature on their route to visit their grandparents. And how the towers would have meant a lot of similar things to a lot of people. (Albeit they would have meant 'outrageous blot on the landscape' to a lot of people as well). So I was pondering the monumentality of such huge structures and musing that they weren't so different from the very striking Wittenham Clumps in a way. When I first saw WC from the train many years ago i could not believe my eyes, I thought they were amazing. And ok, when WC were a fort, they weren't covered in the trees that help them stand out in the landscape today. But they'd have maybe had a palisade fence, or smoke rising up, they'd still have looked distinctive. Anyway, that's just a bit of half-baked waffle. But I thought it was interesting in that it highlighted ideas about the landscape and what its features mean to us, and maybe meant to people in the past. Often on this website, people report the sites they go to in quite a scientifically detached way. And yet the sites are not often natural places, they are usually man-made and therefore maybe it's not the scientific x metres by y that are so important, it's they're bound up with cultural meanings. And even if we don't know what those meanings were when the sites were created, the sites have new meanings today. Perhaps the heat's getting to me :)
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Edited Jul 29, 2014, 15:06
Jul 29, 2014, 14:55
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Rhiannon wrote: it's not the scientific x metres by y that are so important, it's they're bound up with cultural meanings. And even if we don't know what those meanings were when the sites were created, the sites have new meanings today. The actual measures of the vast majority of prehistoric sites are unlikely to have mattered to the builders , despite the beliefs of metrologists or those seeking some interrelationship between sites ,look hard enough and ye will find some apparently auspicious measure . But as a description they are harmless and like grid refs ,potentially useful in the future to avoid confusion between sites and provide info re. extent . These details will remain while the personal beliefs about the sites will change ,"the devil/fairies did it " , "it's a computer / related to the punters beliefs about the cosmos ", "get your free energy here " , " enemies were buried here " etc ., which tells us about the beliefs of the observer ,which is great , but not much about the monument .
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Jul 29, 2014, 15:46
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Olive's Tump http://www.headheritage.co.uk/headtohead/tma/topic/53046/threaded/661222
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Jul 29, 2014, 16:04
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splendid thread .
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tjj 3606 posts |
Jul 29, 2014, 17:38
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I did delete the news item as felt once the 'event' was over it no longer seemed relevant news. Didcot Power Station did/does seem to engender ambivalence and indeed affection among a lot of people. The artist Anna Dillon (who used to post here occasionally) put some very striking photos up on FB. My own memories of it were that it was a juxtaposition to the Uffington White Horse - both landmarks to let me know I was nearly home. I went past on the train on Sunday and three of the towers are still standing so for one weird moment I thought I was seeing a ghost image. What will replace it in terms of ethical energy production - that is the big question. I know quite a few people, intelligent reasonable people, who actually campaign against solar energy parks as blots on their landscapes. Others say all new builds both residential and business should be have inbuilt solar panels on the roofs. This seems profoundly sensible.
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Jul 29, 2014, 19:06
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I get accused of being unreasonable over wind farms but isn't it reasonable to oppose SOME of them (and not others?) I think that's a lot more reasonable than the attitude of wind farm developers who are in favour of ALL of them! I guess the same applies to solar parks. I mean, a solar park developer would tell you that Avebury should have one, to save the planet....
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thesweetcheat 6213 posts |
Jul 29, 2014, 21:40
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nigelswift wrote: ... isn't it reasonable to oppose SOME of them (and not others?) I'd go along with this, context is everything (or at least quite a lot)? I dislike the impact of the proposed housing development on the context of Old Oswestry, but would have no issue with the same development being located elsewhere. I quite like windfarms, having seen quite a few up very close now. But I think they will seriously harm the Monadhliath mountains, and the sheer numbers are already badly detracting from much of Mid-Wales. The irony being that these two beautiful wild areas house hardly anyone, but are being exploited to serve populous areas elsewhere. I would feel much much more comfortable if the means of generating electricity was, where possible, sited in proximity to the community it serves. Why should we favour "out of sight, out of mind" and "not in my back yard"? Why not accept that if we want electricity we should also accept the means of its generation in our plain sight, instead of imposing it elsewhere? I do appreciate that some areas are better suited to generating wind or wave power than others, but I dislike the sanitised disassociation of placing these things elsewhere when we're the ones using them.
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Evergreen Dazed 1881 posts |
Jul 31, 2014, 10:29
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I love the Didcot cooling towers, I love windfarms. If the Neolithic people had access to that technology and these materials, they would surely have used them. It may come as a shock to some but stone circles, cairns, etc etc are not natural features. Landscape 'beauty' is a very modern thing and very subjective. I personally don't think the people of the Neolithic gave two sh*ts about 'beauty' in that sense. Drama, of a sort, perhaps, but I think they were concerned with getting results, for want of a less obviously snappy and disconcertingly vague phrase. I can just imagine locals in 2800bc, angrily waving their placards, 'Keep Avebury ditch free' and 'No Hill here'. One of my favourite views in the world is of Brightwell barrow from Castle Hill. The Cooling towers are a vital part of that view being so incredible and meaningful. I've never visited Brightwell and never will, as it won't be what I want it to be up close, but if look from the hill it can remain what its always been in my imagination.
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Jul 31, 2014, 14:13
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Messing up natural beauty is one thing, and I think you make a fair point, but there's also messing up settings and that can't be so easily dismissed as something the builders wouldn't have cared about.
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Evergreen Dazed 1881 posts |
Edited Jul 31, 2014, 14:57
Jul 31, 2014, 14:57
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I absolutely agree. It might not necessarily be what you mean by setting but if somebody wanted to put a whacking great wind turbine in front of the Brightwell barrow so I couldn't see it from Castle Hill, i'd be extremely naffed off. In a different part of that area a wind turbine could look great, but, as I think youre saying, the clumps to brightwell is a particular setting that would be spoiled.
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