Otherworldly
11th October 2014
Whernside And Twistleton Scar
I have commented on this before, but the Yorkshire Dales has an otherworldly feel about it. There is a sense of an older time, as if the landscape has been plucked from an age long forgotten.
As I have also remarked that I rarely experience this sense of old and ancient in many other landscapes; the exceptions being the North Cornish coast, around Zennor, Dartmoor, the West coast of Ireland (particularly Connemara), many parts of Wales, even around the busy Snowdonia National Park.
However, I do not ever get this feeling in the Lake District. Why is this?
With the Lakes, I suspect, the ancient elements that evoke a sense of otherworldliness have been subsumed by the Victorian interpretation of landscape. The Victorians sense of order and tidiness prevails across most of the district, hiding the much older cultural objects under a veneer of orderliness.
I guess I am describing the 'chocolate box' effect, where we humans have stylised our environment to become anodyne, tamed and risk free. We have 'de-wilded' the wild, whilst retaining a pretence of chaos and wilderness through carefully managed and created backdrops.
When I come upon a landscape that seems old, I am not only able to glimpse the physical aesthetic parts of this ancient world, but also experience wilder, fiercer and untamed world that is directly putting me at risk. This may be due to a combination of obvious dramatic elements such as a rocky outcrop hanging above a stream in spate. Here the shear power and ferocity of the elements combined convey a wild, and therefore, older time.
However, this is an obvious and only brief experience that moves away as quickly as the flowing waters. It is the landscape that just sits there; filling a horizon huge and wild and emanating a sense of age. These are the places I truly feel I have been transported, or given a window into a long forgotten and wilder past.
Modernity, it's safe haven, and human values are temporarily stripped away. Then you can view the landscape in a different way. Not just see it for the summit to successfully ascend, or a rough track of land to traverse, but see it as it really is. Wild, insensitive, non judgemental, whilst showing no compassion or feeling. Making us, humans, feel we have all our clothes stripped off. We are exposed, vulnerable and for once we actually 'know' the world around us.
I love the Lakes and its manicured landscape is part of its attractiveness, however, I also miss the landscapes that project a sense of another time. Places where the over bearing effect of man is not obvious. A landscape that reflects its own, immutable values, not ours.
In these places, the otherworldly nature is not palpable, rather something not quite seen, at the corner of your eye. As you turn it is gone, intangible, only a sense,an essence of 'place' is retained. This feeling, to me at least, is irresistible, addictive, compelling and driving me to find new landscapes where the 'older time' is detected. Then, through the direct comparison, I can maybe make some sense of both now and then.
I have commented on this before, but the Yorkshire Dales has an otherworldly feel about it. There is a sense of an older time, as if the landscape has been plucked from an age long forgotten.
As I have also remarked that I rarely experience this sense of old and ancient in many other landscapes; the exceptions being the North Cornish coast, around Zennor, Dartmoor, the West coast of Ireland (particularly Connemara), many parts of Wales, even around the busy Snowdonia National Park.
However, I do not ever get this feeling in the Lake District. Why is this?
With the Lakes, I suspect, the ancient elements that evoke a sense of otherworldliness have been subsumed by the Victorian interpretation of landscape. The Victorians sense of order and tidiness prevails across most of the district, hiding the much older cultural objects under a veneer of orderliness.
I guess I am describing the 'chocolate box' effect, where we humans have stylised our environment to become anodyne, tamed and risk free. We have 'de-wilded' the wild, whilst retaining a pretence of chaos and wilderness through carefully managed and created backdrops.
When I come upon a landscape that seems old, I am not only able to glimpse the physical aesthetic parts of this ancient world, but also experience wilder, fiercer and untamed world that is directly putting me at risk. This may be due to a combination of obvious dramatic elements such as a rocky outcrop hanging above a stream in spate. Here the shear power and ferocity of the elements combined convey a wild, and therefore, older time.
However, this is an obvious and only brief experience that moves away as quickly as the flowing waters. It is the landscape that just sits there; filling a horizon huge and wild and emanating a sense of age. These are the places I truly feel I have been transported, or given a window into a long forgotten and wilder past.
Modernity, it's safe haven, and human values are temporarily stripped away. Then you can view the landscape in a different way. Not just see it for the summit to successfully ascend, or a rough track of land to traverse, but see it as it really is. Wild, insensitive, non judgemental, whilst showing no compassion or feeling. Making us, humans, feel we have all our clothes stripped off. We are exposed, vulnerable and for once we actually 'know' the world around us.
I love the Lakes and its manicured landscape is part of its attractiveness, however, I also miss the landscapes that project a sense of another time. Places where the over bearing effect of man is not obvious. A landscape that reflects its own, immutable values, not ours.
In these places, the otherworldly nature is not palpable, rather something not quite seen, at the corner of your eye. As you turn it is gone, intangible, only a sense,an essence of 'place' is retained. This feeling, to me at least, is irresistible, addictive, compelling and driving me to find new landscapes where the 'older time' is detected. Then, through the direct comparison, I can maybe make some sense of both now and then.