Akenfield, released in 1974 and directed by Peter Hall, tells the story of a Suffolk village across three generations of the 20th century. On the day of his grandfather’s funeral, young farm worker Tom Rouse tries to decide whether to accept the offer from the farmer who employs him to move into his grandfather’s tied … Continue reading Authentic Akenfield? Rural Realism in Peter Hall’s Suffolk →

I lock my bike to an oak tree just off the Pennine Way and leave the track, walking beside the wooden post and rail fence that will take me to Foster’s Stone. On the climb up here the sun has been dazzlingly bright in a sharp blue sky, but I know it will not last. … Continue reading January, Foster’s Stone →

Ever since the arrival of ash dieback in the UK in 2012 I had been dreading seeing the first signs of it around my home. In the four years it took to see an infected tree for the first time – on the Pen, the village green across the road from my house – I … Continue reading Ashes to Ash →

It is New Year’s Eve, twenty to eight in the morning. I am standing at the end of one of the seven wooden pontoons which project into the River Blackwater from its southern bank just upstream from the Maldon Hythe Quay. The masts of more than 150 yachts, barges, smacks and dinghies, which are moored … Continue reading December, River Blackwater →

I step out of the cottage just as the sun disappears behind Dodd Fell. I ascend quickly on footpaths through the sheep pastures, chasing the leading edge of Dodd Fell’s vast shadow up the flanks of its neighbour, Wether Fell, in an attempt to enjoy a few more moments of sun on what has been … Continue reading November, Wether Fell →

The Upper Calder Valley Farm Map is a work-in-progress document which aims to establish both the extent and the narrative trajectory of the loss of small farms in the upper reaches of West Yorkshire's Calder Valley. At present, it is in the form of a snapshot view of the present; for each of the 594 … Continue reading The Upper Calder Valley Farm Map →

My house sits a few hundred yards above the River Calder on the northern side of the Callder Valley, at the base of where the valley side starts its steep ascent to the hamlet of Lower Rawtenstall. From my back door the garden immediately ascends in rising stone terraces to a lawn. Above the lawn, … Continue reading October, Knott Wood →

When I first read J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine and was captivated by the raptor-eyed vision of the natural world wrought by its astonishing prose, I was unaware of just how familiar to me was the landscape in which it takes place. We can deduce from the text that the county that Baker’s birds soared above … Continue reading The Anonymous Landscape in J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine →