tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/national-trust-15005/articlesNational Trust – The Conversation2023-01-04T13:27:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1961292023-01-04T13:27:28Z2023-01-04T13:27:28ZWilliam Wordsworth and the Romantics anticipated today’s idea of a nature-positive life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502403/original/file-20221221-12-9wf35m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C6%2C1491%2C1129&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wiliam Wordsworth lived and wrote in Grasmere, in England's Lake District, from 1799-1808.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Grasmere_from_Stone_Arthur.jpg">Mick Knapton/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Musical performances usually happen in concert halls or clubs, but famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma is exploring a new venue: U.S. national parks. In a project called <a href="https://www.yo-yoma.com/news/yo-yo-ma-at-the-grand-canyon-big-time-and-our-common-nature/">Our Common Nature</a>, Ma is performing in settings such as the Great Smoky Mountains and the Grand Canyon. By making music and bringing people together in scenic places, Ma aims to help humans understand where they fit in the natural world.</p>
<p>“What if there’s a way that we can end up thinking and feeling and knowing that we are coming from nature, that we’re a part of nature, instead of just thinking: What can we use it for?” Ma mused in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/arts/music/yo-yo-ma-our-common-nature.html">recent New York Times article</a>. </p>
<p>There’s a buzzword for this outlook: nature-positive. And it’s cropping up at high-level meetings, including the 2021 <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/50363/g7-2030-nature-compact-pdf-120kb-4-pages-1.pdf">G-7 summit in Cornwall, England</a> and the COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal that adopted an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/climate/biodiversity-cop15-montreal-30x30.html">ambitious framework for protecting nature</a> in December 2022.</p>
<p>As a group of environmental leaders <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/what-is-nature-positive-and-why-is-it-the-key-to-our-future/">wrote in 2021</a>: “A nature positive approach enriches biodiversity, stores carbon, purifies water and reduces pandemic risk. In short, a nature positive approach enhances the resilience of our planet and our societies.” </p>
<p>This is a dramatic shift from the mentality that has driven industrialization and global economic growth over the past 250 years. But it’s not new. As a researcher in the humanities and author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Wordsworth-Poet-Changed-World/dp/0300169647">Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World</a>,” I see nature positivity as a welcome revival of an outlook that English poet William Wordsworth and other Romantics proposed in the late 1700s.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cEavsIoMxn8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Cellist Yo-Yo Ma plays ‘In the Gale,’ an original piece for The Birdsong Project, a collaboration to support bird conservation.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The birth of the sublime</h2>
<p>In the preindustrial era, when life was dominated by hard manual labor, wild nature wasn’t viewed as a terribly attractive place. In the 1720s, writer Daniel Defoe, <a href="https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/tour-through-the-whole-island-of-great-britain-ebook.html">touring across the island of Great Britain</a>, denounced the mountains and lakes of northwest England as “the wildest, most barren and frightful of any that I have passed over.” </p>
<p>The mountains were horrible to look at, impossible to pass over and, worst of all, had “no lead mines and veins of rich ore, no Coal Pits,” Defoe wrote. They were “all barren and wild, of no use or advantage either to Man or Beast.” </p>
<p>Attitudes began to change a generation later, with the expansion of a middle class that had the leisure and resources to enjoy a spot of tourism. Early guidebooks gave directions to viewpoints, or “stations,” that opened onto spectacularly beautiful vistas. </p>
<p>Philosophers and poets began to view natural phenomena such as ocean waves, lightning flashes over a mountain or the darkness of old-growth forests with awestruck pleasure rather than fear. They called these sights the “sublime,” a word that we still reach for when contemplating, say, the vastness of the Arctic or the Amazon. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/obituaries/barry-lopez-dead.html">Barry Lopez</a>, author of “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/103565/arctic-dreams-by-barry-lopez/">Arctic Dreams</a>,” once wrote, the “sublime encounter” with such places offers us a profound “resonance with a system of unmanaged, nonhuman-centered relationships”.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The aurora borealis, or northern lights, have become a modern tourist draw that attracts people to remote northern locations.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Romanticism emerged as the steam engine and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/spinning-jenny">spinning jenny</a> were driving mass urbanization. As workers flocked from farms to grimy cities in search of manufacturing jobs, a reaction set in: yearning for a return to nature. This became the hallmark of the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roma/hd_roma.htm">Romantic movement</a> that flourished across Europe through the mid-1800s. </p>
<h2>‘A sort of national property’</h2>
<p>Many writers, thinkers and artists contributed to this outpouring of nature-positivity. Beethoven’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/06/12/5478661/beethovens-symphony-no-6-in-f-major-op-68">Pastoral Symphony</a> and the <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558">paintings of J. M. W. Turner</a> are examples. But in the English-speaking world, none were more influential than <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2020/04/radical-lessons-william-wordsworth-250-years-jonathan-bate-biography-review">Wordsworth</a> (1770-1850).</p>
<p>Born and raised in England’s Lake District, Wordsworth felt alienated from fellow students at Cambridge. As an aspiring journalist in London, he was stunned to discover that many people did not know their next door neighbor’s name. Only when Wordsworth returned to nature – first in the English west country and then when he went home to the Lakes – did he become his true self and write his greatest poetry. </p>
<p>In verse and prose, Wordsworth made a series of revolutionary claims. In the preface to his 1800 collection of poems, “<a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lyrical_Ballads_(1800)/Volume_2">Lyrical Ballads</a>,” he argued that men and women who live indigenously within a natural environment are uniquely in tune with “the essential passions of the heart” because their very humanity is “incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502420/original/file-20221221-12-8i9x3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portrait of a man with arms folded, standing on a rocky point" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502420/original/file-20221221-12-8i9x3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502420/original/file-20221221-12-8i9x3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502420/original/file-20221221-12-8i9x3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502420/original/file-20221221-12-8i9x3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502420/original/file-20221221-12-8i9x3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502420/original/file-20221221-12-8i9x3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502420/original/file-20221221-12-8i9x3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Wordsworth on Helvellyn,’ a mountain in the Lake District (1842), by Benjamin Robert Haydon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth#/media/File:Wordsworth_on_Helvellyn_by_Benjamin_Robert_Haydon.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/guide-to-the-lakes-9780198848097">Guide to the Lakes</a>,” Wordsworth warned against such innovations as planting non-native conifers that spoiled the beauty and eroded the soil of his native region. Instead, he proposed preserving places of outstanding natural beauty like the Lake District as “a sort of national property.” </p>
<p>This idea later would help to <a href="https://exhibits.lib.byu.edu/wordsworth/">inspire the U.S. national park system</a> and England’s <a href="https://www.hdrawnsley.com/index.php/2-uncategorised/111-no-man-is-an-island">National Trust</a>. Today the concepts of <a href="https://theconversation.com/protecting-30-of-earths-surface-for-nature-means-thinking-about-connections-near-and-far-180296">conservation zones and protected areas</a> are central to the goal of a nature-positive world.</p>
<p>Inspired by Wordsworth’s idea that the health of human society depends on a healthy relationship with the environment, the great Victorian social thinker <a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/arts-blog/john-ruskin-environmental-campaigner">John Ruskin</a> turned economic theory on its head. In polemical pamphlets and public lectures, Ruskin argued that the basis of what was then known as “political economy” should be not labor and capital, production and consumption, but “<a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/energy-government-and-defense-magazines/white-thorn-blossom">Pure Air, Water, and Earth</a>.” </p>
<p>Almost exactly 150 years later, on July 28, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3982508?ln=en">resolution</a> recognizing a universal human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CmTUNuTu27X/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Colonial conservation?</h2>
<p>Wordsworth’s influence on the conservation movement wasn’t entirely benign. Late in life, he lamented that his very advocacy of the beauty of the Lake District had brought in a mass tourist industry that had the potential to <a href="https://www.johndobson.info/Tourists/NumberedPages/Page_39.php">destroy the very beauty he sought to preserve</a>. </p>
<p>Furthermore, protecting wild places risks displacing indigenous peoples who have lived in harmony with the land for centuries. Creating conservation zones and protected areas in the rain forests of Central America and the Amazon basin has sometimes <a href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/12/08/conservation-zones-exclude-indigenous-people-drive-deforestation-report/">shut out local tribes</a>. </p>
<p>Organizations such as the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/sierra-club-apologizes-founder-john-muir-s-racist-views-n1234695">Sierra Club</a> and the <a href="https://theecologist.org/2016/mar/29/century-theft-indians-national-park-service">U.S. National Park Service</a> are now striving to transcend this long history of “<a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/conservation-policy-and-indigenous-peoples">colonial conservation</a>.” The importance of working together with indigenous peoples and learning from their time-honored values and conservation practices received new attention at major conferences on climate change and biodiversity in 2022, although some observers argued that the resulting commitments <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/words-that-didnt-make-the-cut-what-happened-to-indigenous-rights-at-cop27/">fell short</a> of <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/cop15-biodiversity-conference-fails-protect-indigenous-peoples-rights">what was needed</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1605112015835566081"}"></div></p>
<p>In my view, Wordsworth knew that the truly nature-positive are those whose livelihoods and senses of self and community are wholly bound to their native places. As he wrote in “<a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lyrical_Ballads_(1800)/Volume_2/Michael">Michael</a>,” the great pastoral poem at the climax of “Lyrical Ballads”:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> And grossly that man errs, who should suppose
That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks,
Were things indifferent to the Shepherd’s thoughts.
... these fields, these hills
Which were his living Being even more
Than his own blood—what could they less? had laid
Strong hold on his affections, were to him
A pleasurable feeling of blind love,
The pleasure which there is in life itself.
</code></pre><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Bate does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea that human activity threatens nature, and that it is important to protect wild places, dates back to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.Jonathan Bate, Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881692022-08-09T17:17:22Z2022-08-09T17:17:22ZCastlefield Viaduct: Manchester’s new park in the sky could transform the city – but who will benefit?<p>In July 2022, Manchester welcomed the newest addition to its roster of urban parks. Owned by the National Trust, the <a href="https://confidentials.com/manchester/castlefield-viaduct-to-become-mini-high-line">Castlefield Viaduct</a> is a Grade II-listed, 19th-century railway bridge that has been redevelopped into a new <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/gallery/manchesters-new-park-skies-top-24630409">330m-long sky park</a>.</p>
<p>The project is part of a wider repurposing of brownfield and former industrial space in Manchester with <a href="https://mayfieldmanchester.co.uk/">several</a> other <a href="https://www.urbansplash.co.uk/regeneration/projects/new-islington">projects</a> promoting the city as a go-to place for innovative urban development in housing and <a href="https://theconversation.com/green-space-access-is-not-equal-in-the-uk-and-the-government-isnt-doing-enough-to-change-that-177598">green and open space</a>. Under construction, in particular, is <a href="https://victorianorth.co.uk/">Victoria North</a>, a new neighbourhood of 15,000 new homes across a 155-hectare site in the north of the city. This includes City River Park, a huge new <a href="https://themanc.com/news/theres-a-huge-new-113-acre-city-river-park-coming-to-north-manchester/">“recreational corridor”</a>, according to the proposals, along the River Irk. </p>
<p>For now, the National Trust is operating Castlefield Viaduct as a 12-month trial. Entry is free but ticketed and limited to 100 visitors per day on allocated one-hour slots each afternoon. Due to the extensive publicity campaign, high demand has led to the National Trust website crashing. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Colourful plants in a plant bed along a walkway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477495/original/file-20220803-20-i3l558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477495/original/file-20220803-20-i3l558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477495/original/file-20220803-20-i3l558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477495/original/file-20220803-20-i3l558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477495/original/file-20220803-20-i3l558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477495/original/file-20220803-20-i3l558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477495/original/file-20220803-20-i3l558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">3,000 plant species greet visitors on the new walkway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Mell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The idea behind the trail is to generate political and financial support to create a longer park extending westwards (the current layout only covers a proportion of the total viaduct area) and make it permanent. </p>
<p><a href="https://manchestermill.co.uk/p/will-this-be-the-site-of-greater">Initial reactions</a> to the Castlefield Viaduct have been positive. Local charity Castlefield Forum, which is set to have its <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/podcast-dubbed-a-real-love-24639695">own community plot</a> on the bridge, has <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-spirit-of-castlefield/id1637262135">launched a podcast</a> to tell the area’s stories. </p>
<p>Access to green and open space is urgently needed in central Manchester. However, as my <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsc.2022.731975/full">research</a> on <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1527">access to nature</a> and regeneration shows, there is no guarantee that simply having green space makes people use it. Location, access routes and amenities all influence usage. Exactly who stands to benefit from a project like Castlefield Viaduct becoming a permanent feature of the city skyline is a crucial question. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Steel beams cross over a planted walkway on a bridge platform." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477485/original/file-20220803-9305-e9bmxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477485/original/file-20220803-9305-e9bmxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477485/original/file-20220803-9305-e9bmxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477485/original/file-20220803-9305-e9bmxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477485/original/file-20220803-9305-e9bmxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477485/original/file-20220803-9305-e9bmxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477485/original/file-20220803-9305-e9bmxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Castlefield Viaduct brings a new, industrial aesthetic to Manchester’s green spaces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Mell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A Victorian structure revisited</h2>
<p>Built in 1892, the bridge was left derelict after 1969, when Manchester Central Station, now the Manchester Central Convention Complex, was taken out of service. Repurposing an abandoned site with little access, socio-economic worth or ecological value into a public park is a sign that Manchester city council, the landowner of the viaduct, is willing to test new approaches to urban greening. </p>
<p>Initial designs for the site were <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2021/07/07/castlefield-viaduct-twelve-architects-landscape-urbanism-manchester/">drawn up</a> by London studio Twelve Architects. Founding director Matt Cartwright explained in 2021 that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s39Pz_ZeiMg">the brief</a> included creating “moments of joy”. On a recent visit, I found the site is divided into three distinct zones linking the viaduct’s past, present and future journeys. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Seats, planted beds and a light coloured pathway on a bridge." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477492/original/file-20220803-18-3zaw0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477492/original/file-20220803-18-3zaw0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477492/original/file-20220803-18-3zaw0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477492/original/file-20220803-18-3zaw0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477492/original/file-20220803-18-3zaw0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477492/original/file-20220803-18-3zaw0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477492/original/file-20220803-18-3zaw0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Motifs of the bridge’s structure are repeated in the landscaping of the park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Mell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The opening section draws on the railway motifs of trellis architecture to guide people into the site. The second introduces the 3,000 planted species – from <a href="https://twitter.com/mcrconfidential/status/1537395343779848195">cotton grass and ferns</a> to <a href="https://ilovemanchester.com/plants-urban-sky-park-castlefield-viaduct">fennel, Broom and fleabane</a> – in a range of planters, highlighting the biodiversity of the local environment. </p>
<p>The third, meanwhile, which you can currently see, but not acccess, from the visitors centre, offers views on to where the site may go physically and conceptually. These various spaces blend with the sound of the passing trams. You are keenly aware of being in both a park and in a layer of the city’s history. The linear nature of the site underscores the notion of travel between the zones – as a visitor, you walk there and back again. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5nqbvK9koSk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>How Mancunians need more green</h2>
<p>Castlefield is thus doted with a unique conceptual motif and a novel industrial aesthetic, as compared to other parks in Manchester. It remains to be seen, though, whether the design and the fact that it is located in an area of largely privately rented and owned flats will attract locals or serve primarily as a tourist attraction for visitors. </p>
<p>When the <a href="https://www.the606.org/">606</a> linear park opened in Chicago in 2015, local residents <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-606-bloomingdale-trail-gentrification-met-20150605-story.html">reportedly expressed fears</a> they would be priced out of their neighbourhoods. <a href="https://www.chicagoreporter.com/green-gentrification-and-lessons-of-the-606/">Reports</a> in 2020 revealed that the park had indeed triggered luxury developments and long-term local residents being displaced. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00139157.2021.1871293">Research shows</a> how similar developments, including New York’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-australia-build-a-new-york-highline-19681">High Line</a>, can lead to what economists have dubbed <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169204619314574">eco-gentrification</a>. </p>
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<p><a href="https://www.gmpovertyaction.org/groundwork-out-of-bounds/">Research</a> has also shown how much need there is for green space in Manchester. The city centre currently has very <a href="https://www.lancswt.org.uk/sites/default/files/2018-04/MBY-ActionPlan.pdf">few public green spaces</a>, and even fewer that provide play facilities or access to nature. According to <a href="https://www.lancswt.org.uk/sites/default/files/2018-04/MBY-ActionPlan.pdf">Friends of the Earth</a>, over 73% people across Manchester have poor or limited access to a personal garden or a communal green space. Covid <a href="https://www.groundwork.org.uk/lockdown-and-beyond-green-spaces-are-more-important-than-ever/">lockdowns</a> highlighted how significant this lack of access to green space is, especially for those with families. </p>
<p>The redevelopment of the Castlefield Viaduct presents an interesting conundrum for Manchester and other UK cities. High-quality and potentially exclusive locations that are inaccessible can nonetheless act as a catalyst for green-space investment linked to regeneration programmes like <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283320811_Resilient_Cities_A_Grosvenor_Research_Report">Grosvenor’s Living Cities</a>. This strategy provides increased certainty for investors but primarily serves specific communities, that is, those who can afford market-rate apartments. </p>
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<p>We also need look beyond the financing of high-end projects towards a more locally attuned approach to green space provision. Urban planning expert <a href="https://extra.shu.ac.uk/ppp-online/blame-it-on-austerity-examining-the-impetus-behind-londons-changing-green-space-governance/">Meredith Whitten</a> has shown how this would focus on local provision for meeting people’s everyday needs to interact with nature, play outside and live in a biodiverse landscape. </p>
<p>This requires sufficient public funding to be allocated to local government to support <a href="https://theconversation.com/green-space-access-is-not-equal-in-the-uk-and-the-government-isnt-doing-enough-to-change-that-177598">capital and revenue spend on public parks</a> –- something not seen in the UK over the last 12 years.</p>
<p>By drawing on the industrial heritage of the city, Castlefield Viaduct makes strong links to its fabled Cottonopolis heritage. The park also sets out a bold statement of intent, that redundant spaces in Manchester can be meaningful, accessible and interactive. Of course, integrating industrial chic with urban regeneration is <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsc.2022.731975/full">nothing new</a>. But it is new in Manchester. This could be the start of something beautiful.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Mell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Turning a disused Victorian railway bridge into an elevated walkway and garden has the potential to rejuvenate a forgotten part of the city.Ian Mell, Reader in Environmental & Landscape Planning, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/955352018-04-26T09:56:05Z2018-04-26T09:56:05ZHas the National Trust forgotten the radical countryside?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216467/original/file-20180426-175035-4yefd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mam Tor, Peak District.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-hikers-walk-along-great-ridge-547057717?src=6Dah0_2nGxkTq0TYP41VjQ-1-63">Muessig/Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In her first interview since taking the helm, new director-general of the National Trust <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/press-release/national-trust-names-its-new-director-general">Hilary McGrady</a> has said she wants things to get “radical” at the charity, by looking to more urban conservation. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43819762">McGrady told the BBC</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to reach more people, and more people live in urban areas. The days of walking in to one of our beautiful houses and saying a family lived here, that’s not going to do it.</p>
<p>We need to think about what’s relevant – why would someone in the middle of Birmingham say that’s interesting? What is it in Birmingham that they would get more value from?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The future McGrady sees is one where the trust expands its conservation role into cities by working with organisations including community groups and local authorities. But who is to say that the countryside can’t be just as radical?</p>
<h2>Don’t tell the Dowager</h2>
<p>Surprisingly, McGrady might find an unlikely ally in Downton Abbey character the Dowager Countess of Grantham. In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4581398/?ref_=ttep_ep6">a 2015 episode</a> that saw Downton’s doors open to the public for a fundraiser day, the dowager countess poured scorn: “Roll up! Visit an actual dining room complete with a real life table and chairs!” She would have called for a stiff drink had she learned what was ahead – in 2017 alone, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41361095">24.5m visitors</a> paid to tour a National Trust property. </p>
<p>Downton doesn’t show us the National Trust, but plotlines about fading grandeur and financial ruin fill us in on the crises that befell country houses after the First World War. Many a threatened house ended up in National Trust care, including <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/knole">Knole</a>, and <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/basildon-park">Basildon Park</a> – home to some of Downton’s interior sets. <a href="https://www.highclerecastle.co.uk">Highclere Castle</a>, the “real” Downton Abbey, is still in private hands, but open to the public in summer.</p>
<p>But was stockpiling country houses really in the national interest? Back in the 1980s, the academic and writer Patrick Wright railed against preserving country piles. For him, the “heritage industry” was deeply conservative and out of touch. He might be pleased to see Hilary McGrady finally catching up. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Knole House, Kent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/knole-house-sevenoaks-kent-england-86307922?src=HzuCwreUjFZf-XH0hR3FpA-1-23">Standa Riha/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>However, as a rural researcher, I’m troubled by how McGrady’s idea of “radical” means “urban”. She’s talking Birmingham, not Betws-y-Coed. It’s as if nothing radical could happen in the countryside, and nothing countryside could matter to city-dwellers. </p>
<p>Imagine telling that to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/apr/17/kinder-scout-mass-trespass-anniversary">Kinder Scout trespassers</a>. 86 years ago this week, they claimed the right to roam against violent landowner opposition. Many trespassers came from the nearby cities of Manchester and Sheffield. They saw in the countryside not just rights worth fighting for, but a refuge from industrial smoke and graft. Some went to jail for the cause – and are <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/kinder-edale-and-the-dark-peak/trails/kinder-scout-mass-trespass-walk">commemorated by the National Trust</a>. </p>
<h2>Rural radicals</h2>
<p>Though the dowager countess would have released the hounds, at least one Downton resident might have joined in on a mass trespass. Kitchen maid Daisy cheered on the Abbey’s open day: “I think all these houses should be open to the public. What gives them the right to keep people out?”</p>
<p>Rights and justice have spurred on many a rural radical. The 19th century <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/">Luddites are now wrongly remembered</a> as stick-in-the-muds, but their fight was for <a href="http://protesthistory.org.uk/moors/rural-resistance-and-the-swing-riots">livelihoods and labour rights</a>. They met out on the moors, where non-conformist preachers – radically outside the stuffy established church – also roused crowds who gathered from miles around. A few centuries earlier, non-conformism led the <a href="https://www.wcml.org.uk/our-collections/protest-politics-and-campaigning-for-change/gerrard-winstanley-and-the-english-diggers/">Diggers</a> to their radical vision for farming common land. Fast forward to our own time and a piece of former commons was reclaimed as the <a href="http://www.greenhamwpc.org.uk">Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp</a>. </p>
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<span class="caption">Worm’s Head, south Wales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rhossili-wales-september-6-2016-old-622504568?src=6Dah0_2nGxkTq0TYP41VjQ-1-13">Tanasut Chindasuthi/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>We needn’t just look back through history for radical rural goings-on. Too often, the countryside gets imagined as though it is a kind of surviving past, a bit simple, and more prone to outbreaks of Morris dancing than anything actually interesting. I suspect this is why Hilary McGrady thinks that a more relevant National Trust must be a more urban one. A real radical plan could be quite otherwise. </p>
<p>The countryside is and can be innovative. Through the <a href="http://rural-urban.eu">ROBUST</a> project, I’m joining with colleagues from across Europe to rethink the narrow notion that if cities are economic engines, then the countryside is just a carriage pulled along for the ride. We’re investigating better and more beneficial interconnections between rural and urban – even the middle of Birmingham. </p>
<p>I take a cue from another radical, William Morris. There’s probably some of the Victorian designer’s wallpaper in Downton, and the dowager countess would have approved of his soft furnishings. But he would have found more to talk about downstairs with Daisy. For Morris, utopia wasn’t back in a staid rural past or ahead in a science fiction city: he saw a <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3261">radical rural future</a>. Perhaps a radical National Trust might be just as visionary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryonny Goodwin-Hawkins receives funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 programme. </span></em></p>New director-general Helen McGrady is looking to cities for a ‘radical’ future at the National Trust.Bryonny Goodwin-Hawkins, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Geography, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/395182015-04-02T05:28:41Z2015-04-02T05:28:41ZFive incredible old English homes built by women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76642/original/image-20150331-1229-9rhux0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The initials 'ES' on the parapets are those of Elizabeth Talbot, who built Hardwick Hall.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/adteasdale/8498283586">adteasdale</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We tend to think of the landowners, architects and builders of the past as men, just as we do its politicians, rulers and artists. Women rarely get a look in. But research is uncovering more and more historical examples of women who played a leading role in society, politics or the arts – and the public, it seems, are fascinated. Take Amanda Vickery’s recent series on <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01y5qg3/episodes/guide">The Story of Women and Art</a> for example, or the idea that <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/11188153/Did-Bachs-wife-write-his-finest-works.html">Bach’s wife</a> composed some of his finest works. </p>
<p>Likewise, research on the histories of the British landscape is suggesting that women owned far more land than was once thought – and this despite the fact that before the late 19th century the law made it difficult for married women to own property of any sort. As a result, we’re also recognising that women played a far greater role in designing, commissioning and building country houses, gardens and parklands than was once imagined. </p>
<p>The nature of surviving historical sources means that women’s contributions are often poorly recorded, but there are exceptions – and we’re uncovering ever more of them. So as the National Trust and English Heritage open their properties to the public for the summer, why not pop along and visit a country house where the influence of a woman in its past is plain to see? Here are a few suggestions to get you going.</p>
<h2>Temple Newsam</h2>
<p>This vast <a href="http://www.leeds.gov.uk/museumsandgalleries/Pages/Temple-Newsam.aspx">Tudor/Jacobean house</a> stands in grounds near Leeds that were landscaped by <a href="http://www.capabilitybrown.org/lancelot-capability-brown">Capability Brown</a>. Originally built for Thomas, Lord Darcy (who came to a grizzly end after rebelling against Henry VIII), the house was remodelled in the late 18th century by Frances Ingram, Viscountess Irwin, a highly involved female patron. </p>
<p>Her whopping £60,000 dowry – worth more than £7m in today’s money – had been used to fund improvements to the house and grounds in her husband’s lifetime, but it was only after his death that she was really bitten by the building bug. As a widow, she demolished and rebuilt the entire south wing “for the sole pleasure in building [it] up again” – as she put it – and redecorated much of the rest of the house.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76637/original/image-20150331-1259-1ncfsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76637/original/image-20150331-1259-1ncfsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76637/original/image-20150331-1259-1ncfsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76637/original/image-20150331-1259-1ncfsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76637/original/image-20150331-1259-1ncfsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76637/original/image-20150331-1259-1ncfsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76637/original/image-20150331-1259-1ncfsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Temple Newsam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/theracephotographer/15447211640">theracephotographer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>Weston Park</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.weston-park.com/">Weston Park</a> is a Palladian-style mansion in Staffordshire largely designed and built by Lady Elizabeth Wilbraham in the 1670s. Weston was her childhood home and while her husband was the legal owner, Wilbraham seems to have retained considerable control of the property during her marriage. We know she was heavily involved in both the design of the new hall and the financial management of the building work, and she’s <a href="http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/Default.aspx?id=271611&mode=adv">often hailed as the architect of the house</a>.</p>
<h2>A la Ronde</h2>
<p>An unusual 16-sided house near Exmouth, <a href="http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/a-la-ronde/">A la Ronde</a> was designed by cousins Jane and Mary Parminter in the 1790s. Somewhat unusually for women at the time, the Parminters had spent nearly a decade travelling in Europe and were apparently inspired by a visit to the octagonal chapel of San Vitale at Ravenna (Italy). The Exmouth property was small and there was no tenanted agricultural land, but the cousins also designed and built a chapel, almshouses and school in the grounds just as much wealthier women did on their estates.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76634/original/image-20150331-1253-14iv5y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76634/original/image-20150331-1253-14iv5y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76634/original/image-20150331-1253-14iv5y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76634/original/image-20150331-1253-14iv5y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76634/original/image-20150331-1253-14iv5y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76634/original/image-20150331-1253-14iv5y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76634/original/image-20150331-1253-14iv5y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A la Ronde.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/charliedave/4993335054">charliedave</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>Hardwick Hall</h2>
<p>Built by Elizabeth Talbot, countess of Shrewsbury (better known as Bess of Hardwick) <a href="http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hardwick/">Hardwick Hall</a> is perhaps the most well-known country house in Britain built by a female landowner. Bess was born into a minor gentry family in Derbyshire, but was a woman of great ambition: she married four times, and the property left to her by her four dead husbands eventually made her the richest woman in England. </p>
<p>She oversaw the building of Chatsworth Hall from about 1550 onwards, and later built not one, but two, grand houses at Hardwick. Soon after finishing the Old Hall in 1591, she began to build the adjacent New Hall, a vast house known for its glittering glass façade and unusual floor plan. Visitors should look out for Bess’s initials “ES”, highlighted for posterity in parapets of the towers and elsewhere in the house.</p>
<h2>Belvoir Castle</h2>
<p>Elizabeth Manners, fifth duchess of Rutland, was credited by contemporaries both as the driving force behind the rebuilding of <a href="http://www.belvoircastle.com/">Belvoir Castle</a> in the 1820s and the principal manager of the family’s Leicestershire estate. As one friend noted at the duchess’s death in 1825, the duke “did nothing for himself, and his estates, his horses, his family, everything was under her rule”.</p>
<p>While it’s unclear how far this was a fair assessment of the duke’s contribution, the duchess certainly oversaw landscaping works to the castle grounds and took an active interest in the agricultural aspects of the property, including designing a model farm. She also made improvements to Cheveley Park (Suffolk) in the early 1800s, oversaw the building works at York House on the Mall for her lover the Duke of York and drew up designs for a new palace for George IV.</p>
<p>The list of such houses is growing. So, while undoubtedly disadvantaged both by the law and by societal expectations of their gender, the wives, widows and single women of the past could – and did – build grand country houses. Not all female landowners had access to the money and resources necessary to re-build or significantly extend their country residence of course, but others re-planned gardens and parklands or improved the large agricultural estates which lay beyond the park boundaries. In doing so, these women and others like them had a far greater impact on the landscapes of early modern and Georgian England than history has so far acknowledged.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Briony McDonagh is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and AHRC. Her most recent AHRC project includes impact activities stemming from her research into elite women's contributions to the landscapes of Georgian England. This includes working with organisations like English Heritage and the National Trust. The views expressed in this article are her own. </span></em></p>Women played a far greater role in designing, commissioning and building country houses, gardens and parklands than was once imagined.Briony McDonagh, Lecturer in Human Geography, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/370842015-02-19T06:13:45Z2015-02-19T06:13:45ZWolf Hall cut and pastes architecture – so is it authentic?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72398/original/image-20150218-20814-16uv1yh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Different inside and out.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Company Productions Ltd</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is 1529. Cardinal Wolsey leaves his palace at York Place, giving way to the triumphant Anne Boleyn, who holds court in the long gallery. But this York Place is not the princely residence of the Archbishops of York in London (Whitehall, between the Banqueting House and the River Thames), which burnt down in January 1698. As we sit in front of our televisions in 2015 watching the BBC television adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, we see an imagined York Place, filmed within the state rooms of Penshurst Place, Kent. </p>
<p>These are real spaces, resonant with the acoustic qualities of timber, stone and lime plaster. They offer the actors what no stage set can: a full sensory experience. But what do we as the audience get out of this substitution of one historic space for another? It is sometimes possible to spot disconcerting edits in films, as actors exit from one building into the courtyard of an unrelated place. Does it matter that architecture is cut and pasted to suit the production needs of filming? Using historic settings might signal a dramatic quest for authenticity, but there is a difference between being genuinely historic and being authentic.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72354/original/image-20150218-20806-1sfqej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72354/original/image-20150218-20806-1sfqej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72354/original/image-20150218-20806-1sfqej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72354/original/image-20150218-20806-1sfqej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72354/original/image-20150218-20806-1sfqej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72354/original/image-20150218-20806-1sfqej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72354/original/image-20150218-20806-1sfqej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Penshurst state rooms (the long gallery in red brick).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/philip_talmage/3079983963/">Philip Talmage</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>A modern audience</h2>
<p>The audience of 2015 is, after all, an audience of consumers. We consume media images with a degree of understanding about the gap between the final airbrushed edit and the mundane original. We are familiar with brands and with the process of branding that turn objects and people into desirable products. </p>
<p>The concept of authenticity is woven into business and advertising: brands promise individual self-fulfilment if we buy them, allowing us to express our authentic selves. We consume the historic settings presented on screen similarly; our perception that we are being offered genuine historic settings for a historical drama contributes materially to our enjoyment of the resulting production. A real Penshurst Place that is not York Place needs to be understood as both a genuine thing, in being a real building, and an authentic experience, in contributing to the value we get from the dramatic experience. </p>
<p>In business, authenticity is not something fixed or “real”, but rather a form of expression, whether of a style of leadership or as the values behind a brand. The term authentic in this context carries a very fluid interpretation: authenticity is created by doing something that provides an experience. </p>
<p>This is rather different from the definition of authentic most commonly applied to works of art, in the sense of being genuine – not faked or altered. There is a second and equally important definition of authentic, used by philosophers and adopted by business thinkers, and that refers to the expressive qualities within art that appeal to our senses.</p>
<p>When historic houses are used as stage sets, they are genuinely historic. But they are also used to express a set of values about the past that the drama depicts, values that are shaped by the creators of the drama.</p>
<h2>Sense of a building</h2>
<p>Penshurst Place, a beautiful medieval house with Tudor and Jacobean additions, is shown in its stage set role with its historic interiors dressed with rich textiles of the 16th century. The long gallery wasn’t built until 70 years after the period depicted in Wolf Hall, but this does not detract from its evocative appeal. </p>
<p>Getting this quality right is a challenge for location scouts and directors: the success of Castle Howard, a great Yorkshire country house used for the 1980s TV adaptation of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083390/">Brideshead Revisited</a> is the classic point of reference, where a house became a character in the drama. More commonly, historic locations are reassembled on screen to represent an imagined single place, but if the parts don’t feel right, the whole will lose its expressive authenticity.</p>
<p>Understanding authenticity as an experience also explains how historic settings are used to send signals about status and behaviour for the characters. Multiple Jane Austen adaptations offer us several ways of “seeing” how the Bennett family live, for example. </p>
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<p>And Jane Campion’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810784/">Bright Star</a>, the biographical film about the relationship between John Keats and Fanny Brawne, rejects Keats’s surviving house (a small white Regency villa) in favour of an older, more architecturally formal house to represent their shared home. This choice has a strong aesthetic role in heightening the contrast between the formal qualities of the architecture and the informality or rejection of convention expressed by the inhabitants. </p>
<p>Mike Leigh’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/mike-leighs-mr-turner-is-no-oil-painting-34291">Mr Turner</a>, on the other hand, prioritises using “complete” houses, allowing actors to move directly from entrances to interiors, which is the product of his improvisation technique. </p>
<p>All these examples show that historic buildings in TV may not be genuine. But they can still preserve a sense of the authentic: we just know it when we see it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37084/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susie West does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is 1529. Cardinal Wolsey leaves his palace at York Place, giving way to the triumphant Anne Boleyn, who holds court in the long gallery. But this York Place is not the princely residence of the Archbishops…Susie West, Lecturer in Architectural History, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.