landscapes
The White Peak of Derbyshire derives from the formation of limestone and its fossil base. The making of the landscape occurred over several millions of years of upheaval, and glacial and inter-glacial changes, capped by human habitation. Evidence of lead mining at Roman Lutudarum (Carsington), and in Wirksworth until modern time, have left contours of continuous communities and their associations with the land. Agriculture has long been a mainstay, the theft of land by ‘enclosure’, the mechanisation of agriculture, and the coming of manufacture and quarrying each left their trace. Tourism has flourished since the Peak District became Britain’s first National Park in 1951. Culturally, and uniquely, the celebration of fertility continues in the ancient, annual custom of Well Dressing – a summertime thanksgiving for the water of life that springs from the earth.
P111 (in three parts) Snowy Horizon, Arbor Low Part 2
Acrylic and oil on box canvases
39 X 20 inches each part
£345
P111 (in three parts) Snowy Horizon, Arbor Low Part 3
Acrylic and oil on box canvases
39 X 20 inches each part
£345
P111 (in three parts) Snowy Horizon, Arbor Low Part 1
Acrylic and oil on box canvases
39 X 20 inches each part
£345
T'Owd Man is an iconic Anglo-Saxon stone carving of a lead miner in St Mary’s Church, Wirksworth. He is a reminder of where our world and other worlds mingle in the ‘vestigial contours of a lost culture’s sacred places.’ (see Finton O’Toole (2005) White Savage. Faber and Faber.) He symbolises an intense experience of the present, but also holds a sense of being in ‘ancient time’. This is a place where, literally, I walk in the footprints of ancestors among sacred stone circles, field systems, settlements, and old lead workings. In its villages the traces of ‘time out of memory’ (see Andy Wood (1999) The politics of social conflict: The Peak Country 1520-1770. Cambridge University Press.) reside in the fertility rites of Well Dressing, distinctive local names, and the collective spirit of working the land, the lead, and the limestone.
The deep cultural meanings of T’Owd Man are described by Professor Andy Wood as the spirit of miners who had gone before; as a distant, powerful, masculine figure formed out of the collective imagination; and as the deep soul of customary consciousness. These ideas permeate today’s vibrant visual landscape of agricultural activity and former lead workings, criss-crossed with tourist trails. Such is the mingling of worlds among people who Professor Richard Hodges calls ‘Pecsaetan’ – the Peak Dwellers. (see Richard Hodges (2006) Roystone Grange: 6000 Years of a Peakland Landscape. Tempus.) Sheffield University archaeologists discovered evidence of at least 6,000 years of human habitation, connecting Roystone Grange’s current occupants with surrounding evidence of ancient love, life, and labour, at Wigber Low, Minninglow, Arbor Low, and other sacred settlement sites.
Some pictures in the Peak District series celebrate fertility in the way that it is imbued in the custom of Well Dressing, blessing the springs of the earth that sustain life. The ancient local goddess Brigantia is central to many of the scenes, usually in an embrace of love (sometimes as her north European variant Oestre in a symbolic egg formation). Hares, widely associated with fertility and the life-cycle, also appear in frenzied spiralling encounters in several pictures. The ancient burial ground and visual high point of Minninglow recurs in some pictures as a landmark of both time and space. The monumental stone circle of Arbor Low also features in some of the landscapes, set in magnificent views to its west (towards Hartington), north (towards Chelmorton / Buxton), and east (towards Over Haddon / Sheldon). This is a place where the expanse of time and space can simply be felt, just by being there.
