Scottish Countryside Research Articles

"Nearest Approach to Fairyland": Mythologising Scotland in Nineteenth-Century Edinburgh Periodical Travel-Writing and Tourism Advertisements

Abstract: This article investigates descriptions of the Scottish landscape in travel writing and tourism advertisements published in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine from 1800 to 1900. Its main objective is to analyze the ways in which periodical nature writing simultaneously created a vicarious interaction with the countryside for the reader and revealed the effects that increased human presence had on the land. The essay shows how the creation of landscape narratives without a distinct narrator came to contribute to the interplay between the mythologized, untouched Scottish countryside and the physical land that was steadily changing as a result of human interference.

Media Ecologies of Plant Invasion

Abstract In popular conservation discourse, Rhododendron ponticum is portrayed as an alien invader let loose on the British countryside by misguided gardeners. In Scotland, eradication campaigns tend to be favored over more pragmatic approaches to management, even though the methods employed can be destructive and long-term success is often limited. Building on recent work critiquing categorical approaches to invasive species management, we argue that such campaigns obscure not only the underlying conditions but also the ongoing production of plant invasiveness. We focus in particular on the way perceptual processes shape and are shaped by plant “invasions” over time. Noting that the majority of plant invasions worldwide are initiated by the horticultural trade, and that visual appearance is a major factor in the selection of plants for trade, we present a framework for critically analyzing the visual conditions of horticulturally led invasion ecologies. Working from the perspective of a more-than-human, materialist media ecology, we cast rhododendrons as entities that modulate light, or “photomedia.” Our analysis explores how their invasiveness is materially produced via the cultural and socioeconomic as well as vegetal relations in which they are entangled. The site of our analysis is an abandoned country estate in western Scotland that has recently undergone R. ponticum removal. By examining the production of visual effects by rhododendrons, cameras, and other media employed there, we identify relations to land that, far from being limited to the period of R. ponticum’s “escape” into the Scottish countryside, continue in present-day projects of eradication. This yields critical visual strategies for a gentler, more experimental re-mediation of R. ponticum and invaded landscapes in general.

Klaus Friedrich Roth, 1925-2015

Klaus Friedrich Roth, 1925-2015

‘Def-i-nitely Back’: Subversion of Kailyard and Clydeside in Charles Endell Esquire

This article examines a significant, but neglected, Glasgow-set STV drama serial from 1979, Charles Endell Esquire. The article examines the way in which Charles Endell Esquire exploits and subverts classic tropes of Scottish identity to construct a liminal narrative and generic space between comedy and drama, subverting the stereotypical models of Kailyard and Clydesideism. Using the idea of ‘place-myth’, the article examines the ways in which the series’ use of location filming sets up a structuring paradigm between tradition and modernity within the city of Glasgow, and between gritty urban Glasgow Clydesideism and the rural Kailyard of the Scottish countryside.

Obituary Craig R. Pringle (1930-2015).

Obituary Craig R. Pringle (1930-2015).

Re-presenting the margins: revisiting the Scottish countryside in L. G. Gibbon’s Sunset Song

In his The Politics of Modernism: Against the New Conformists Raymond Williams comments on the gradual institutionalisation of the dominant (Anglo-American) version of modernism and the cooption of its subversive possibilities by the capitalist market dynamics, which it at least in some forms tried to challenge, or bypass, in the initial phase of its emergence in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century (Politics 35). As several critics have amply demonstrated, one of the defining features of this ‘established,’ market-governed tradition of modernism was a many-pronged ideological ambivalence in its response to social modernity. Such ambivalence or inbetweenness of the modernists, which stands in conspicuous contrast to their aesthetic radicalism, as Williams has argued, was a part of the broader ‘structure of feeling’ of dominant cultural formations in their clash with emergent ones at a specific historical context. Hence Williams’ suggestion that artistic and other institutional practices, ‘these laws, constitutions, theories, ideologies, which are so often claimed as natural, or as having universal validity or significance, simply have to be seen as expressing and ratifying the domination of a particular class’ (Problems 36-37). The dominant modernist discourses, more often than not, either prioritized the middle classes over the working classes, the masculine over the feminine, the urban over the provincial, the elite over the popular, or took an ambivalent stance in times of conflict between the two poles of these dyads. The crises the hegemonic class, gender or space faced at the turn of the century and the culture of negotiations, new compromises and new institutional practices the crises generated have been subjects of extensive critical enquiry in several disciplines. The historian Eric Hobsbawm, for one example, has devoted an entire chapter, ‘Who’s Who or the Uncertainties of the Bourgeoisie’ in his The Age of Empire 1875-1914 (165-91) to understand the nature of the culture of ambivalence which was one of the products of this crisis.

Not Only Prints: Early Republic-Era Visual Culture Research at the Library Company of Philadelphia

Scholars, the general public, and special collections libraries are increasingly aware of the importance of visual images in examining the past. With the proliferation of sophisticated digitization technologies, researchers now have the opportunity to "see" images in new ways. No longer considered secondary to text and used merely to illustrate the written word, visual materials are taking their rightful place as primary evidence that document the past and influences our understanding of the present. The Library Company of Philadelphia supports this continuing focus on the historical importance of visual culture.

Scotland: Birthplace of passive revolution?

As far as the bourgeois revolutions were concerned, Antonio Gramsci used the term ‘passive revolution’ to contrast the form taken by the Italian Risorgimento and comparable ‘revolutions from above’ with that of the French Revolution, where the main dynamic had come ‘from below’.1 The key era of passive revolution in this sense lies between 1859 and 1871. From the closing decades of the 17th century, however, a different set of circumstances had already led to a comparable revolution in Scotland which, although little known, is one of the decisive turning points for the transition in Western Europe. The context for this transformation was the global inter-systemic conflict between England and France, in which Scotland was one of the main battlefields. The process had four key moments: first, a subsistence crisis at home and imperial failure abroad, the combined effects of which sent Scottish capitalist development into reverse. Second, and in response to the first, was the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707, which dissolved the Scottish state while leaving the feudal jurisdictions of the Scottish lords intact. Third, the failure of a French-backed attempt at counter-revolution in 1745—6, which led to the military suppression and juridical abolition of feudal social relations north of the border; and fourth, the imposition of capitalist social relations in the Scottish countryside by an alliance of former feudal landlords, ‘improving’ tenant farmers and Enlightenment intellectuals, who then theorised the entire process in their discussion of ‘civil society’.

After Dolly The uses and misuses of human cloning

After Dolly The uses and misuses of human cloning

The Scottish Countryside Its Changing Face, 1700-2000

The Scottish Countryside Its Changing Face, 1700-2000

The creation of settlements in rural Scotland: Planned villages in Dumfries and Galloway, 1730–1850

Planned villages erected in the Scottish countryside in the 18th and 19th centuries did much to create the settlement structure of rural Scotland today. South‐west Scotland was affected by this movement as much as other regions of Scotland. This paper demonstrates the importance of the planned village movement to Dumfries and Galloway by ascertaining how many planned villages were erected in this region, by whom and for what purpose. The continuing importance of the planned villages is also demonstrated.

An economic assessment of informal recreation policy in the Scottish countryside

An economic assessment of informal recreation policy in the Scottish countryside

An economic assessment of informal recreation policy in the Scottish countryside

Countryside recreation policy in Scotland is currently delivered through numerous ad hoc arrangements. This paper assesses the economic effectiveness of these arrangements using cost‐benefit analysis. The benefits associated with recreation enhancements are measured using the contingent valuation method, while the costs are assessed through a survey of public and voluntary section expenditure on informal recreation. The analysis demonstrates that recreation policies are generally economically efficient in that they target enhancement programmes that are shown to generate high economic benefits. The exception to this is related to investments in visitor centres. The paper concludes that the cost‐benefit methodology adopted in this research can provide useful information for the strategic analysis of countryside recreation policy.

The countryside (Scotland) act of 1967 revisited

The recent opening‐up of the policy and precedent files relating to the promotion of the Countryside (Scotland) Act of 1967 provides opportunity for re‐assessing the significance and character of the debates leading up to the first explicit provision for what the Preamble to the Act described as ‘the better enjoyment of the Scottish countryside’. More generally, insight may be gained into the procedures and preoccupations of the ‘core executive’ of government, as they effect the ‘networking’ required for securing the support of the relevant user‐interests during the consultative and drafting stages of such legislation.

The Motion Aftereffect: A Modern Perspective

The Motion Aftereffect: A Modern Perspective

English migrants in the Scottish countryside: Opportunities for rural Scotland?

This analysis incorporates data from a detailed household survey investigating the impacts of migration in rural Scotland. Migrants of English‐origin account for one in five of the total sample and were most frequently observed in Northern Scotland. Many had moved as part of Scotland's internal migration system and were motivated by quality of life considerations. The findings suggest that English migrants are revitalising ailing rural demographic structures, but in economic and social terms they are very similar to Scottish incomers. If there is an issue regarding migration to rural Scotland it is suggested that this relates to all incomers irrespective of their origin and not solely the English.

Envisioning Future Landscapes in the Environmentally Sensitive Areas of Scotland

Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) designated under EC Structure Regulation 797/85 now cover 1.4 million ha of the Scottish countryside and are likely to make a substantial contribution to the regulation of landscape change. Visual changes to landscapes with (policy on) and without (policy off) the ESA programme in two Scottish ESA areas, Breadalbane and the Machair, are predicted through impact‐assessment procedures and computer manipulation of photographic images. The methodological requirements for such predictions are outlined and substantial differences in landscape characteristics under policy on/off scenarios are revealed. Such approaches to landscape change are an essential foundation for the development of environmental cost‐benefit analyses and will contribute to public consultation processes.

Attitudes and policies towards residential development in the Scottish countryside

This paper reports the results of a two-year study of attitudes towards residential development in the Scottish countryside, and how these impinge upon processes of policy formulation for land release. The research focused on two casestudy districts while also exploring processes of policy formulation at national and local levels. At a national (Scottish) level, the most potent influence on policy was found to be the professional ideologies of the civil service elite, with professional planners' opposition to housebuilding in the countryside increasingly challenged by the emergence of a housing professional community. At the local level, policies were the outcome of a struggle between individual councillors acting ‘parochially’ on behalf of their constituents (notably high-status, home-owners, landowners and farmers) and planning officials acting in accordance with dominant professional planning ideologies to oppose rural residential development.

Review: Traditional Farm Buildings of Britain by R. W. Brunskill; Rural Houses of the North of Ireland by Alan Gailey; Buildings of the Scottish Countryside by Robert J. Naismith; The Village in England by Graham Nicholson, Jane Fawcett; Discovering Cottage Architecture by Christopher Powell; The Historical Farm Buildings of Wales by Eurwyn Wiliam; Home-Made Homes: Dwellings of the Rural Poor

Review: Traditional Farm Buildings of Britain by R. W. Brunskill; Rural Houses of the North of Ireland by Alan Gailey; Buildings of the Scottish Countryside by Robert J. Naismith; The Village in England by Graham Nicholson, Jane Fawcett; Discovering Cottage Architecture by Christopher Powell; The Historical Farm Buildings of Wales by Eurwyn Wiliam; Home-Made Homes: Dwellings of the Rural Poor

Reviews of books

Buildings of the Scottish Countryside by Robert J. Naismith. 25.3 x 19.5, 224 pp., 131 figures, 34 diagrams and maps, glossary, bibliography, index. Victor Gollancz Ltd., London, 1985. £12.95. Cities and Services: the geography of collective consumption by Stephen Pinch. 213 pp. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985. £7.95. The Industrial Geography of Italy by Russell King. 21.5 x 13.5, 332 pp., 37 figures, 35 tables, bibliography, index. Croom Helm, London, 1985. £27.50. Update: Apartheid in South Africa, the Quaternary Ice Age and Europe's Population in the 1970s and 1980s. 29.5 x 21, 70 pp., illustrations, etc. Cambridge U.P. £3.50 each. Case Studies of Development by Nan Gallagher and Don Sinclair. 24 x 19, 176 pp. Longman, 1985. £3.95. Farming, Fishing and Transport in Britain. New Geography Project Workbook, Book Two. Ed. T. A. Fitzpatrick. 19 x 24.5, 32 pp. Longman, Harlow, 1985. 95p. Migration and Geographical change. By Philip Ogden, Cambridge University Press, 1984. £7.50 HB, £3.95 PB. People on Earth: Human Geography. By Roger Robinson and Ian Jackson, Longman, Harlow. 1984. £4.95. Man and Environment: Oceans and Seas. By Hance Smith. 96p. Bell&Hyman, London, 1985. £3.95.