2009/10/23 14:00
Brantwood House and Gardens are John Ruskin's former home and now open to the public. We meet in the café on site which is run by someone with a rather posh southern accent and the special of the day - pasta with some veg - is smaller and pricier than most cafes in London. It's Autumn holiday in the UK, and the owner makes it clear that we all need to consume.
The session started with a general introduction by Howard to the Lake District and the life of John Ruskin in context, explaining his shift of interests during his lifetime (from geology/biology to art and architecture to society and education) and his reasons for settling in the Lake District.
Interesting in regards to local production and translocal dissemination were following points :
- the landscape of Coniston Valley landscape is shaped by the historic commodifications of its resources, starting with the exploitation of its natural resources such as timber and mining for trade and (pre)industrial production, and later on its natural beauty for tourism
- the transport infrastructure (train) provided by the mining industry later facilitated early mass tourism from the nearby industrial areas of Manchester and Liverpool, who came to escape to nature and country side
- by the time Ruskin moved to Brantwood he was such a public and popular figure that he became a famous local resource, followed by a certain Ruskin tourism. People would settle to be near-by/visit his house.
- By that time his interest had shifted to more general social and political agendas and he used the gardens for small scale agricultural and botanical experiments.
- He strongly believed in domestic production in order to emancipate the working class, and in particular women. He introduced lace making from local wool in the area.
- His social and political ideas were often taken on by close friends and sympathisers who would then carry his ideas further and be instrumental in setting up large scale schemes such as the National Trust.
- He financed his experiments with the fortune inherited from his parents (wine merchants)
- Ruskin wanted the house and gardens to be small scale and private. It was the extended family of his care who required a bigger and more formal building and gardens.
Ruskin has never been acknowleged as one of the radical and influential thinkers which transformed european politics. Throughout the tour the gap between his priviliged upbringing/personal wealth and his at times worthy and patronising sounding ideas for society remained open. Some of the group started to state their dislike for him.
The tour of the garden showed some of his experiments (e.g. teraced gardens) and Howard explained how the Trust keeps applying his ideas by e.g. facilitating current forms of alternative gardening.
Current interpretations of Ruskins writings were made into temporary gardens, e.g. the one that tells the story of Dantes Inferno which contains sheep-wool and strange big red mouths, let you doubt if Ruskin is looking down with a smile or says NONO you misunderstood me !
About the Rhododendrons and the Japanese Cherry Trees Ruskin must have know, cause his cousin was planting them to fulfill here longing to non-authentic stuff. So these trees are not originally from the UK but still delightful in the autumn.
The garden is divided as it was by Ruskin, into different parts, each dedicated to different experimentation in land management and horticulture. The trust maintains these both as sites imagined by Ruskin and as places of experimentation. Particularly of interest is their recent reintroduction of coppicing. Parts of the garden are now being coppiced, ie cut righ back to the root after periods between 7 to 10 years, in this way both stimulating the re-growth of the wood and also providing firewood or timber. Barntwood produces coal with the coppice which is high quality, and is proving to be quite successful. By reinstating an activity that used to be very widely spread around this area, such work is both actively present and reinvigorating a certain cultural heritage.
website: www.brantwood.org.uk/
