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Leith Hill, Surrey: Landscape, Locality and Nation in the Era of the Great War

Leith Hill, Surrey: Landscape, Locality and Nation in the Era of the Great War AbstractThe emergence of 'Pine Country' on the broken greensand hills in Surrey in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries further adorned an already picturesque landscape of rolling woods and steep hills. Fir and pine plantations embellished manorial waste and alpine villages were constructed near Leith Hill tower without any suggestion that softwoods might acquire strategic significance in a future war. Even in 1915 'Tired Londoners' were encouraged to rest amid the therapeutic, sylvan charm of an un-mobilised other worldly landscape on the metropolitan fringe. The greensand hills were known to soldiers whose home-centred correspondence compared their charm and tranquillity to the despoliation of woodland on the Western Front. However, in 1917–1918 extraction from decorative private woodland became another indicator of total war. Surrey pines were felled as pit props on the demand of the Timber Supplies Department, but the toppling of fir trees near Leith Hill provoked local custodial protests. In April 1918 the remarkable dualities of preservation or extraction, beauty or utility, locality or nation, reflected the renewed importance of private patriotism amid distinctive home landscapes in time of war. A vigorous dialogue ensued between 'public advantage' and 'military imperatives' regarding the value of 'beauty spots'. Leith Hill woods were saved from the woodcutter. Five years later local residents remobilised themselves to ensure that Leith Hill tower, for sale as part of the outlying Wotton estate, was given to the National Trust so that it would not be acquired by a 'char-a-banc Company'. Perhaps, its prospect and vistas, appreciated in war, had become a national asset in peace. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Landscapes Taylor & Francis

Leith Hill, Surrey: Landscape, Locality and Nation in the Era of the Great War

Grieves, Keith
Landscapes , Volume 9 (2): 25 – Sep 1, 2008
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2008 Maney Publishing
ISSN
2040-8153
eISSN
1466-2035
DOI
10.1179/lan.2008.9.2.45
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractThe emergence of 'Pine Country' on the broken greensand hills in Surrey in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries further adorned an already picturesque landscape of rolling woods and steep hills. Fir and pine plantations embellished manorial waste and alpine villages were constructed near Leith Hill tower without any suggestion that softwoods might acquire strategic significance in a future war. Even in 1915 'Tired Londoners' were encouraged to rest amid the therapeutic, sylvan charm of an un-mobilised other worldly landscape on the metropolitan fringe. The greensand hills were known to soldiers whose home-centred correspondence compared their charm and tranquillity to the despoliation of woodland on the Western Front. However, in 1917–1918 extraction from decorative private woodland became another indicator of total war. Surrey pines were felled as pit props on the demand of the Timber Supplies Department, but the toppling of fir trees near Leith Hill provoked local custodial protests. In April 1918 the remarkable dualities of preservation or extraction, beauty or utility, locality or nation, reflected the renewed importance of private patriotism amid distinctive home landscapes in time of war. A vigorous dialogue ensued between 'public advantage' and 'military imperatives' regarding the value of 'beauty spots'. Leith Hill woods were saved from the woodcutter. Five years later local residents remobilised themselves to ensure that Leith Hill tower, for sale as part of the outlying Wotton estate, was given to the National Trust so that it would not be acquired by a 'char-a-banc Company'. Perhaps, its prospect and vistas, appreciated in war, had become a national asset in peace.

Journal

Landscapes – Taylor & Francis

Published: Sep 1, 2008

References

  • ‘Introduction. Meaning and Action’
  • ‘The British Working Man in Arms’
  • ‘Landscape and Landschaft’
  • ‘Vaughan Williams’
  • ‘Fleets, Forests and Follies: Supremacy of the Seas and of the Eye’
  • ‘Victorian Rural Landscapes’
  • Patriotic Views. Aristocratic Ideology and the Eighteenth Century Landscape
  • ‘The Roses of Picardy’
  • lack Fane's Early Days on Leith Hill'