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St Thomas’s Head and the Archaeology of the Mundane

St Thomas’s Head and the Archaeology of the Mundane St Thomas’s Head on the North Somerset coast was a relatively minor military installation particularly used during the Cold War for trialling explosive weapons technology in the Bristol Channel. The development and longevity of its life as a military site was a direct result of two special landscape qualities (physical seclusion and an exceptionally high tidal range), but in contrast the site’s physical fabric consists of the most ordinary, mundane and ephemeral structures and signage. Although recent years have witnessed similarly modern remains being reassessed as heritage, particularly those of industrial and Cold War sites, traditional notions regarding the appreciation of ruins remain a hindrance to their appreciation. The ordinariness of the human landscape on St Thomas’s Head, especially in contrast to its natural qualities, stands as a barrier to understanding it as a product and a reflection of the Cold War and as the working environment of its community of former employees who are commemorated only in the site’s ephemeral, ‘unlovely’ architecture. This article examines how ‘ordinary’ physical remains can be vital for understanding and experiencing a place, in terms of landscape, conflict archaeology and social archaeology. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Landscapes Taylor & Francis

St Thomas’s Head and the Archaeology of the Mundane

Gould, David
Landscapes , Volume 17 (1): 17 – Jan 2, 2016
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
ISSN
2040-8153
eISSN
1466-2035
DOI
10.1080/14662035.2016.1169037
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

St Thomas’s Head on the North Somerset coast was a relatively minor military installation particularly used during the Cold War for trialling explosive weapons technology in the Bristol Channel. The development and longevity of its life as a military site was a direct result of two special landscape qualities (physical seclusion and an exceptionally high tidal range), but in contrast the site’s physical fabric consists of the most ordinary, mundane and ephemeral structures and signage. Although recent years have witnessed similarly modern remains being reassessed as heritage, particularly those of industrial and Cold War sites, traditional notions regarding the appreciation of ruins remain a hindrance to their appreciation. The ordinariness of the human landscape on St Thomas’s Head, especially in contrast to its natural qualities, stands as a barrier to understanding it as a product and a reflection of the Cold War and as the working environment of its community of former employees who are commemorated only in the site’s ephemeral, ‘unlovely’ architecture. This article examines how ‘ordinary’ physical remains can be vital for understanding and experiencing a place, in terms of landscape, conflict archaeology and social archaeology.

Journal

Landscapes – Taylor & Francis

Published: Jan 2, 2016

Keywords: Cold War; heritage; Middle Hope; weapons testing; ruins

References

  • Inhabitants and inhabitance: archaeology and memory in industrial spaces
  • Approaches to violence
  • Defining the national archaeological character of cold war remains
  • Prospect, perspective and the evolution of the landscape idea
  • Cultural geographies in practice: military landscapes and secret science: the case of Orford Ness
  • The cold war in context: archaeological explorations of private, public and political complexity
  • Urban exploration as heritage placemaking
  • Landscapes: the social construction of nature and the environment
  • House of commons question
  • Traces of loss
  • A permanent state of decay: contrived dereliction at heritage mining sites
  • Corsham’s hidden landscape
  • Irresistible decay: ruins reclaimed
  • The hot interpretation of the cold war
  • Orford ness