Getting from place to place – Part 1

I’ve been following a series of blog posts by the artist Justin Partyka, which relate to photographic work he has been commissioned by the museum to undertake as part of Project Berkshire. Here Justin writes about the dramatic variations in landscape on a journey from his current fieldwork site in Berkshire back to his home in East Anglia. Justin has, of course, been getting out of his car to explore the countryside in a more direct way. Nevertheless, all of his explorations necessarily begin and end with this road-based perspective on our rural surroundings. Justin’s words hint at the valuable role that highways, byways, and other route-based means of traversing the countryside can play in the construction of ideas about place.

These themes form the backbone of various pieces of recent research activity, which variously link to the commuter experience, and to the abstracted conception of place that may be seen to emerge from such perspectives. Examples of this that the museum has become aware of over the last couple of years include the work of artist Felicity Ford which seeks to interpret the A4074 route between Oxford and Reading through the medium of sound, the PhD research of Rosie Emeny relating to how people experience the countryside from the confines of their car, and a whole series of artefacts acquired through the museum’s ongoing Heritage Lottery Fund project Collecting 20th Century Rural Cultures.

Jigsaw puzzle depicting motorway

Jigsaw puzzle depicting a motorway

I think there may be some value in thinking about how museum objects may connect to such routes, or how such routes might form a useful platform for building links between collections and audiences. I commute by train through the varied landscape between Oxford and Reading. I often wonder what items there are amongst the collections I work with that either stem from or connect to the many different places I see each day I travel along this route.

Cataloguing continues apace!

The project team have just completed their 3000th entry. This is fantastic news. The speed at which they have been working echoes the rapid expansion of the museum in its early years.

First public opening of the museum, 1955

So many objects and so little space!

Following its establishment in January 1951, the first few years saw expansive growth of the artefact holdings at MERL. Despite modest beginnings the response from object donors and other institutions was huge. By late 1954 the Museum already held over 3500 objects. Its first public displays opened in 1955, by which time the collections had already doubled in size to 7000 items. Perhaps this incredibly rapid expansion meant there was no other space available other than a wagon from which to hold the speeches at the public opening!

The Sense of Place team are currently working on material acquired in the early 1950s during this phase of rapid growth. I hope you will join me in congratulating our Project Officers for such swift, efficient, and effective cataloguing!

Is MERL ‘well-placed’ to foster social cohesion?

MERL is definitely not alone in recognising the value of focussing on place in relation to museums and their holdings. In the Spring 2012 newsletter of the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum, Vice-Chairman of Trustees John Godfrey raises interesting questions concerning recent social disorder within the UK and the need for young people to feel firmly rooted in the places they live. Exploring his own son’s direct experience of the London riots of 2011, he suggests that “what appears to be central to the disaffection and alienation of so many people… is the loss of a sense of place, of a common sense of shared ownership of the surroundings we share together: our shared landscapes, our shared buildings, our shared lives.” He goes on to make a compelling argument about the potential for the Weald & Downland to play a part in helping to facilitate a sense of place and belonging across society as a whole, and raises the important question of how the museum sector might contribute to developments of this kind:

‘I suggest that… the museum is well-placed to play a significant role in encouraging this sense of place amongst communities in South East England. The museum trustees, at their meeting in November, agreed a new mission statement for the museum as follows: ‘A centre of excellence for the enjoyment, learning and understanding of the built environment, landscape, rural life, and communities of South East England and the South Downs.’ But how do we fulfill this mission, how do we contribute to a growing understanding of the importance of locality in rebuilding social cohesion, trust and responsibility?’

I’m not sure that the MERL project has any firm solutions to offer at this early stage. However, once the data has been enhanced on the museum’s catalogue and the team have undertaken some trials both in the gallery and with our initial community partners, I think we might begin to offer some tentative answers. Our project is not seen as an end in itself but as a platform on which we hope to construct a new model for collections-centred engagement. By enriching the geographic data that underpins the museum’s digital resources and making these enhanced primary sources readily available, MERL can then begin to perfect the tools and techniques necessary to build lasting connections with people in locales where these materials are seen to have the most potential. This would certainly include some of the rural source communities where the artefacts already have an obvious resonance but might also include work with urban stakeholders drawn from the museum’s own doorstep. Here collections could become a useful tool in helping to ‘twin’ rural communities where a sense of place is arguably still manifest with urban areas where this sense of belonging is seen to be on the wane. Using museum collections as a focal point, the sharing of ideas about place and community might help MERL and its partners to foster greater social cohesion and a sense of shared custodianship.

To read the full column cited here see:

  • John Godfrey, ‘From the Vice-Chairman’, Weald & Downland Open Air Museum Magazine, Spring 2012, p.9 [earlier issues of this newsletter are archived here]

Hefting content onto HistoryPin

Since blogging about it, I’ve had a few conversations about the notion of hefting as a useful way of thinking about place. Extending this discussion offers a nice way for me to flag up one of the Museum’s existing partners – Historypin – and an opprtunity to encourage others to add photographic content to the Historypin site. It is particularly worth trying out some of the site’s augmented reality tools, which allow the user to overlay historic images (using Google Street View) and thus enable viewers to effectively fade between past and present. In an earlier post I also mentioned the farm in Stadhampton where my mother grew up – Brookhampton – and how this is a place that I feel a strange sense of connection to despite my only having visited since the farmhouse and steading were demolished. Historypin has enabled me to re-heft historic photos of Brookhampton, although I may need to consult family members in order to get the location exactly right!

Brookhampton Farm in the 1960s

Brookhampton Farm in the 1960s

Given my predilection for the metaphor of hefting I thought it appropriate to ‘pin’ an image of me as a youngster to the map. If you follow this link you will begin to see some of the challenges of pinning rural images and artefacts to Historypin. Rural views and objects are not necessarily connected to places that are visible from Google Street View, or indeed to easily ‘siteable’ places at all. I got my image about as close as I can manage, near to the old ‘stell’ (or dry stone sheep pen) that it depicts. If you look at the satellite view of the map you will see that there are several of these old features very close by. Although I’m fairly sure I know which one of these I am seen climbing on, I still can’t locate it precisely enough.

We hope to work closely with Historypin to begin to address some of the challenges that our project and the content it is generating might raise. We are also keen to begin pinning the museum’s artefactual collections to the places that they link to. Much like people though, objects have complex multi-sited biographies. The shepherd’s crook in the foreground of this picture is a perfect example of an artefact that is not only portable but is intended to be moved from place to place, offering a gentle reminder that outside of museum stores and displays, the things of everday life are not conveniently static!

Ollie Douglas as a youngster

At Heatherhope in the early 1980s

For those interested in the area surrounding where the image of me has been pinned, you will also see in satellite view that there is a reservoir not far to the west. This is the the old Kelso water supply. The sheep folds just to the east of where my portrait is pinned is known as Belsen. A shepherd who worked there shortly after the Second World War and who had been at the relief of Bergen-Belsen once came across the carcass of a sheep that had been left in the pen and forgotten about. He was heard to remark that the sight of this was ‘fair ******* Belsen’ and the folds has retained that name ever since. This story reminds me that there is more to place than just what we might see or the material links that we might have. The etymology and origins of placenames have a potent and valuable part to play in this discussion as well, not to mention the potential for places to gather negative as well as positive associations.

Walking and museum collections

Professor Simon Dentith recently delivered a talk as part of the MERL Seminar series entitled Cobbett’s ‘Rural Rides’: country writing at a time of change, in which he drew interesting parallels between the early 19th century travel writing of William Cobbett and the more recent exploits of the writer Will Self. This comparison was rich with insight into the complexity of literary explorations of the landscape, as well as of the places encountered along the way. For me this raised interesting questions about the rich seam of material referents that are so key to the construction of ideas about the rural past and the rural present.

As part of the project we have been giving some consideration to the ways in which ramblers and walkers might wish to explore the MERL collections, perhaps making use of online resources whilst out in the landscape itself. I was reminded of this (and of Simon Dentith’s talk) when I spoke just now to Felicity Ford about a project that she is currently undertaking with her partner Mark Stanley, entitled Walk2012. This will see them walk, not out of London as Will Self did, but into the Olympic capital, recording and charting the things they encounter on the way. As part of their exciting project they walked through a landscape that reminded them of this Museum and of things they had seen during a recent guided tour of the galleries. What more perfect a justification for the Sense of Place project could there be?

Felicity has already commented on the ‘Hefting’ posts on this blog, offering further endorsement of my hill farming metaphor. I very much hope she will continue to contribute to this discussion as Walk2012 progresses.

‘Hefting’ a sense of place – Part 4

By way of a final aside (and with Royal-themed matters in the pipeline for the MERL Village Fete later this year) I thought it might be nice to cite MERL’s own Royal Patron, HRH The Prince of Wales, who spoke on the subject of hefting to members of the farming community at a reception held in St James’s Palace on 29 January 2002:

“I wanted above all, to take this opportunity to salute you as part of the backbone of our precious countryside. As a consequence of the foot and mouth disaster many may have heard of hefted flocks for the first time and of the difficulty of re-establishing them once they have been removed. But do they realise that so many of you are actually hefted people – a crucial thread in the complex ‘organic’ tapestry that defines the essence of rural Britain? Unstitch that thread and the ancient tapestry will become featureless and abstracted; the countryside will lose that intangible element which comes from the continuity of wisdom and experience between generations. So I pray with all my heart that a way can be found for you and your children to continue caring for our unique landscape, and the special communities which form an intricate part of it.”  (Quoted in: Susan Haywood and Barbara Crossley The Hefted Farmer (Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria: Hayloft Publishing Ltd), 2005, p.5)

HRH Prince of Wales and Roy Brigden

HRH Prince of Wales and Roy Brigden

Please give it some thought and respond to this post to let us know where you feel most ‘hefted’ to and why. Are there objects and artefacts that remind you of places to which you have a connection?

If you are interested in more information on hefting and hill sheep farming, the following volumes are just some of the relevant literature available in the MERL library:

  • Susan Haywood and Barbara Crossley The Hefted Farmer (Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria: Hayloft Publishing Ltd, 2005)
  • Edward Hart The Practice of Hefting (Shropshire: The Farmers Fund, 2004)
  • Various authors Herding a Hill Hirsel: How to do it and how not to do it (Glasgow: Scottish Agricultural Publishing Co. Ltd, 1929

‘Hefting’ a sense of place – Part 3

In order for us to facilitate connectivity between collections and particular audiences it is vital that we first take steps to find out not only what we have but where it comes from, where it was used, where it was acquired, and any other places it may be in some way associated with. Of course, this may take us far beyond the bounds of England and it will begin to reveal the rich tapestry of local, national, and international relations from which the MERL collections emerged. Nevertheless, much like Roy Brigden’s connection with a new environment, or my own familial links with farming communities of the Scottish Borders, each of us understands place from their own subjective vantage point, wherever and whatever these diverse locales might be. As such, we must be mindful of not only the diversity of our collections but also of the multiplicity of reasons why our audiences may themselves feel hefted to particular places.

A Herdwick sheep

A Herdwick on a Lakeland farm

So, if nothing else these thoughts will hopefully encourage the wider curatorial community to embed place-related data in their catalogues wherever possible, and to capitalise on the potential for new avenues of engagement that might emerge from focussing purposefully on a ‘sense of place’. Through greater acknowledgement of the origins, use-history, and acquisition sources of museum holdings, such collections can be rendered applicable and relevant to particular locations, and re-located (or ‘hefted’) in relation to the modern-day communities within those places and spaces. Equally, for those audiences searching within museum stores or displays for a conceptual hook to render those resources relevant to them as an individual, what better way to maximise their chances of finding such a link than by making explicit the multitude of diverse places associated with the artefacts themselves.

‘Hefting’ a sense of place – Part 2

Despite the obvious relevance to the subject matter of this museum and links to my own personal heritage, what particularly intrigues me about the practice of hefting is the degree to which it’s proponents and practitioners (by which I mean the shepherds and rural people who maintain it rather than the sheep!) have as powerful and marked a sense of place as their ovine charges. This simple observation runs parallel to Roy Brigden’s reflections on hefting. He used the term to characterise the degree to which he had come to find himself indelibly linked to his adoptive countryside home. As individuals, we are hefted to many places for many different reasons. Many of us retain a strong sense of connection to the place(s) we grew up and most of us develop a new sense of belonging in other places as our lives progress. In addition, there are complex generational links to place, such as the sense of connection I feel to Stadhampton, Oxfordshire, where my mother grew up on a dairy farm. The project team have already enhanced data associated with at least one artefact from this village and, although it is a simple mouldboard from a plough, the fact that it comes from Stadhampton gives it a certain significance for me.

Catalogue card for a mouldboard

The original index card for a mouldboard from Stadhampton, Oxfordshire

I think that the simple metaphor of the ‘heft’ has much to offer social history museums (perhaps especially those of rural history) in terms of characterising the place-related ways in which audiences connect with collections. Thinking of things in these more lyrical and emotive ways may help us to create a more nuanced sense of place in relation to the collections we look after. Potential stakeholders in the MERL collections are numerous and include specialist interest groups and local audiences, both of which have often been fore-grounded in past engagement activities and projects. However, in recent years, ethnographic ideas and have brought the notion of source communities increasingly to the fore. Museum collections offer potential for tangible engagement with the pasts associated with places to which people are indelibly hefted through both familial ties and other connections. They also offer a means for people to begin to connect themselves to new locales, perhaps using material culture held in museums as a means of familiarising themselves with a new place of residence, and thereby cultivating a deeper sense of place.

‘Hefting’ a sense of place – Part 1

Since the project team started the data-enhancement, I think we have all begun to think more deeply about ideas concerned with place. We have begun to ask ourselves what it means to feel rooted in, connected to, or familiar with particular locales. When Roy Brigden (the former Keeper of this Museum) retired in 2010 he referred in his farewell speech to the practice of ‘hefting’. Perhaps unfamiliar to many readers, this is the process of intensively herding flocks of upland sheep until they become accustomed to a particular grazing area. Once hefted in this way, such groups retain a kind of homing instinct that lasts across generations. Such livestock often has a greater financial value. Perhaps more importantly for our purposes, it represents the durability of a hill farming practice that is centuries old.

A flock of Cheviot sheep

Gathering a hill flock at Lairg, Sutherland, in 1959

During the foot and mouth crisis of 2001 concern over the slaughter of hefted flocks was marked. In areas where the practice is most common (the north of England, the Scottish Borders, and parts of Wales) the impact of such decimation was seen in terms of not just the ruination of livelihoods but of unbroken traditions of herding being irreversibly interrupted, not to mention the difficulties associated with reinstating this system by training new flocks to recognise the old ground. As the son of a hill sheep farmer myself, I know a good deal about this practice and find it offers a useful way to begin conceptualising and characterising how I feel about the notion of ‘sense of place’ that gives name to this project.