BHB4 A Brief History of Britain 1851-2010 by Jeremy Black

Author:Jeremy Black [Black, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1845297008
Amazon: B0056AB5XK
Publisher: Robinson
Published: 2010-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

Images of the Country

The strength and endurance of the relationship between the ruralist tradition and Englishness derives from the fact that this tradition is not just conservative but has been able to accommodate and place the apparently irreconcilable ideals of the romantic right (country house, parish church, squire, parson and deferential society) and the romantic left (folk society, the village, rural crafts and honest peasantry): that there are in short several ruralist traditions which co-exist. Although there are strong loyalties to particular cities, there is no comparable sense of place for an alternative urban tradition drawing on all cities, not least because of the remorseless process of new building and destruction that has affected so much of the urban environment.

Yet, rural England (and Britain) have been under strong pressure from within and outside. Intensive agricultural land use is unfavourable to the traditional concept of the countryside. A standardization of farming practice and an obsession with agricultural tidiness have both been much in evidence.

Moreover, pressure from non-agricultural ‘development’ is also acute, notably new housing, shopping centres and theme parks, while the rise in rural house prices is such that locals cannot afford them. The love of the countryside threatens to destroy it, as the desire to live ‘in the countryside’, one encouraged by romantic television programmes about rural life, is matched by the building of very large numbers of new homes. At the same time, although the key image for many remains that of England as a ‘green and pleasant land’, and of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish equivalents, the focus of government concern, of consumerism and of most people has been on urban life. Legislation, such as the hunting ban under the Hunting Act of 2004 and the ‘Right to Roam’ under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act of 2000, both introduced by the Blair government (1997–2007), demonstrates the determination to push through urban norms on the countryside. Yet, it is in the cities that the changing nature of the British has been seen most clearly; and, ironically, many of those who live in rural areas now share the attributes of the urban life from which they often distance themselves.

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