Camping ban plot thickens
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No they're not, but they are a big part of a mixed, and healthy, agricultural economy. There's long provenace too….why the Chancellor sits on a woolsack 
M
M
No they're not, but they are a big part of a mixed, and healthy, agricultural economy. There's long provenace too .why the Chancellor sits on a woolsack
M
Funny you talking of the woolsack. The church made a huge amount of their money from wool, turning large amounts of land over to the shaggy lawnmowers. Also one of the biggest landowners in the UK and one of the richest. (Which always gives me a wry smile when the claim poverty (which they're supposed to be in right?) and bleed poor people to help fix the roofs on their massive property portfoli. That and the mineral rights they retain under many peoples properties and were throwing their weight around about a year or two back. Makes me wonder why folk get irked at estates holding land when church & state hold more land collectively.
At least through likes of MOD, land has a fairly good modicum of protection for natural & historic entities that abide there.
Hope all those who are under threat for rising waters stay safe and don't suffer too much disruption. Had friends traveling across Scotland yesterday and it seems most of it was shut due to flooding and the bridges over the troubled waters being kaput.
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
What a mess lots of people are waking up to this morning, yesterday morning was bad enough, roads closed etc. to the point I couldn't have driven south if I'd wanted to, this morning though puts my travel disruption into some perspective, sobering. My thoughts are with all who are affected.
Much of Scotland unproductive.
In the conventional sense yes, yes it is I suppose. However if we think less conventionally and look at where people live and focus on what they do the picture that forms isn't so bleak. But you have to search it out and temper your expectation, and resist the temptation to compare apples and oranges.
Historically the productivity of the highlands, or the lack of it, was an issue that vexed the then landlords and some of the greatest minds of the 1700 and 1800's, tasked with making "improvements" to the land in terms of productivity, many of which failed, the best documented instances recorded efforts made on forfeited estates and lands post 1745 on behalf of the crown.
Yet the area supported a huge population that subsisted, quite literally, on the milk of a pastural economy, an economy that had existed from the late stone age right down to the dawn of the industrial revolution.
Much has been written on the period known as the highland-clearances but in essence it boiled down the imposition of new economic models parachuted into the area in an attempt to make the vast estates pay. In a relatively short period of time areas that had been populated were now largely devoid of people other than by those directly employed by the owner or tenant.
The end result shattered the long established social structure of the highlands and saw people moved out of the interior down to the shore and eventually, for the vast majority, onto emigration ships bound for the new world.
The hills remain empty, in part because the sought productivity never really materialised, the sheep yielded little profit in comparison to other areas and as the fashion for hunting fishing and shooting gathered apace so the lets were actively bought up by the new class of idle rich victorian sportsmen.
Land being given over to deer and purposely left unproductive is a very modern construct. Denis Rixson's book: Knoydart, a History is a fantastic book that looks at many of these issues over it's course, and in many ways can be used as a microcosmic guide to understanding the clearances and issues of economy and productivity affecting the highlands, down to the present.
It's also interesting to note the Scottish National Heritage Wild-Land area map denotes the upland areas that were all at one time permanently inhabited or, in the case of the highest ground, grazed in summer and subsequently cleared for sheep and then given over to deer forest.
There's a lot of potential locked up in our empty expanses, but without people it'll remain locked up.
I do hope the Forestry Commission isn't planning to ban camping anywhere on it's ground, well obviously you wouldn't want to camp where there's timber operations underway, so within reason. I'm sure the fellow who suggested it was full of good intention, just as those highland modernisers of the seventeen and eighteen centuries were.
Much of Scotland unproductive.
In the conventional sense yes, yes it is I suppose. However if we think less conventionally and look at where people live and focus on what they do the picture that forms isn't so bleak. But you have to search it out and temper your expectation, and resist the temptation to compare apples and oranges.
Historically the productivity of the highlands, or the lack of it, was an issue that vexed the then landlords and some of the greatest minds of the 1700 and 1800's, tasked with making "improvements" to the land in terms of productivity, many of which failed, the best documented instances recorded efforts made on forfeited estates and lands post 1745 on behalf of the crown.
Yet the area supported a huge population that subsisted, quite literally, on the milk of a pastural economy, an economy that had existed from the late stone age right down to the dawn of the industrial revolution.
Much has been written on the period known as the highland-clearances but in essence it boiled down the imposition of new economic models parachuted into the area in an attempt to make the vast estates pay. In a relatively short period of time areas that had been populated were now largely devoid of people other than by those directly employed by the owner or tenant.
The end result shattered the long established social structure of the highlands and saw people moved out of the interior down to the shore and eventually, for the vast majority, onto emigration ships bound for the new world.
The hills remain empty, in part because the sought productivity never really materialised, the sheep yielded little profit in comparison to other areas and as the fashion for hunting fishing and shooting gathered apace so the lets were actively bought up by the new class of idle rich victorian sportsmen.
Land being given over to deer and purposely left unproductive is a very modern construct. Denis Rixson's book: Knoydart, a History is a fantastic book that looks at many of these issues over it's course, and in many ways can be used as a microcosmic guide to understanding the clearances and issues of economy and productivity affecting the highlands, down to the present.
It's also interesting to note the Scottish National Heritage Wild-Land area map denotes the upland areas that were all at one time permanently inhabited or, in the case of the highest ground, grazed in summer and subsequently cleared for sheep and then given over to deer forest.
There's a lot of potential locked up in our empty expanses, but without people it'll remain locked up.
I do hope the Forestry Commission isn't planning to ban camping anywhere on it's ground, well obviously you wouldn't want to camp where there's timber operations underway, so within reason. I'm sure the fellow who suggested it was full of good intention, just as those highland modernisers of the seventeen and eighteen centuries were.
Correct, and I'm speaking as a son of hill farmers, whose father was apprenticed to a shepherd when he was 14.
I remember my godfather driving me up onto the moors, past some shooting ground to an area that was blocked from gazing sheep and not used for shooting. He ranted about how dead it was and the attitude was ridiculous. Now, I loved and respected my godfather, but even my untutored eye could see more species, drier ground and denser vegetation. Sheep graze the ground down to bowling-green length.
Dense vegetation, deeper rooting vegetation slows the runoff and takes the water deeper into the soil. That's not going to stop flooding completely when the rain is as heavy as it has been in Cumbria, but it will help a lot.
Good posts Uilleachan & Mrcharly. The ground has a fine balance and the results of those "Great Improvers" always made me think that the term was extremely ironic.
The older ways of farming and living on the land grew up and evolved symbioticly in situ, and over time. A lot of the methods that were imposed on the land are safe"bolt-ons" and don't mesh properly. Though some like Turnip Townsend's four crop rotation system did do a lot of good with little harm to people and land.
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
The older ways of farming and living on the land grew up and evolved symbioticly in situ, and over time. A lot of the methods that were imposed on the land are safe"bolt-ons" and don't mesh properly. Though some like Turnip Townsend's four crop rotation system did do a lot of good with little harm to people and land.
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
The woolsack was of Cotswold produced wool and in England, on the lowlands and part way up the hills sheep were a vital part of a mixed economy and a "staple" of the wider one. Before the four course rotation the three course worked well with sheep going on after the harvest. of course there were the Commons where even a poor widow could have her five sheep. When sheep started "eating men" we began to get problems both in England and later in Scotland. The lesson of the Cistercian abbeys was a profitable one for landowners but not ultimately for the land. For children of all ages Cynthia Harnett's novel The Woolpack is a good introduction to medieval sheep.
"I praise God and ever shall-It is the sheep hath paid for all"
"I praise God and ever shall-It is the sheep hath paid for all"
Spain was a wealthy nation long before the gold from the Americas arrived and that wealth was mostly down to sheep.
I'd take Monbiot over Rory Stewart any day of the week.
Its very rare to encounter such a partisan crap programme, as his BBC series, Britains lost middleland.
Talk about third rate made up claptrap, purporting to be his theories....
Its very rare to encounter such a partisan crap programme, as his BBC series, Britains lost middleland.
Talk about third rate made up claptrap, purporting to be his theories....
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I enjoyed his documentry about Laurence of Arabia and his book 'The Places In Between' where he describes has walk across Afghanistan is well worth a read.
He is an MP though so I'd never have him around for dinner.
Spain was a wealthy nation long before the gold from the Americas arrived and that wealth was mostly down to sheep.
True and I believe that you can still follow the paths established for the movement of sheep, The Cañadas Reales (Googled to get accent). Didn't help much though against the inflation caused by the wealth contributed from the Americas, partly because of the ownership and taxation regimes in Spain.
Truthfully I hadn't a clue who you meant. So I asked the family political pundit….he said,"Who ?".
I had to google the fellow.
M
any way the camping ban
i dont think the forestry commision will be banning camping. i dont think they can as they dont own the land they just manage it. also the fc relies on the public to keep it from being sold off so they will not be upsetting anyone particularly with all the cuts going on.
so back to something completely different
i dont think the forestry commision will be banning camping. i dont think they can as they dont own the land they just manage it. also the fc relies on the public to keep it from being sold off so they will not be upsetting anyone particularly with all the cuts going on.
so back to something completely different
It's the little bit of wording that to a Scot suggests that we have our doubts about it though…."insisted that the suggested ban was not official policy"….so unofficially though the blighters are discussing it.
We'll just keep an eye on them, eh ?
M
We'll just keep an eye on them, eh ?
M
Given the history of Scots in positions of authority in Scotland, I'd not blame you for watching the illegitimi most closely indeed Mary.
I'm sure it's they southern ideas that set them off
No right of access, 'get orf my land!!', 'forgive us our trespasses', where the Scot's version is, 'forgive us our debts', we have pretty much universal freehold too, especially since we cleared the feudalism coprolite stuff off the statute books.
M
No right of access, 'get orf my land!!', 'forgive us our trespasses', where the Scot's version is, 'forgive us our debts', we have pretty much universal freehold too, especially since we cleared the feudalism coprolite stuff off the statute books.
M
Scottish property law is a fabulous thing, I have no idea why the English have put up with their current system for so long.
With that said the systems in other countries are often worse and more convoluted.
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