(AF) We explored the boundary between an area of outstanding natural beauty and another area. The boundary between the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Stroud is a line on a map coinciding with river, a barbed wire fence and the A419 Ebley bypass. Presumably the land outside the AONB where Stroud is located, is less beautiful.
(RK) We walked a part of the boundary between the Cotswold Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Severn Vale and The Stroud Valleys.
Other than where it coincided with roads and rivers it was hard to identify the boundary on the ground. Topography gave a more nuanced and gradual transition.
We walked and talked and checked out any boundaries between us.
We crossed roads and fences, fields, rivers, streams, ditches and hedges.
(RK) Above the roar of traffic, we questioned what we had done to the world. We talked about neolithic times, enclosure, agriculture, yeast and earthenware pots. We talked about livestock, animals and pets. We felt time as a shifting boundary between worlds and this history as a shifting of realities.
(AF) The first neolithic settlers decided to erect a fence to keep their animals from roaming and themselves safe from intruders. About 4000 years ago. Before that we were mostly hunter-gatherers, roaming land which would presumably fit into the 'natural beauty’ category.
(RK) We talked about beauty as a function of living on earth. The beauty of coming home to warmth, food and comfort. The beauty of other habitats and lack of housing. The comfort of wildness. The contradictions we carry.
We talked about biophilia and topophilia as ways into understanding beauty. We talked about ideas of beauty as an outdated, modernist idea based on what is 'good for everyone' rather than carrying acknowledgements of difference.
(AF) Or can something else make land beautiful? Some less visible quality? How does a naturally beautiful area become designated as one of ‘outstanding’ natural beauty?
How much does topography play a part? We love those hills. The undulations of today’s view will be identical to those climbed by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. It’s exciting to be in places where the incline of the land defeats the motor vehicle and the roads turn into tracks.
(RK) We discussed the planning outcomes of being either side of the AONB boundary with some passers-by in Leonard Stanley, a village on the boundary currently being “swamped” by new housing. Rural or urban? Shifting boundaries of what is real. We discussed liminality as an alternative to hard and fast boundary lines on a map. We recognised the shortcomings of reports and lines on maps as tools for expressing planning policy. Of expressing what is real for us.
(AF) Who determines the value of the view? Whose definition of beauty? Is there a hierarchy of beautiful areas with the top ten being 'outstanding’? Is the purpose of designation to protect the countryside from developers?
Once it was established, does the boundary increase the beauty of the area and ensure that less beautiful activity, like housing developments are kept on the other side?
Following the boundary was relatively easy, although most people driving along it were, we guessed, unaware of where they were.
Crossing the boundary at the end of the day, in the cold, in twilight, using a fallen tree as a bridge over a river, was more challenging. This journey highlighted that the boundary between so called civilisation and wildness is closer to home than we might imagine