Landscapism 
I am a postdoctoral landscape researcher combining a day job as a public footpath officer with freelance landscape, rights of way and access management, and heritage research, writing and consultancy. My Landscapism blog covers a broad range of landscape-related subjects, navigating the interface between landscape history and deep topography, and I also contribute to other sites, publications and events. My areas of research interest increasingly coalesce around the past and present of paths, walking and public access in the landscape.
Most recent articles
Walking back through time: a landscape history of pathways
For a while now I have been contemplating researching a comprehensive landscape history of paths, or at least the pathways of Britain. Paths, such an intrinsic topographical element, both a symbolic and practical medium for accessing and moving through...
The topographical legacy of the medieval monastery: evolving perceptions and realities of monastic landscapes in the southern Welsh Marches
This post is an abridged version of the discussion chapter framed around the core research questions of my recently submitted PhD thesis, examining a hypothesis that the medieval monastery, over centuries of managing and moulding its precinct and estat...
PhD landscape walk – walking the ghost topography of Cwmbran new town
This is a description of one of a series of landscape walks through my PhD case study areas. Here the walk navigates a route around the post-war planned new town of Cwmbran in south-east Wales, developed over the former lands of Magna Porta, the '...
Ben Myers – The Gallows Pole: Once upon a time in the West Riding
The arresting cover of Ben Myers' sixth novel is a statement of intent for the work inside: historical fiction with danger and harshness and radicalism foregrounded; a bit punk rock, a bit psychedelic, not too knowingly retro. Frankly, I'd have bo...
Take the long road and walk it
Mapped above is the route of a week long walk I will be undertaking in June, linking up the estate landscapes and medieval route-ways of the three case studies of my PhD research: Llanthony Priory, Llantarnam Abbey and Tintern Abbey in the southern Wel...
Chuck Berry – Promised Land: rock and roll topography
Chuck Berry at his topographical best, using tight wit and pathos to describe an epic journey by bus, train and aeroplane from Virginia to California in 'Promised Land':I left my home in Norfolk VirginiaCalifornia on my mindI Straddled that Greyhound,a...
Hatterall – Hill towards the sun
The Hatterall ridge looking north from its southern-most point at Trewyn 'hill fort'.The Hatterall, or versions of it, is a long-standing name used in times past for the eastern uplands of the Black Mountains, now used more particularly for the heights...
Deep topography practice – landscape walks as PhD fieldwork
Composite map of the landscape walk routes in the Llanthony Priory case study (Source: map drawn in ArcGIS using ArcGIS World Imagery basemap).A note here on the experiential landscape walks that I am undertaking across the three case study areas on wh...
PhD Research Paper #4: A diversity of words and images – topographers and antiquarians, artists and writers at Llanthony and the Vale of Ewyas
From time to time I will post 'bite size' chunks of the material I am preparing for my PhD thesis: works in progress, but content which I feel may be of interest to a wider audience. All will be very much draft versions, not necessarily - probably not ...
Tintern Abbey: A ghost of the shape it once had
'A ghost of the shape it once had', a misquote from Ronald Johnson's long-form poem, The Book of the Green Man; reflections on travels around Britain in 1962, passing by Tintern on the way: ‘We have forgotten, now, the original inspiration of...
Tales of cartographic landscapes
Having spent most of the last month in my study/ spare room garret, I am now emerging for fresh air having completed the drafts of two PhD chapters on the subject of my first case study landscape: the Black Mountains manors of Llanthony Priory, collect...
PhD research paper #3. Further landscape perspectives: experience and perception
From time to time I will post 'bite size' chunks of the material I am preparing for my PhD thesis: works in progress, but content which I feel may be of interest to a wider audience. All will be very much draft versions, not necessarily - probably not ...
PhD research paper #1. Approaches to the study of landscape archaeology and history
From time to time I will post 'bite size' chunks of the material I am preparing for my PhD thesis: works in progress, but content which I feel may be of interest to a wider audience. All will be very much draft versions, not necessarily - probably not ...
Reliquiae Journal – Volume Three
Reliquiæ is an annual journal of poetry, short fiction, non-fiction, translations and visual art. Each issue collects together both old and new work from a diverse range of writers and artists with common interests spanning landscape, ecology, folklore...
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Breaking the Dead Silence – Engaging with the Legacies of Empire and Slave-Ownership in Bath and Bristol’s Memoryscapes
Diverse and distinctive voices in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the toppling of the Colston statue in Bristol. Timely commentaries, insights and experiences in the memoryscape enriching and transforming an uncomfortable heritage through empathy and creativity. Multiple perspectives from academics, artists, activists and heritage professionals, contribute ideas and strategies towards re-telling
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