#79: The Language of Landscape

I contributed a piece to the Ordnance Survey's 'Mapping News' when it was still distributed to schools - at the time of the free OS maps for Year 7 students programme. It was called the 'Language of Landscape'

This led to me creating a booklet for Natural England.

It can be accessed via the National Archives - code NE201.

I came across this quote in a book I read last year.

It is about the value of landscape. Landscape according to Anne Whiston Spirn was our original language. She explains the powerful idea that:

“landscapes were the first human texts, read before the invention of other signs and symbols… a person literate in landscape sees significance where an illiterate person notes nothing.”

I then found a copy of the book in a second hand bookshop a few days later coincidentally. 

Reference

Spirn, A. W.: ‘Language of Landscape’ – Yale University Press; Revised Edition, 2000

The Languge of Landscape: 

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20140304113507/http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/50009?category=10005