Ruins
Rose Macaulay, in her book Pleasure
of Ruins, sought to penetrate to the essence of the
matter. She cited among the pleasures to be derived from ruins a morbid satisfaction in
images of decay, as well as the historical and literary associations of the remains, and of
course less sophisticated pleasures such as looting fragments and scratching one's
initials on the ancient walls. But her sights were set chiefly on the crumbling remnants of
lost civilizations, and the 'backward- looking dreams' deriving from the 'stunning impact
of world history on its amazed heirs'.
If one sees ruins merely as heaps of stone,
then all ruins are the same. It is our
psychological response which gives them holiness or heroism. But is there a more
deeply felt and compelling need for silence at Fountains Abbey than at Corfe Castle only
because we know that one was a monastery and the other a fortress, or does the fine
tracery of a Gothic window inspire, of its own accord, more reverence than a
battlemented wall? Are we victims of self- hypnosis even before we arrive, conditioned
by our own expectations? What is certain is that our reaction to ruins is highly complex.
Literary landscapes
The rich literature of any tract of country
is like an elegant multi- hued tapestry; the
weavers over the centuries have taken as their inspirational threads the atmosphere, the
sights, sounds and colours of the countryside. In Britain, the immense and unique variety
of our landscape is vividly portrayed in the word pictures – from the graceful gentle
sweeps of Sussex Downland where Hilaire Belloc roamed to the bleak wild mountains of
Scotland, the haunts of Sir Walter Scott.
We read the words of Thomas Hardy and
we too are experiencing the turbulent pastoral
world of his green Wessex, our green Dorset. The young William Shakespeare knew the
woodlands of Arden; here he discovered the delicate beauty of the wild flowers, the
intricate world of the animal kingdom and where the deer could be poached with impunity.
In more recent times, authors too have
observed their local surroundings – often the
scene would be tinged to darker tones by industrial works. Dylan Thomas knew the
tough life in the valleys of South Wales-, the mining world of D. H. Lawrence was the
East Midlands of Nottinghamshire. And who has read the descriptions of the Yorkshire
moorland by the Brontes and not felt the desolation, the whipping, damp west wind?
The biographies of these weavers of words
tell of their love of the countryside and their
wanderings into the quiet ways.
Things of time
Timemarks are reminders of the past in
the form of a literary work, a work of
scholarship, a social movement, a notable site, an entire landscape, or a building,
regarded as commemorative the ideas of a particular period. Cultures from the Stone
Age to the Electronic Age have left timemarks that may be used to chart the progress of
human belief systems. These timemarks tell us that our ancestors always lived in a
world which is incomprehensible regarding questions about how and why they exist and
what was the beginning of it all, what will its end be, what is time or space, and how do
humans related to other living things. If we keep our eyes closed and our heads down
and refuse to worry about these whys and wherefores of our existence we can usually
muddle through. Each timemark as an object or an '- ism' pulls us towards a different
island of hope and assurance like so much flotsam and jetsam. Many of us finally
acquiesce and establish ourselves on the best island of faith we can find. Some of us try
to struggle on, but often glance with envy at those who have swallowed the carrot of a
particular set of beliefs.
Humankind has, ever since Homo sapiens
began to think, worshipped that which it
cannot understand. As millennia have passed a general understanding has emerged
about the scientific place of humans on planet Earth. However no civilisation has hoped,
in its most optimistic moments, to comprehend it all. But even those securely
ensconced in their faith's replies to the ultimate questions of existence are still aware of
problems. The answers given to the faithful are often vague and full of ambiguity. They
may even conflict directly with recent scientific discoveries, and great psychological
stress can be caused to the faithful by this discrepancy. Yet the need for an answer to
the problem of existence is a strong force in the modern world. We have to feel we
understand our environment, so that we are better prepared than previous generations
to face any threats it may present to us. This is why the 'things of Time', as the
substance of eternity, are important as windows on the past.
The modern Cistercian monk Thomas Merton
put it this way:
"There is no leaf that is not in Your care. There is no cry that was not heard
by You before it was
uttered. There is no water in the shales that was not hidden there by Your wisdom. There is no
concealed spring that was not concealed by You. There is no glen for a lone house that was not
planned by You for a lone house. There is no man for that acre of woods that was not made by You
for that acre of woods.
But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question.
Eternity
is in the present. Eternity is in the palm of the hand. Eternity is a seed of fire, whose sudden roots
break barriers that keep my heart from being an abyss.
The things of Time are in connivance with eternity. The shadows serve You. The beasts
sing to You
before they pass away. The solid hills shall vanish like a worn-out garment. All things change, and
die and disappear. Questions arrive, assume their actuality, and also disappear. In this hour I shall
cease to ask them, and silence shall be my answer. The world that Your love created, that the heat
has distorted, and that my mind is always misinterpreting, shall cease to interfere with our voices."
Ruins
Ruins can serve as more direct windows
into the communities they represent. Cultural
timemarks include the remains of such famous and spectacular places as Stonehenge
and the great abbeys of Fountains, Rievaulx and Tintern, Lindisfarne Priory and Corfe
Castle, but also the lesser- known sites - the long- abandoned villages and country
churches, intriguing for the myths surrounding them more than for their architectural
importance.
Then there are perhaps the least explored
aspect of ruins, such as the forsaken
splendour of once-magnificent houses such as Minster Lovell Hall, Cowdray House and
Moreton Gorbet Castle. While some have been reduced to rubble, others are perfect
facades - like a film set - their walls pierced by mullion windows and rising to dramatic
silhouettes of pinnacles and gables. Brian Bailey examines the historical background of
each one and the lives that were lived there in days of former glory, and subtly evokes
the spirit that now pervades the deserted, silent spaces -the inspiration of Tennyson,
Wordsworth and Turner.
The picturesque, melancholy beauty of
ruined cloisters, roofless medieval halls and
crumbling towers excites the imagination as powerfully today as it did when the
Romantic Movement first flowered in Britain in the eighteenth century. It was then that
ruins began to be appreciated for their intrinsic beauty and not simply as a convenient
source of building material. As a delight in classical symmetry was replaced by a longing
for the sublime and the soulful, so ivy- covered ruins came to epitomize the romantic
ideal, their dereliction imbuing them with a poignancy and an air of mystery that buildings
can never have in their complete, inhabited state. The evocative power of ruins lies in
their landscapes and the intricate details of their adornment by both man and nature
Archaeology
Today, our knowledge of the ancient world
is almost entirely based on the evidence
provided by archaeology. Before the middle of the nineteenth century, antiquarians
based their knowledge of the ancients on written records, the writings of the early Greek,
Roman and Jewish historians and geographers, and books such as the Bible. Literary
evidence, however, is unreliable, for man often omits to tell the whole truth for a number
of reasons. For example, he may see events through biased eyes, he may not be a good
observer, or he may be basing his account of events on hearsay evidence, passed on by
word of mouth, which may, in some cases, be hundreds of years old. Language again is
a difficulty, as meanings tend to change with translation from one language to another.
All these faults, however, did not daunt the early historians who wrote with absolute
conviction.
Chronologies were calculated and established
which were looked upon as infallible
facts. An example of this was the way in which the Old Testament was regarded as the
only accurate account of ancient history, including its chronology. In 1650, Archbishop
Ussher published his Annals of the Ancient and New Testaments in which he asserted
that the world began in 4004 B.C. Soon after, this date was not felt to be precise enough,
and Dr John Lightfoot, master of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, made some obtuse
and lengthy calculations, and announced that the world had indeed begun in 4004 B.C.,
on the 23rd October, at nine o'clock in the morning to be exact! He published this
statement in a book entitled A few and new observations on the Book of Genesis, the
most of them certain, the rest probable, all harmless, strange and rarely heard of before,
a fitting title! However ridiculous the ideas of the early antiquaries and theologians, they
were accepted at the time, and by the eighteenth century the date 4004 B.C. had been
placed in the margin notes in the Bible, where it had an air of authority and therefore truth.
Not all antiquaries were satisfied with
this state of affairs. Some realised that the
situation was far from good and attempted to improve things. Men like William Stukeley
and John Aubrey sought to supplement their knowledge about ancient monuments with
accurate field observation. John Aubrey, a Wiltshire squire, was the first observer to give
a detailed description of Stonehenge and Avebury. In recognition, his name has been
given to the pits which surround Stonehenge, a feature he first noted. Another pioneer of
field archaeology was a Welshman by the name of Edward Llwyd, one-time Keeper of
the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. He travelled widely throughout Britain publishing the
results of his work in a book called Archaeologia Britannica.
The nineteenth century saw a change in
attitude. By then a number of antiquaries
appreciated the sparsity of their knowledge and began asking awkward questions,
which, at that time, could not be answered. Many suspected that the antiquity of man
was extremely great and began to focus their attention on the stone implements of the
'pre- Roman period'. It was obvious to them that this period was very long, and contained
a number of phases, but until some sort of order was established, the best they could do
was to group it all together.
The way was now clear for other advanced
thought. Soon Sir John Lubbock in his book
Prehistoric Times pioneered the use of the terms 'prehistory' and 'prehistoric'. He also
believed that the Stone Age could be divided into two. This he did and invented the terms
'Palaeolithic' and 'Neolithic' to describe the Old Stone Age and New Stone Age
respectively.
It was becoming increasingly clear that
in order to advance the knowledge of ancient
man, excavations had to be undertaken. The aim was not simply to fill museum cases
with curios, but to provide answers to many unsolved questions. Excavations of the
former kind had been undertaken for some time in Britain, Europe and the Middle East,
but the philosophy that brought science into archeology was the need for a more logical
and scientific approach by excavating for information and not for objects. The result is
that the concept of 'ancient monument' now includes the study and protection of remains
below the ground as well as those that have always been visible to stimulate enquiry.
