Colourful Britain [antikvár]

Britainisoneofthemostbeautifuland varie d countries in the world. There are towering, forbidding mountains and gentle, rolling hills; wave-lashed cliffs and quiet lakes. But no matter what the scene, it has experienced some ten millennia of human habitation. Throughout Britain man has made his mark, turning a wild and untamed land into a beautiful and civilised nation.Even the majestic Highlands of Scotland are not free from the hand of man. Windswept glens which have run with blood from ancient clan feuds, now echo to the bleat of sheep. Imported from other regions, the sheep keep down the native flora and impose the short grass upon the hills. The same unnatural landscape has been forced by man upon the lovely slopes of the Lake District. The forests which once covered the crags and sweeping hills of Cumbria were cleared centuries ago for pasture. Today, even the waters of the lakes are disturbed as dozens of colourful craft ply their surfaces.Around the Wash, beneath the towers of Ely and the spires of Peterborough, spreads one of the most altered landscapes in Britain. There were once over a thousand square miles of marsh in this corner of Britain: marsh so thick and treacherous that Hereward the Wake could hide an army from the might of the Normans for years on end. But beneath the waterlogged morass was the rich, peaty fenland soil, just waiting to be farmed. Since the wild days of Hereward, thousands of men have slaved ceaselessly to dig ditches and drain the fens. Today, the land is among the most productive in Britain. As the farmland reaches, featureless, to the horizon, the wet ditches and clanking pumps are the only reminders of the past.In South Wales the lovely, green valleys of the prosperous medieval farmer became, in the last century, even more prosperous, but far less beautiful. The coal mining that brought people and wealth to the valleys left behind glowering slag heaps that have drastically changed the valleys.But even where the impact has not been as great as in the mountains, fens or valleys, the landscape of Britain shows the marks of man. Fields are lined by hedges too straight for nature to have planted them. Meadows are - planted with waving grain where once dense forest echoed to the bellows of the deer and the snuffle of the boars. Amongst these artificial fields are the shattered remains of times long past. On barren moors stand lonely stones. The megaliths of Stonehenge are reminders of a long-dead religion that held sway over Britain thousands of years ago. On many a hilltop throughout the islands there is a reminder of less distant days. Gaunt towers and turrets, which are now roofless and silent, mark the homes of warlords who once led their men out to fight in wars now forgotten.All around are the changes that man has wrought on the land of Britain, but by far the most enduring are his towns. Scattered aCToss the face of the land are many clusters of houses. Each town has its own distinctive character, yet each is the work of the British people. There are small, stone-built towns in the Western Isles that huddle around storm-lashed harbours, waiting for the fishermen to return from the seas. There are grey towns built on the slopes of the Yorkshire Dales that pulse to the beat of the hill-farming around them. In the lowlands, where the wind caresses the waving com, stand gentler towns. Grouped around the exquisite church steeples, whose bells have chimed the hours for centuries, the towns of the plains rest in tranquillity. The shops and market stalls hum with the babble of voices as one season slips easily into another. The towns of Britain reflect the power man has over the land, but also the way the land can affect the men that live there.Then there are the cities that owe nothing to their surroundings. The intricate architecture of scholarly Cambridge and Oxford is totally divorced from the lush fields that surround it. The spires and courts are the products of a centuries-old tradition of learning and refinement. London is the result of a long history of trade and commerce. The capital city is such a sprawling mass that its citizens could live for years without seeing the wealth and beauty of the rural landscape beyond the suburbs. But they have built an equally beautiful townscape in which to live. Magnificent examples of architecture, both old and new, crowd the skyline. The classical dome of StPaul's vies with the gleaming Nat. West. Building and the squat bulk of the Tower for the prize of the city's finest edifice.Whatever the view of Britain, it is one of a land built by man. The ordered fields of Kent are no less artificial than the stone-paved streets ofLondon, the grass-covered glen no more natural than the castle that crowns it. The British people have taken a prodigy of Nature's work and wrought it into the most graceful land on earth.