Previous - 103. Best laid plans
Little Dribbling
Why aren't there photographs in this book? Even a few photos would make the reading experience so much better. I've been driven to Google Image and Map to see the places and some of the things Bryson talks about. The problem with this is that, seeing the areas for myself, I have to go on to be critical of things he fails to mention or emphasize.He gave the impression that the bizarre English holiday traditions at Skegness were mostly a thing of the past, but viewing the area from above, there seems to be an amazing expanse of camps still around. And some of them really do look like concentration camps.
He gave the impression that the port of Grimsby was pretty derelict, but that's just the fishing port. Next door is a very active port that appears to mostly deal with transporting cars. The other interesting thing about this port -- also Hull and Liverpool -- is that, because the rivers are not always navigable due to the tides, the actual port facilities are separated from the rivers by locks.
When I bought myself this book for Christmas I never expected to write anything about it. I read Bryson for laughs -- that's not entirely true, since he's written a number of books like At Home and A Short History of Nearly Everything that are content rich -- but after making the notes above I hit a patch about the Peak District -- which makes me think of Pride and Prejudice, of course -- which I have to both quote and comment on. It never ends!
p272 About the Headstone Viaduct on the Monsal Trail which crosses, or rather tunnels and trenches it's way across, the Monsal Dale. ...When the viaduct was built in 1863, the art critic John Ruskin [especially here] famously raged against it, saying that a setting of tranquility and beauty had been cruelly sacrificed just so that "every fool in Buxton can be in Bakewell in half an hour and every fool at Bakewell in Buxton." Headstone Viaduct is often used as an example of how things that are hated when new later become treasured. Well, sure, that sometimes happens. But there is a difference here in that the Headstone Viaduct was from the start a thing of actual beauty, carefully built, which is rarely the case with intrusions on the landscape today.
As fond as I am of 19th century infrastructure, I'm sure I would love the walk along this old railroad right of way as much as Bryson did. But, again, I'm looking at the scene from Google Map and I have to sympathize with my old pal Ruskin here. The non-map view (satellite? aerial photo? whatever) is particularly fine of the Monsal Dale and it looks to be a lovely place to walk across, as one can imagine Elizabeth Bennett doing with her aunt and uncle in Austen's novel. That is until you come to the trench dug for the railroad. The viaduct itself, and the tunnel at one end of the viaduct, are almost beside the point. The problem is that trench running across the landscape as though a huge boar had been running loose.
This is a prime example of a landscape where, for thousands of years you could wander at random until the 19th century when you were suddenly forced to find the few places where you could cross either over or under the tracks. Even now that it is just a walking trail and there is no danger of being run down by a steam engine, the barrier exists in the same way. And even Ruskin (probably) didn't consider the environmental side effects of dividing communities of wild animals by this arbitrary line.
(It's worth noting that some of Ruskin's design ideas even apply to software interface design. I've considered his views, and sometimes gone against them -- with reservations -- more than once when designing software.)
But it doesn't stop there, Not far from Monsal Dale is a view nearly as good as, and even more historic than, the one that so exercised Ruskin, where the trail emerges from a long tunnel into a green valley. Holding a commanding position at the valley head is a white Georgian building that looks at first sight like a stately home. In fact, it is Cressbrook Mill, built by Richard Arkwright in 1779... to spin cotton. It is quite the most handsome factory you will ever see and possibly the most important, for it changed the world. Along with Cromford Mill, built a few miles away near Matlock, this was where the factory system started. Everything that is manufactured on Earth today traces its beginnings back to this tranquil corner of Derbyshire. Arkwright built his mills in the narrow valleys of Derbyshire because they had plenty of water to power his machines and because the remote location made it less likely that they would be besieged by angry spinners put out of work by his new methods. It also made it easier for him to exploit his workers. Cressbrook Mill was operated mostly by orphans who were treated worse than abysmally.
p273 Within half a century, the cotton industry employed over four hundred thousand people. Nearly everything that followed and made Britain great -- shipbuilding, finance, the building of canals and railroads, the growth of empire -- had its foundations here... Derbyshire's spell at the center of all this didn't last terribly long. As the cotton industry grew, larger factories and bigger rivers were required, and the work moved to more urban places like Manchester and Bradford. Derbyshire sank back into a picturesque oblivion. Today Cressbrook Mill is upmarket apartments."
Never-mind Ruskin, now I'm imagining Goethe here. (The Goethe of the last sections of Faust, the Developer sections.) Not reclaiming land and engaging in piracy, unless you interpret piracy to include the vicious exploitation of labor -- either "free" as here or slave as in Absalom, both are contemporary with Cressbrook Mill. The slaves producing the cotton to be spun by the orphans.
When I first mentioned P&P it was because that's the first thing I think of when I hear the words "Peak District," but that association turns out to be prescient. On a hunch, I just did a quick Google search and learned two things: 1. There's a Wiki entry for "Pemberley," and 2. The fictional Pemberley was set in the vicinity of Bakewell -- also, like Cromford, near Matlock. I would love to know if Austen picked this neighborhood because it's romantically scenic or because it was coming to be associated with the new wealth of the Industrial Revolution. (Not easy to determine the source of the wealth of the Dukes of Devonshire. Seems to be something one doesn't speak of. Rents, I suppose?)
So Ruskin, Goethe, Austen, and Bryson -- I should have had them walking into a pub.
