Author Archives: Tom Turner

Capernaum House of St Peter and landscape archaeology

The Octagon Church is a fine example of context-insensitive design, despite its octagonal shape

When building a visitor centre on an archaeological site the best policy is assemble a group of experts and ask them to make a reconstruction of the original building. The worst policy is to invite a trendy designer to exercise his or her creative imagination. The Octagon Church at Capernaum shows ‘how not to do it’. The building dominates the ancient town. I find it no comfort at all that visitors can look through the glass floor and see the ruins of the octagonal church which the Byzantines built on the supposed ruins of St Peter’s House.

” According to Luke 4:31-44, Jesus taught in the synagogue in Capernaum on the sabbath days. In Capernaum also, Jesus allegedly healed a man who had the spirit of an unclean devil and healed a fever in Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. According to Matthew 8:5-13, it is also the place where a Roman Centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant… One block of homes, called by the Franciscan excavators the sacra insula or “holy insula” (“insula” refers to a block of homes around a courtyard) was found to have a complex history. ..The excavators concluded that one house in the village was venerated as the house of Peter the fisherman as early as the mid-first century AD, with two churches having been constructed over it (Lofreda, 1984).” Info from Wiki. Photo courtesy kokorokoko

There is a great need for landscape architects to become involved with archaeological sites. They are far too important to be left to the care of archaeologists.

Robbie Williams and the Compton Bassett garden design

Loampit Vale Redevelopment in Lewisham

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Its ugly and its un-London.

The UK Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) was launched in ill-omened year: 1914. But it was founded by idealists and played an honourable role, until another year of destiny: 1947. Effectively, it then split. One portion became an arm of government, forever beholden to the ugliness of local government in the UK. The other portion, which has grown in size, became an arm of the property development industry. The idealists left.

The above image of a ‘regeneration’ proposal in Lewisham, South London, shows the result. There is a lot of patter about sustainability etc but the design is 1930s Corbusian with a sprinkling of rancid green sauce. The developers get a fat profit; the local council gets more tax income; the people get an ugly and badly designed project: 98% of respondents to a consultation were against the proposal. If Steen Eiler Rasmussen, author of London the unique city, could give an opinion he would surely sign it ‘Disappointed, Disgusted and Revolted of Copenhagen’. He believed London unique among world cities because such a high proportion of its residents have their own gardens and do NOT live in flats. Rasmussen also loved London’s parks and would be horrified the social uselessness of the proposed ground level space in Lewisham. The design is context-insensitive to a high degree. Poor old Lewisham. Poor old London. Poor old England.

UK organic farming and government

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Industrial factory farming and organic farming: which would rather consume? (left image courtesy farmsanctuary.org)

For reasons of unblinking short-sighted dumb stupidity, the UK government continues to support science-based agri-business – and to do its best to kill off organic farming. The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) commissioned a group of researchers to collate the research of other people who had found that organic beef , for example, has few nutritional advantages over inorganic beef. If they can’t tell the difference between the two approaches shown above, the fault lies with their researchers and their taste buds. Future government report is expected to prove that haute couture clothing has no medical advantages over bargain basement clothing and expensive perfumes do no more for your sex appeal than cheap perfumes. Then we will have reports to establish that the differences in flying time London to New York, business class and economy class on the same plane are ‘statistically insignificant’ and that Dyson vacuum cleaners are no better than Hoovers.

The DEFRA blockheads should remember how their friends in government wrecked the UK’s car producers: they poured in government money to support cheap, shoddy, rust-prone ‘volume’ car producers. In fact, the only hope for a country with expensive land and labour was to concentrate on low-volume high-quality cars. That is why the racing car end of the industry is the only remaining fragment of UK-owned car production. The best long-term policy for UK agriculture is to become a producer of high-quality organic produce with superb animal welfare standards and a glorious reputation. The UK is an island with a very beautiful agricultural landscape. We should become an organic-only food producer, banning all use of GM products. Still trying to ‘beat the world’ one suspects DEFRA of not having noticed that the UK is a group of islands which CAN remain GM-free and which COULD charge a substantial premium for higher quality products. If the UK could also be a low-cost producer, so much the better. But the emphasis should be producing the highest quality food: no factory farming, no GM crops, minimal pesticides, minimal antibiotics, minimal inorganic fertilizers. Hilary Benn should be kept in a veal cage and fed with the cheapest burgers on the market until he repents and recants – or resigns.

Note Hilary Benn became Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs DEFRA in June 2007 and spoke in favour of what the UK press calls Frankenstein Foods (ie genetically modified GM foods) in August 2009. Never mind the science: look at the business opportunity!

Glastonbury Tor as a sacred landscape

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Glastonbury Tor Sacred Landscape

Glastonbury Tor is a sacred place, in the same region (the Somerset Levels) as the oldest engineered road in north Europe, the Sweet Track (tree-ring dating establishes the construction date at 3806 BCE). Physically, Glastonbury Tor resembles Silbury Hill. My view (see evidence below) is that it has been a sacred site since Neolithic times. European Christianity grew in opposition to paganism, banning garden luxury and felling sacred trees, but was willing to take advantage of the sacred sites and to use them as sites for church building. We can therefore see some connection with the animism of Central Asia and the custom of building temples on hills and mountains.

The National Trust conservation statement for Glastonbury Tor summarizes what is known of Glastonbury Tor’s history as follows:

1.2. RESEARCH AND CURRENT UNDERSTANDING OF THE SITE
Later Neolithic 2900-2200BC, flint and stone artefacts found from this period. later Bronze Age 1400-600BC. Very little known about this period. Romano-British 43AD-410AD. Prehistoric and Roman finds- early and late Roman pottery.
Dark Age centred on 600 AD, timber building, evidence of metal workings, substantial metal working, Roman Samian pot shards.
Late Saxon-early Medieval 600-1066 AD, monastic settlement, possible wooden church.
Medieval 1066-1485 AD, two or more successive stone churches on summit. Priest’s house and other buildings on shoulder.
Tudor 1485-1603. Very little known about this period.
Stuart 1603-1714. Very little known about this period.
Hanover 1714-1901, rebuilding of the tower in 1848. The 1821 rates map and 1844 tithe map show Tor field (the lower enclosed fields?) were used for arable crops well into the 19th century. St Michaels Tower restored.
1933 National Trust acquires Tor field with St Michaels Tower.
1948 further restoration works on the St Michaels Tower.

Cerne Abbas Giant, Oliver Cromwell and assisted suicide

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Long viewed as a Celtic or Roman god, a very disappointing 1973 theory (by John Hutchins) sees the giant as a political cartoon cut on the instructions of Denzil Holles in the 1640s to represent Oliver Cromwell. Denzil Holles hated Cromwell but I admire him and, if the history is correct, would see the Cerne Abbas cartoon as that of a man who felt that only the excercise of force could restore the virility of English democracy.

A Populus opinion poll ( for The Times in July 2009) found ‘overwhelming public support’ ( from 74% of those questioned) for a change in the law to allow medically assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. Since the UK parliament continues to oppose the measure, I think we need a new Cromwell to explain to MPs that their job is to carry forward the will of the people. He or she could use make two quotations from Oliver Cromwell:

“I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible you may be mistaken.”

“You have been sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of god, go!.”

If the reminders do not achieve the necessary result, MP’s should be clubbed – for the crime of not respecting the known wishes of the electorate.

PS as a god-fearing man, Cromwell is likely to have opposed assisted suicide. Since many of its members are elderly, one might assume the National Trust, which cares for the Cerne Abbas Giant, to be in favour of the measure.

Garden Design and Landscape Architecture

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