Post by Francis on Nov 25, 2009 20:28:23 GMT -1
I was just wondering what sorts of relationships with, or perhaps just perceptions, you have of your local farmers and landholders?
How do their attitudes impact on your personal relationships with the land around you? Within the bounds of the reasonable expectation for you to demonstrate a duty of sensible obligation to the land, and landholder - are you typically able to have the sort of uninhibited interaction with the land you might desire? (I don't mean sitting around a fire with a six pack of Special Brew - leaving damage and a mess!)
On another forum I'm involved with access to woodland has come up. Most people on the site have relatively recently bought woodland, typically not huge amounts. I'd say the average is well below 10 acres. From what I've gathered over the last year or so I would say they are all basically good people motivated initially by their strong attraction to woodland - and the experience of being out in the woods.
The difficulty is that like so many people acquiring land for the first time (particularly first generation land owners whose heritage is urban and consumer/customer centric), they find it hard to come to terms with what their new role might be.
They're so focused on the purchase - it having been the only rite of passage marking their new relationship with the land they've acquired - that they see the relationship as one of exclusive command of their own private fiefdom. (It's my experience that legal land exchanged between country folk already familiar to each other - as most land exchanges are - is almost always accompanied by some form of rite of Seisin- obviously very locally varied.)
It's starting to happen where I am. Most farms getting sold now are usually split up. The house and few acres will usually get sold to a non-local wealthy family who love the countryside and have a few horses - and the rest of the land will either stay in the original family or be sold to local farmers. The life-style small holders will then suddenly expect their few acres to become exclusive to them - cooperation with neighbours and the community guided only by the letter of the law.
These well-meaning good people who 'love the countryside' (they always talk of 'the countryside') seem to think they've purchased an exclusive relationship with that land. They think they love the land, but believe they've bought some sort of slave that must have a relationship with them, and only them. They want to fence everyone else out, as though they should decide who the 'Spirit of Place' should call to, and have relationship with.
Anyway rant over - but please let me know what sort of experience you have of relating to the land and landholders around you. I'm starting to wonder if this is a big anglo/celtic cultural difference? As you would guess most 'small holdings' sold in Wales are bought by people of mainly Anglo-Saxon heritage.
I'm genuinely not maligning them, we're all coloured by our experience and expectations, and they are typically well intended and I hope as time passes will come to a more comfortable understanding of what it can mean to hold land.
How do their attitudes impact on your personal relationships with the land around you? Within the bounds of the reasonable expectation for you to demonstrate a duty of sensible obligation to the land, and landholder - are you typically able to have the sort of uninhibited interaction with the land you might desire? (I don't mean sitting around a fire with a six pack of Special Brew - leaving damage and a mess!)
On another forum I'm involved with access to woodland has come up. Most people on the site have relatively recently bought woodland, typically not huge amounts. I'd say the average is well below 10 acres. From what I've gathered over the last year or so I would say they are all basically good people motivated initially by their strong attraction to woodland - and the experience of being out in the woods.
The difficulty is that like so many people acquiring land for the first time (particularly first generation land owners whose heritage is urban and consumer/customer centric), they find it hard to come to terms with what their new role might be.
They're so focused on the purchase - it having been the only rite of passage marking their new relationship with the land they've acquired - that they see the relationship as one of exclusive command of their own private fiefdom. (It's my experience that legal land exchanged between country folk already familiar to each other - as most land exchanges are - is almost always accompanied by some form of rite of Seisin- obviously very locally varied.)
It's starting to happen where I am. Most farms getting sold now are usually split up. The house and few acres will usually get sold to a non-local wealthy family who love the countryside and have a few horses - and the rest of the land will either stay in the original family or be sold to local farmers. The life-style small holders will then suddenly expect their few acres to become exclusive to them - cooperation with neighbours and the community guided only by the letter of the law.
These well-meaning good people who 'love the countryside' (they always talk of 'the countryside') seem to think they've purchased an exclusive relationship with that land. They think they love the land, but believe they've bought some sort of slave that must have a relationship with them, and only them. They want to fence everyone else out, as though they should decide who the 'Spirit of Place' should call to, and have relationship with.
Anyway rant over - but please let me know what sort of experience you have of relating to the land and landholders around you. I'm starting to wonder if this is a big anglo/celtic cultural difference? As you would guess most 'small holdings' sold in Wales are bought by people of mainly Anglo-Saxon heritage.
I'm genuinely not maligning them, we're all coloured by our experience and expectations, and they are typically well intended and I hope as time passes will come to a more comfortable understanding of what it can mean to hold land.
