Stone

England has its faults but it's a beautiful country, and for me the most beautiful part of England is Wessex. The region has a soft, tamed beauty that comes from thousands of years of continuous human settlement. In Canada, and the US, natural beauty tends to mean pristine, unspoilt wilderness, the land as it was before humans left their mark. In the south-west of England, as in other places where humans have been settled for a long time, the beauty of the landscape and the influence of humans on the landscape can't be distinguished. The land is beautiful because of what has been done to it by humans, not in spite of what we've done.

This is never more obvious than when in a city like Oxford, Wells or Bath. These ancient towns are stuffed with buildings constructed from locally quarried limestone. This stone mellows with age, starting out a dazzling white and softening to a honey colour, creating a wonderful atmosphere. According to J. B. Priestley, "the truth is that it has no colour that can be described. Even when the sun is obscured and the light is cold, these walls are still faintly warm and luminous, as if they knew the trick of keeping the lost sunlight of centuries glimmering about them."

I've always felt that one of the things I would miss most about Europe, if I left it, would be the sense of living history in my surroundings. This has definitely proven true for me over these last two years in Canada, where a hundred year old brick warehouse is worth an hour's drive to see, and where a whole metropolis can spring up without a single building built to last.

I think these different experiences also affect our relationship with our surroundings, as Europeans and North Americans. In the sprawling urban agglomerations of North American cities, and the vast empty spaces outside those cities, it's easy to see things in terms of man versus nature. You can understand why conservation and progress have become mutually exclusive for many in the North American context. Man's impact on nature is more immediate, and obvious. Meanwhile, in Europe, conservation has as much to do with our homes and our offices and our high streets as with remote, untamed wilderness. As a result, it's not surprising that the environmental movement has made more headway in mainstream European political culture. (I know that these are very crude generalisations that I'm making, but applied to our respective political cultures as a whole I think they're valid.)

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200mm lens @ 18mm, f/10, 1/40s, ISO 200. 20 July 2006, Bath, Avon.