Volume 13, 2013
John Wood’s town plans and the evolving urban hierarchy of Cumbria
Brian Robson,
School of Environment, Education and Development,
University of Manchester.
Abstract
John Wood, the 19th-century cartographer, produced detailed large-scale plans of seven Cumbrian towns: Carlisle, Cockermouth, Kendal, Penrith, Ulverston, Whitehaven and Wigton. His plans are both an interesting insight into Wood ’s impressive work as cartographer as well as a valuable portrait of the towns at a seminal period in the evolution of the urban hierarchy of Cumbria.
Did a glacier exist in the valley of Bleatarn Gill, central Lake District, during the Loch Lomond Stade?
Peter Wilson,
Environmental Sciences Research Institute, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Ulster.
Abstract
In an attempt to resolve the issue of whether a glacier existed in the valley of Bleatarn Gill, central Lake District, during the Loch Lomond Stade (LLS; 12.9-11.7 ka BP) field mapping of moraine ridges and hummocks and cosmogenic isotope surface exposure dating have been conducted. Two distinct areas of moraine in the upper part of the valley, are described in detail for the first time but ages for these features have not been established. Farther down the valley, near Watendlath, a single 10Be exposure age from a glacially-transported boulder suggests that the glacial-depositional landforms in that part of the valley pre-date the LLS and are associated with a valley glacier that persisted, following the Last Glacial Maximum (~27-21 ka BP), until ~15.6-15.0 ka. On the basis of this age determination it seems that any glacier ice in the valley during the LLS was restricted to the upper reaches of the catchment, but additional direct dating of the landforms is desirable in order to confirm or refute this proposal.
Preston Bus Station: Heritage, Regeneration, and Resistance
Mark Toogood and Hannah Neate,
Geography, Grenfell-Baines School of Architecture, Construction and Environment, University of Central Lancashire, Preston.
Abstract
Since 2000 Preston Bus Station has twice been threatened with demolition as part of proposed regeneration schemes in the city. Both times there has been sustained public resistance against its destruction. Based on interviews and participant observation, the research on which this paper draws asked why a formerly unloved and unprotected example of Brutalist 1960s architecture has become a public icon. The paper identifies and explores the diverse range and significance of peoples’ articulations and actions — ranging from the local to global; from economic argument to affective and embodied interventions. These articulations are often non-expert, diffuse, expressed within social networks, as well as in inventive performative actions. Such activity has tacitly and productively blurred together forming an ‘assemblage’ of resistance. This assemblage of disparate agents represents a fresh public re-evaluation and democratisation of the building’s value, in addition to rejecting the building’s planned demise. More broadly we suggest that this ‘non-‘ or ‘tacit’ campaign also contests prevalent retailled, investment-driven urban regeneration and articulates different possibilities for the Bus Station within Preston and its putative redevelopment.