PlainScapes
Images of Salisbury Plain.
To the men and women who have been through the British military ‘machine’, Salisbury Plain will probably be forever etched on to their memory as that land in Wiltshire used for military training (some of it for more than a hundred years). Windswept, cold and wet in winter and often dry and dusty in summer, there must be many a young soldier whose heart has sunk at the thought of sampling its delights during a training exercise!
Although the military part of ‘The Plain’ is extensive (approaching 100,000 acres), the topographic feature extends beyond that. From the escarpment overlooking the Vale of Pewsey in the north, it slopes gently southwards, across the military lands initially, to the northern edge of the city of Salisbury itself.
I have strived for a number of years to capture photographs that reflect the relatively unique nature of the landscape that I find in the area. It is of course not conventionally picturesque. There are no dramatic mountains or hills, no tumbling waterfalls and no great woods; and its villages, whilst they contain their share of interesting or historic buildings could not, on the whole, be described as ‘quaint’. But ‘The Plain’ has space where the skies are often ‘big’ and the odd tree or small copse, probably hardly noticed elsewhere, takes on a significance that transcends its actual physical presence within the landscape. Add to this the fascination of an ancient landscape, littered with the traces of peoples who have transformed it over many millennia. From the obvious, but flawed (by modern intrusion), magnificence of Stonehenge to the less dramatic and less observed myriad of field systems, barrows, lost villages and track ways, this is a landscape full of questions about our past.
I have been showing images of Salisbury Plain on this site ever since I set it up in November 2005, and my most recent efforts are here in the PlainScapes gallery