Comments on: Recording Britain

By: Solomon’s Temple, Buxton, Derbyshire – The Folly Flâneuse

Solomon’s Temple, Buxton, Derbyshire – The Folly Flâneuse — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:59:11 +0000

[…] For more follies painted for the Recording Britain project see https://thefollyflaneuse.com/recording-britain/ […]

By: Editor

Editor — Sat, 16 May 2020 07:06:20 +0000

In reply to Gwyn.

Hello Gwyn. I have asked my esteemed Art Consultant, the wonderful Neil Jennings, and he instantly came up with the answer. Here’s a link to the exhibition and book http://visualarts.britishcouncil.org/exhibitions/exhibition/a-paradise-lost-the-neo-romantic-imagination-in-britain-1935-55-1987

By: Editor

Editor — Fri, 15 May 2020 17:47:28 +0000

In reply to Gwyn. Hmmm. Nothing comes immediately to mind but I have phoned (emailed, to be exact) a friend. I will get back to you...

By: Gwyn

Gwyn — Fri, 15 May 2020 14:58:21 +0000

This is driving me mad. I love this period, and about ten or twenty years ago there was an exhibition of art from the era and a little later: Barbara Jones, naturally, John Minton, Michael Ayrton et al and I bought a wonderful catalogue from the exhibition WHICH I CAN’T FIND ANYWHERE. I use the Delicious Library app to catalogue all my books, but for some reason it wants to know the title and author before it will tell me where I’ve shelved the book. Any ideas? Help!

By: Editor

Editor — Sun, 10 May 2020 12:42:24 +0000

In reply to Susan Kellerman. Still plenty of sinister hands at work, sadly!

By: Susan Kellerman

Susan Kellerman — Sat, 09 May 2020 17:27:14 +0000

The ‘southern bias’ may well have a legitimate explanation, as outlined in the Introduction by Baron Macmillan, Chairman of the Pilgrim Trust, to ‘Recording Britain’, published in 4 volumes in 1946. The sites chosen were deliberately concentrated early on in the coastal counties, and as the war went on, these areas became more and more strictly controlled. Many recordings made in 1940 could not have been made later. This may explain why Northumberland, Durham and Lincolnshire were unrecorded owing to ‘insuperable war-time difficulties’.
As the Folly Flaneuse writes, the project was to record the changing face of Britain, however these changes were realised, and Lord Macmillan pulls no punches when he states that ‘the outward aspect of Britain was changing all too quickly before the War at the sinister hands of improvers and despoilers’.