CARRLANDS, North Lincolnshire
North Lincolnshire is a quiet corner of England, far from the tourist trail. The canalised ‘new’ River Ancholme and the old river that still winds along its course – appearing first in one bank then the other – quietly drains a large part of the county, all the land between the chalk Wolds and the limestone Heights.
Kjarr is a Danish word for marsh or bog; the carrs are lands close to the river that once flooded regularly and were used primarily as seasonal pasture. This was long a water-world. After Enclosure and concerned attempts at drainage, the carrs were turned over to arable agriculture.
This is a man-made landscape. It can often seem deserted now but for the occasional tractor, pleasure boat, dog walker ...
There are no startling vistas. Only the bridges offer viewpoints in the level expanse: a landscape for doing, feeling and listening as much as for looking.
Here too a special opportunity to think about landscape:
How and why does it come to be as it is?
What struggles – natural and human – lie behind its placid façade?
Is it as much a network of related stories and experiences as a collection of topographic details?
