ABSTRACT
The countryside and its past have a particular appeal which from time to time takes on an emotional intensity. In the First World War poets saw pastoral England in almost mystical terms and resoundingly felt that it was worth fighting for. Rural Wales has its passionate adherents too. In our present day huge numbers in amenity organizations flock to the defence of the countryside from development. The emotional concern has been heightened through the abiding impression that the landscape is destined to experience even more disfigurement than has so far occurred. Hoskins (1955) communicated this view uncompromisingly 40 years ago, and his anti-development bias is shared by a broad cross-section of opinion today. He observed that since 1914
every single change in the English landscape has either uglified it or destroyed its meaning, or both. Of all the changes in the last two generations, only the great reservoirs of water for the industrial cities of the North and Midlands have added anything to the scene that one can contemplate without pain (p. 298).
