ABSTRACT
In the last chapter we saw how Bedford began to be transformed both visually and socially after the middle of the nineteenth century, as affluent urbanites converted declining or derelict farms into country estates. Bedford was being reshaped by new aesthetic ideals based on the landscape tastes and cultural consumption practices adopted and developed during the nineteenth century by urban elites. As signifying systems, the landscapes of Bedford not only communicated a gracious, country house way of life, but they also played a substantial role in constituting this aestheticized way of life. Landscapes are, of course, much more than signifying systems. As the visible surface of places, landscapes are ensembles of physical elements and economic infrastructurehills, fields, streams, dirt roads, barns, mansions and cottages, railroads, offices, stores and villagescapes, as well as images, views, and individual and collective memories. They are media molded into grand compositions that are enacted within the framework of culturally and historically particular discourses. As we have argued, landscapes, especially landscapes of home, become incorporated into the formation and performance of individual, familial, and community identities. The meanings of places upon which people base their identities are contested and assembled from very loosely articulated cultural discourses.
