ABSTRACT
In many ways landscape is little different, and one of the most important insiders is the owner. But landownership runs very deep, and most of us feel an important sense of violation if someone is on our own land without permission. Chekhov’s TheCherryOrchard examines this sense of violation with accuracy. It may not be the equivalent of waking up to find a stranger in our bedroom, but it is powerful none the less. Outside my house I have a small patch of concrete, sufficient for parking one car. It can easily be mistaken for part of the highway, but is actually my property. When someone else parks on it, I try hard to be polite but I still feel affronted, and this feeling has nothing to do with whether I need the space today or not. Landowners with public footpaths through their land, which they have to maintain, need some sympathy – though perhaps not as much as sometimes they seem to expect, especially in a country which does not quite recognise total ownership of land but prefers instead the concept of freehold, which
gives the occupier very significant rights over the land but not complete freedom to do as they wish (Figure 11.1).
