The Colne Valley landscape has always been vulnerable to change: from gravel extraction, to farming and agriculture, to digging the canals and building the M25 ‘Walks through a Changing Landscape’ is a project which will celebrate the changing Colne Valley landscape through workshops and publications.
Walks through a Changing Landscape project was a very exciting project which provided many opportunities for people to volunteer and get involved whether it was attending a workshop or leading a ‘new’ walking route giving other members of the public the chance to experience the changing landscape of the Colne Valley Park. A series of free workshops were held to enable participants to express their experiences of the Colne Valley landscape through creative writing, photography and art, which was then used in the new walking guidebook, Walking in the Footsteps of an Edwardian, which was created as part of this project.
Springall’s Country Rambles Round Uxbridge
During this project we followed Stephen Springall’s 1907 book Country Rambles Round Uxbridge and produced a new walk book that illustrates the changing landscape. It was an interesting challenge ‘translating’ rambles written over 100 years ago into today’s much changed landscape. It was a busy period deciphering Springall’s ‘laney ways’ and ‘rural prettiness’ and testing the walks for the upcoming booklet. Find out more here what was discovered during the translation process. In September 2019, art and photography workshops were held to capture the landscape of the Colne Valley Park today. The aim for the workshops was to incorporate the art work and photographs into the walks book showing some of the landscape changes that have occurred since Springall’s time.
The book has now been published and has received a great positive feedback. The book can be purchased at the Colne Valley Park Visitor Centre in Denham Country Park for only £6. If you are a member of the Friends of Colne Valley Park you can get a £3 discount. If you wish to purchase the book online please contact us on [email protected] (postage cost is £2).
All proceeds go to continued support of the Colne Valley Park Trust and Groundwork South Trust.
Art and Photography Online Exhibition
In September 2019, Art and Photography workshops were held as part of the Walks Through a Changing Landscape project.
No experience was required to attend the art and photography workshops lead by experts, Alexandra and Rob respectively – we just hoped that people would come along, capture the landscape of the Colne Valley and enjoy the day. Besides discovering the Colne Valley the aim was to relate the work created by the participants from the Art and Photography workshops to the Stephen Springall 1907 book, Country Rambles Round Uxbridge.
It was hoped that an exhibition would be held to display some of the art and photography from the workshop days but due COVID-19 and the unusual circumstance we are experiencing we are unable able to have a real exhibition at the moment, so we thought that exhibiting the work submitted online would be the next best thing.
Find out more in the link below.
Example of the art work submitted.
