Benjamin Morris writes:
Kilmahew Estate, located
in Cardross, west of Glasgow, has
long been a source of fascination. Despite having been a settlement of some
sort for hundreds of years, featuring both a medieval castle and a Victorian
stately home, the contemporary lives of the site, first as a Catholic seminary,
and then a drug rehabilitation centre, have by comparison been surprisingly
brief. St Peter’s Seminary opened in 1966 and lasted two decades; the
rehabilitation centre, only half that before closing its doors. Since then, the
site has become one of the
most popular ruins in Scotland: serving as impromptu
musical stage, all-night rave site, unofficial film set, squat encampment, and
destination for urban explorers from far and wide.
Explorers, of course, being a broad church.
Recently I was privileged to join a group of artists and researchers on a visit
to the site, sponsored by the Invisible College and the Royal
Geographical Society. It’s important to take the right book on a journey, and
fortuitously, tucked away in my bag was a new volume of short essays exploring
the futures of historic landscapes: Anticipatory History, edited by Caitlin
DeSilvey, Simon Naylor, and Colin Sackett. I couldn’t have brought along a better guidebook.
That said, Anticipatory History is not a
guidebook in the traditional sense. Its structure hews more towards a glossary
- community-sourced and collectively-written - of terms that are central to
ecological thought. Concepts such as adaptation, equilibrium, memory and
uncertainty are joined by processes such as erosion, managed realignment,
palliative curation, and unfarming. As a conceptual guidebook, it prompted new
and novel ways of thinking about this dynamic site, particularly its history of
constant change. For this is their aim: 'History that calls attention to
process rather than permanence may therefore help us to be more prepared for
future change; to respond thoughtfully and proactively, rather than in a mode
of retreat or regret.'
Indeed, it was difficult to cover the
grounds of the site without feeling those tensions between pasts and futures,
between the curated and the wild, play off one another anew. In the seminary
building, for instance, the many different forms of engagement with the site
were amply visible. Graffiti of more and less accomplished forms graced the
walls; the altar had been broken and desecrated, and rubbish of all sorts lay
strewn about, inviting impromptu archaeologies and conjectures as to who had
left it there, and why. And, of course, what else would come in time. As the
editors note, anticipatory history creates a means of approaching historic
landscapes outside the bounds of grand narratives or authorised discourses.
Rather, they suggest, it 'leaves room for expressing the 'small stories' and 'lay knowledges' that are layered in place, and then linking these to a
hoped-for future.'
Over the past half-century, some of those
futures have already taken place independent of the human presence. Entering the site via the
western approach, younger stands of trees, no more than twenty years old, have
sprung up at the exact moment the rehabilitation centre had shut its doors in
the early 1990s, and now encroach against the older-growth stands. Anyone
looking to rehabilitate the site would have to first map the species onset,
then determine how best to bring the site back to a more pristine woodland,
keeping in mind, as the editors of the volume claim, that such narratives of
purity, often defy the larger narratives of dynamicity that complex landscapes
harbor.
An excellent example of these tensions
centres on a rhododendron tunnel, considered a key feature of the landscape,
indeed, part of its ‘heritage’, despite this species having only been
introduced to the UK
at the end of the 18th century. Despite their ornamental appeal, their
introduction has had unintended consequences. As the entry on the species in
the volume observes, 'Rhododendrons have been able to out-compete many native
plants in Britain,
and because their leaves are inedible to many animals, their spread has proved
difficult to control and they have become reclassified as pests.'
Entering the tunnel today, it is hard not
to be impressed at the intricacy and scale of its design, as well as the atmospheric
effect of the corridor. In full leaf, the tunnel feels as dark as an abandoned
Tube station, or a holloway such as Robert Macfarlane has recently explored.
Non-native species or not, one does feel changed by passing through this
‘natural’ architecture, recalling the theologies of transformation that would
have been discussed at length around, and within, the grounds, and explaining
why one man in the area, the site curator noted, has threatened to chain
himself to the bushes should an order for ‘remediation’- clearance - come
through.
Given these tensions, the futures for the
site over the long-term remain unclear. Currently under consultation by NVA,
Kilmahew looks set to become a multidisciplinary arts site encompassing arts
research and practice in a variety of fields. The sound artist Michael Gallagher has recently produced a 45-minute audio documentary on the site, layering the voices of former inhabitants together, a compelling departure point for artists and future historians. With so many stories yet to yield
from its past, this move would undoubtedly be a productive use of the space,
particularly in terms of conservation, amid its ruination, the site still
retains the serenity, grace, and seclusion that gave rise to so many of its
lives, and any attempt to preserve that is worth the effort.
But thinking of its futures, other questions remain. Given its extensive grounds (133 acres, encompassing woodlands, fields and burns), its diverse constituencies (many of which are transitory and difficult to document or engage) and its architectural histories (a chapel, a castle and a stately home now demolished), the lives of Kilmahew collide and converge in ways that challenge both cohesive collection and swift, dispensable interpretation. The site precludes our understanding, no matter how many times we visit. As it should. For if anticipatory history teaches us anything, it's that we should move in the direction of, from away from, those limits. The land always has more to tell us. If only we would listen.
A writer and researcher, Benjamin Morris is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.
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