Leskernick Project Forum - local voices


From: Amy Hale

Hi everyone, I'm Amy Hale, Research Fellow at the Institute of Cornish Studies. I'm an anthropologist and a folklorist, and my areas of research concern (broadly) contemporary Celtic identities in Cornwall expressed in Cornish cultural activism, neo-Paganism, etc. I also do work in tourism as I tend to deal with issues of identity, representation and display.
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What have your interactions with the surrounding Cornish communities been like?


From: Henry Broughton

My name is Henry Broughton and I've been invovled with the Leskernick project since we first went to Bodmin Moor as a project in 1994. At the moment I am doing a Phd in Cornwall that is looking into the ways in which material culture of every day life affects perceptions of the past and linking this to notions of Cornish identity.

To reply to Amy - over the past couple of years we have been showing groups of local people around the site (this has included amateur archaeologists and the Cornish young archaeologists, farmers etc), and inviting them to respond to our work and gather some information as to the 'social life' of prehisoric remains on and around Bodmin moor. This has involved using questionaires and informal interviews. This will continue this summer with more local societies having been contacted (do you know of the Meyn Mamvro magazine ?) I think that it is extrememly important for a project such as Leskernick to feed information back into the community. There has been a tendancy for archaeology to neglect and fail to take into account the complex social relations that surround places like Leskernick. We are currently working on a small exhibition that will travel to local villages (Alternun to start with) while we are working on the hill and hopefully this will attract more local visitors. I am at this very moment writing up some of my findings from the work I have done in previous years and when finished I will post it onto the web site.


From: Amy Hale

That sounds fascinating!

"This has involved using questionaires and informal interviews. This will continue this summer with more local societies having been contacted (do you know of the Meyn Mamvro magazine?)"

Yes! Are you working with earth mysteries folk?


From: Amy Hale [replying to Mike Wilmore's comments regarding 'artificial communities'

That was a very interesting essay, Mike. Here's a question: what do you percieve as the relationship of this project to the area of Cornish Studies as a whole? You wrote that this project will be of interest to students of Cornish culture. Aside from the archaeological material, what have you all found out about Cornish culture that has informed the project, and that will in turn inform students?


From: Paul Basu

I'll leave your question for Mike, Henry or anyone else more qualified to answer it, but one element of the project that will hopefully engage with local communities is a modest exhibition we shall be putting on this summer which will tour around towns and villages in the vicinity of Bodmin Moor.

I think it would be a wonderful idea to design this in collaboration with people who have very different experiences of that Bodmin Moor landscape than we do. I feel it would be great to encourage some local people to join this discussion list and do this openly and on-line. Amy, perhaps you have some suggestions regarding accessing local internet users? I thought of maybe putting posters in some libraries, or inviting schools to participate, any other thoughts?


From: Amy Hale

That would be a good place to start, but let me think a bit further. I don't know how many internet users there are in the area, and that approach would certanly exclude some interesting informants. Have you worked with the Cornwall Heritage trust at all? I know Tony Blackman does some collecting and ethnographic work with Cornish farmers on Bodmin moor. He might be able to assist you with contacting some residents.

I was interested in if you had been gathering stories or impressions from the Cornish about their feelings and experiences of the site. Has anyone on your team read Cornwall: Cutlural Constructions of Place? It has some essays in it that might be of interest.


From: Henry Broughton

In past few years we have been encouraging local people to visit Leskernick while we are there. As I've been showing people around I have conducted some informal interviews. I also used questionaires but these were not so succesful. I am going to more of this work during the summer with more extensive interviews within peoples homes, looking at collections of photographs, sketch books and other records of the moor and its past. As I am 'in the middle' of this work I can't offer much to this discussion list. What I do keep on finding is the way in which 'local people' (a problematic category) or people who identify themselves as being Cornish see Leskernick as a place where the History of Cornwall is transcribed. Some of the members of CAAS have questioned our interpretations of the hill because we have focussed upon the Bronze Age landscape while ignoring the industrial stone working, tin streaming and peat cutting remains. This has interesting implications to the production of identity and the different ways people experience and thus preceive a landscape such as Leskernick.

Another thing that I've noticed is the unease many people have had about the exhibition. Leskernick is an isolated place and many people want it to stay that way (including amateur achaeologists, farmers, walkers). While most people have generally been enthusiastic about the exhibition there have been some people who'd rather we kept Leskernick, almost as a 'secret'. Here are a few quotes from some field work I've been doing:

"Publicicty of the wrong sort might attract the wrong people perhaps upsetting the farmers and live stock, not to say nothing of the archaeology"

"Do it carefully"

"Minions has become very Commercialised despite all the assurances to the contrary. Please don't do that to Leskernick"

Tony Blackman has visited us on the hill. He often brings his Young Archaeologists with him which is nice. He described his reaction to us and the exhibition as;

"The local communitity deserves to know yesterdays history - they are the history of the moor tommorow and generations of them have respected their past environment"

Alternun actually has a Web Site and the local internet person is the man who runs the Casa Moor bed and Breakfast hotel. I have stayed there a few times while doing field work and so he knows about the project.


From: Tony Williams

It's interesting that the moor is couched in terms of its 'isolation' by people who use the moor on a fairly frequent basis - farmers, walkers and so on. Certainly challenges the idea that insiders don't have recourse to landscape as image. When I asked project participants to describe the moor using adjectives many said they felt that it was 'isolated', remote' and 'cossetted'. These depictions, which belie a modernist tendency would more usually be associated with people who perhaps engage with the moor on a fairly fleeting, transitory basis or who have moved 'in' from more populated areas precisly because they want to live in the background reality of a rural idyll and don't want that idyll disturbed. This often brings conflict, especially when 'locals' wish to develop the landscape in ways which conflict with its picturesqueness. Of course, often it is 'incomers' who want to do the developing! Which one are we - the project personnel - who have built up a great affection, even 'mystical' relationship with Leskernick and Bodmin Moor ? A great debate - comments please!


If you have anything to add, subscribe to the Leskernick discussion list or post a message to leskernick@ucl.ac.uk. We look forward to hearing from you!

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