While
travelling to Shetland recently, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting
Commission) News was read on-line. One report told that Lord Howe
Island residents had just rejected all wind-turbine development on
their land, on aesthetic grounds, pure appearance alone.^
When
driving north to Unst, the familiar turbines high above Tingwall
brought the news item to mind. Later, on the approach to Gutcher, the
set of five, stark wind structures standing tall over North Yell was
seen for the first time. Looking back at this array of elevated
spinning blades from Belmont, one soon becomes aware of the aesthetic
intrigues stimulated by these prominent machines.
Belmont House, Unst
Aerial view of Belmont House
It
has taken many years and much careful and committed effort for
Belmont House to be renovated. All materials, indeed nearly every
single stone, each precise detail, and the exact hue of the finishes
were meticulously researched, recorded, reviewed, and authenticated
so that this beautiful building could be respected, and responsibly
restored to its original grandeur: made authentic again. While this
effort has achieved its intent, the authenticity of the landscape,
the original context of the old house beyond its garden walls, has
been significantly altered by a development that apparently remains
oblivious to its domineering impact. Belmont House now stands on its
formal axis gazing out over Bluemull Sound, looking across to the
hills of Yell on which the set of five turbines stand, protruding
cyclically into the scope of the sky that forms part of the broad
prospect of the historic house, its distant address.
The wind turbines at North Yell with new access road.
Wind turbines always come with a service access footprint.
Belmont House
The
Biblical poet's 'lift up mine eyes unto the hills,' comes to mind as
one ponders the 'help' that Belmont House might gain from this
hilltop development. It becomes obvious that there is something askew
in the search for things 'green' and sustainable, with the
maintenance of a strategy that appears so careless with the aesthetic
qualities of landscape in these treeless islands, of the experience
of place, and the subtleties of the heritage of the region. Shetland
needs to decide whether it finds such significant impacts on its
stark beauty, described by MacDiarmid as 'the infinite beauties of
the bare land,' to be of any relevance to its identity that it
promotes without any apparent irony or embarrassment as 'Pride of
Place.'
Hugh MacDiarmid
Ferry crossing Bluemull Sound (Belmont House in centre)
Weeks
later, on the ferry crossing from Gutcher to Belmont, while admiring the vista of
graduated, grey, misted hills, and the startling, diving flight of
gannets in the late, hazed brilliance of the setting sun, the
distracting dominance of the towers alerted the eyes and demanded
attention. Their hedge-hogging of the sky, pricking the spirit of
place with the perpetual, awkward, asymmetric agitation of their
geometric rigour, made them the centre of attention; a distraction;
an unwanted attraction.
Yell hills and sky without turbines
The five turbines, North Yell
View of North Yell from ferry (with wind turbines kept just of of frame left)
Shetland
promotes its naked beauty, its 'green,' natural, island credentials,
and its splendid landscape, perhaps best illustrated in those J.D. Ratter
photographs of old, all with a certain nostalgic pomp and panache.#
Shetland really has to decide if it wants the first characteristic,
rationalised in the production of 'green' wind power, or the latter,
the Ratter wonder, the love and care of bare, native place, as
presently there appears to be a collision of intents, a raw clash of
ambitions.
Hugh
MacDiarmid wrote about his time on Whalsay with its 'rare interludes
back in Edinburgh or Glasgow or Manchester,' as 'these comings into
relationship again with minds keen, alert, attuned to beauty.' He
added that he had no intention of being unfair to Shetland, since 'If
there are no such people in Shetland, there are exceedingly few in
Scotland or England either - not more than one per 100,000.' (Quoted
by Michael Grieve in MacDiarmid in Shetland, edited by Graham
and Smith, Shetland Library, Lerwick, 1992 -Foreword.)
Sadly,
given Shetland's population, and using these MacDiarmid figures, the
odds of Shetland acting on aesthetic grounds alone as Lord Howe
Island has done, does not appear to augur well, in spite of the hyped
promotional programmes that suggest otherwise. The maintenance of
Shetland's unique beauty remains a challenge that is obvious to the
visitor who brings great expectations, all generated by the mystique
of the tourist blurb that slyly ignores the aesthetic implications of
the generation of 'green' power with wind, and its disturbing impact
on the experience of place* and its past, a circumstance that creates
such a bold and unsettling, irrational conflict revealed so clearly
on Unst, at historic Belmont.
What
happens to us
Is
irrelevant to the world's geology
But
what happens to the world's geology
Is
not irrelevant to us.
We
must reconcile ourselves to the stones,
Not
the stones to us.
Hugh
MacDiarmid On a Raised Beach+
Hugh MacDiarmid
Oscar
Wilde comes to mind: ‘Each
man kills
the things he loves
. . . ’
Muckle Flugga Lighthouse, northern Unst
^
"This would affect the
spectacular and scenic landscapes for which the world heritage island
group is recognised," the spokesman said in a statement.
#
The
strong influence of Shetland's landscape, heritage and culture, can
be seen in the creative output of Shetland's craft makers.
Statement
made in the introduction of the Shetland Craft Trail &
Makers 2016/2017 booklet.
*
Adam
Nicolson, in Sea Room An Island Life,
describes the experience of his Shiant Islands as: 'the loved
contours of the place.'
+
MacDiarmid
is certainly one of the major figures of all Scottish literature, and
I think probably our greatest poet since Burns.
George
Mackay Brown
