Of Industry and Imagination

Abstract

In the second half of the 18th century when the process of the industrialisation of the countryside only started to gain momentum, industry, of which the railway was later to become such a powerful symbol, was not regarded as being entirely at variance with the landscape. Rather, it was treated as one of many practices of taming or disciplining nature, diverse operations of improvement in the course of which nature could receive a new aesthetic aspect or become turned to account through the exploitation of its resources. In the words of Barrie Trinder, rationality and order were brought to a landscape that was unkempt or to one which was wild.