Wandering Man

Discusses Philip Larkin's poem Church Going.

A discussion of what we find appealing about landscapes, the allure of decay, and the sense of being at the end of something.  I draw parallels with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to highlight the deep history we can sense in what we see.  

A quarantine exercise walk around the common of Gwaun Cae Gurwen and a discussion of medieval transhumance, drovers, miners, strikes, Churchill and what happens to mining village after the mines close.  With a reading of my poem 'Dark prism' that covers this ground.

A countryside ramble with talk about medieval leprosy, holloways, hedgerow dating, archaeology on construction sites, what Detectorists gets wrong about commercial archaeology, and how housing shortages got us where we are today.

A semi-rural walk along a new link road, and a discussion of Guy Debord's definition of Psychogeography, and how it has been adapted by Ian Sinclair and others.  Finally I talk about my background as a landscape archaeologist and how it influences the way I respond to the built environment.

A brief walk around Swansea Docks leads to a discussion of how we filter our environment, what happens to post-industrial places, and the meaning of Catherine Zeta Jones' middle name.