ANGLIA POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY
(now
Anglia Ruskin University )

 BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND BIBLICAL THEOLOGY

MAKING CONNECTIONS: DISCERNING RELATIONSHIPS

MICHAEL POWELL

 

 Doctor of Philosophy  February 2003

 

10 - TRAVERSING PLACES AND TIMES: PSALMS

 

In a city, the street must be supreme, It is the first institution of the city. The street is a room by agreement.... Today.., you have roads but no streets... (Louis Kahn)

 

10.1  Purpose

The purpose of this Section is to consider a variety of texts and other materials whose intent is sometimes to guide the observer around a particular locality or route and sometimes to , lead the observer into a particular experience of place.

Such experience is draw centripetally into searching theological reflections and questions, and the texts of the Psalms.

 

10.2 Nature of the theme

Much human interaction with built environments is one of traverse, whether the traverse of a daily journey repeated many times or of a once-in-a-lifetime visit. Such traversing can be in the present time or in the past and can be facilitated by texts or personal experience. Locations traversed are physically encountered, intellectually understood and emotionally appreciated.

As well as language, texts relating to locations in Chelmsford and Tasmania utilise aerial and ground photography and watercolour painting. These, linked with one's own direct exploration, enable the traverses to become one's own.

 

10.3 Chelmsford

Strachan (1998) is concerned with the archaeology and history of Essex , which he approaches through the use of aerial photographs, from which maps and reconstructions are made. He starts with seven Bronze Age sites including not only Springfield Lyons but also others in the Borough at Great Baddow and Broomfield . His presentations of the Roman Villa at Chignal St James, the medieval Pleshey Castle and the Royal Palace at Writtle are powerful because of their perspective; the reader is drawn into the work of the photographer and artist. A reality grows out of archaeological remains and marks in a field.

Aerial photography enables one to take in major features outside Chelmsford Borough. Looking down onto reconstructions of the Palladian Thorndon Hall or the twenty-five arch railway viaduct across the Colne flood plain on the Suffolk border evokes a sense of wonder and mystery at the skill of the architect, the engineer and those who worked with them. More compelling because they are of our own time are the M11/M25 interchange at Epping and the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at the Dartford crossing of the Thames .

Murphy and Brown (1999) consider the archaeology of the coastal landscape. In relation to a

picture entitled 'early morning at the Neolithic site at The Stumble in the Blackwater

Estuary", they say:

 

There is an equivocation about the Essex coast, a curious amalgam of land, sea and sky with numinous quality difficult to escape; the past seems very close.......... the remoter parts of the Essex coast evoke a sense of timelessness.

(Murphy and Brown 1999:11)

Alongside this sense of timelessness is the acute awareness of change. The Saxon St Peter's Chapel is now isolated at the edge of the marshes but it was built within the remains of the Roman shore fort of Othona, located in a pivotal position on the North Sea coast.

A systematic exploration of Chelmsford town centre can be made using the Walking Guide compiled by Jones and Scarborough for the Friends of Chelmsford Museum. Starting from the Museum itself at the most southerly point, they follow the line of the Roman London-to­Colchester Road through what is now Moulsham High Street, underneath the 1960's ring road, to the historic Stone Bridge over the River Can, up Chelmsford High Street, through the medieval market place, around the cathedral, and south again to the Museum, following the line of the New London Road constructed in the mid-nineteenth century. The walk is designed to take 2-3 hours and includes detailed notes on 74 buildings and other features of mainly historical interest.

These compilers are not inviting explorers to appreciate the finer points of architectural history. They comment little on building styles and materials. They say nothing about the evidence of Dutch influence on detailing of brickwork or the stories of water supply and sewage. Their main concern is to reveal the human story that is exemplified by, and embodied in, this built environment of central Chelmsford .

It is a story extending over approaching two thousand years of who lived where; of who carried out what kind of business where; of where people worshipped as Catholics, Anglicans, Nonconformists and Quakers; of where the law has made its judgements and incarcerated its prisoners; of where children and adults have been educated; of hospitals; of local government offices; of the public houses in which life has been turned into words and words have been turned into life; of the institutions in which history has been enshrined. Here, in a very small geographical area, almost completely built up, time too builds up on itself. In layered form, so much is here. While it can be disentangled in a historically linear way, it is not really like that. The tangle and the inter-relatedness are the reality.

 

What is revealed in this walk cannot be assimilated all at once. The complete stranger, from say Tasmania, even given a good general knowledge of English history, would need time to absorb the particularities of the Mildmay family who at the Reformation succeeded the Bishops of London as Lords of the Manor and had to obtain an Ad of Parliament in the nineteenth century in order to untie themselves from Tudor entailments, or of the industrial families of Marconi, Hoffman, Crompton and others who had homes and workplaces here. The present writer leamt for the first time of once a quite major rope making industry in Moulsham, and of The Chelmsford Company, a group of five nineteenth century nonconformists - a solicitor, a banker, two brewers and the architect and engineer James Fenton - who acquired property sufficient to develop New London Road, the first planned development in the town.

 

Marriage (1992,1997) shows his readers the town in which he has lived the whole of his life from the perspective of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. The Chelmer Navigation Bill received the Royal assent in 1793. It contained powers for the compulsory purchase of land and for transportation to Australia of anyone found guilty of damage to the canal Company's property. The canal length was 13.25 miles, and it incorporated twelve locks, each 68 feet long and 17 feet wide, to overcome a change in level from Heybridge Basin to Chelmsford of 76 feet. The Navigation was designed by John Rennie FRS and the Resident Engineer was Richard Coates. Rennie made use of his standard design details but the locks are unlike those of almost any other inland navigation. Rennie designed the attractive brick arched bridges, some of which remain. The bricks were from local sources but the cappings were of hardwearing Dundee Stone.

 

A major feature of the canal-side was the mills; Moulsham Mill on the edge of Chelmsford is notable among the mill buildings that remain. The Navigation became the focus of much commercial and industrial activity:

 

...the land around was quickly laid out with sawmills, lime kilns, iron foundries, stone masonry and coal yards. Quays were constructed alongside the basin and at its head was a large open wharf and yard area... Adjacent to this large yard a gas works was built in 1819, becoming the first to be built on an inland site in Britain , using coal barged up the Navigation.

(Marriage 1997:15)

 

Industrial usage continued until 1972. After twenty years of uncertainty and the possibility of the basin being filled in, to mark the bi-centenary in 1992, dredging and partial restoration was carried out, ensuring a future as an environmental and recreation facility. `The authorities... have now recognized the heritage value of this fragment of 18th century England and declared the entire canal from Chelmsford to Heybridge Basin and its valley a linear Conservation Area, one of the first in the country.' (Marriage 1997:38). The successor to one of the original timber companies retains a major base at the site but new developments of flats are now replacing the old waterside buildings.

 

In an earlier text, Marriage (1992) explores change in Chelmsford through most of the twentieth century. The major changes are from rural to urban and, within the urban, from residential to commercial and industrial use. In addition to the canal and Springfield he shows internal views of Crompton Parkinson's electrical engineering works in Writtle Road , Marconi's first factory in Hall Street and Hoffman's works. Now, in 2000, the Crompton Parkinson site is cleared for 500 dwellings to be built and Hoffmans has become the riverside site of the University.

 

Marriage evokes the variety of the Built Environment with photographic views of the former racecourse at Galleywood, of the sweeping 1930's Broomfield Sanatorium building, schools dating from the turn of the century and the 1930's, and the ornamented Essex Police Headquarters at Springfield.

 

The Parish of Writtle (2000) chose to mark the Millennium by producing a parish map with commentary and beautiful watercolour paintings. The commentary in particular is a review of notable buildings, revealing just how varied the functions of buildings in a single parish can be.

One accompanies the compilers as they make their way around the village, noting the most significant sites and buildings:

·        All Saints' Church originating in 1143, the Norman building dating from 1240; there was a Priory close by.

 

·        The United Reformed Church, founded in 1672, with the present site first used in 1815 and the present building constructed in 1885.

 

·        King John's Palace which reached the height of its significance in the 14th century; site now within the grounds of Writtle College .

 

·        The Great Barn at Lordships built around 1500, also now part of Writtle College . Hylands House - the largely eighteenth century country house and park.'

 

·        Writtle Workhouse - in Bridge Street adjoining the River 1Nid, in use from the early nineteenth century to 1844, when all residents were transferred to Chelmsford.

 

·        Writtle Brewery - in Bridge Street near the workhouse site.

·        Schools - at various sites in the churchyard area, on the Green and, since the 1960's, in Lodge Road .

 

·        Writtle Mills - the watermill on the Wid and the windmill on Writtle Road .

 

·        Public houses - the cellars of the Inn on the Green dating from the sixteenth century.

 

·        Longmeads, built in 1880 as a private house for a Chelmsford banker, now a centre for parish and community activities.

 

·        Marconi's wooden hut 2MT - the place from which, in the 1920's, broadcasts were made.The foundations of national broadcasting were laid in Writtle.

 

·        Writtle College - a University College of 1300 students studying land-related disciplines; main buildings dating from the 1930's and 1960's.

 

So much of life is here. Part of it is revealed by the buildings. Part of it is either hidden in private property or happens behind anonymous walls.

 

It is important to bear in mind that Writtle, like Chelmsford , is a crossing place on the Can for traffic from London to Colchester and Colchester to London . At some periods Writtle has been the better crossing or had the better bridge. In the modem era it is Chelmsford rather than Writtle that has grown.

 

10.4 Tasmania

 

Material chosen for this Section relates to the Rubicon Estuary and Port Sorrell, the town of Latrobe and the Upper River areas.

 

The municipality of Latrobe publishes details of a self-guided walk around Port Son-ell and adjoining areas. The notes refer to some of the historical features and some of the features of natural beauty in the area.

 

After the removal of the police office to Devon port,3 the estuary and township experienced a period of stagnation. However, in time a new kind of life was to open up for Port Sorrell. The day came when some progressive residents, together with some regular holiday makers, decided to breathe new life into this beautiful location.' (A History of Port Sorrell 1994:10). The word `beautiful' is significant. Hitherto this has been a place for policing and general commerce. Now it is the beauty of the estuary area that is to be the basis of its development. The Port Sorrell Reserve Improvement Committee was formed in 1916 with the objective of making Port Sorrell 'an attractive centre for fishing and holiday-making'. (A History of Port Sorrell 1994:10). Building work included bathing sheds, a shelter shed and picnic facilities, and a caretaker's cottage, brought from Vinginstow. House building commenced in 1919 and, in addition, holiday cottages were built. Electricity came to the area in 1941, a reticulated water supply in 1953, and a sewage pumping station in 1982.

 

A State school was established in 1937:

An obsolete building, which had previously housed the Virginstow School at East Sassafras, was moved to a site on the south side of Wilmot Street , and 16 students were enrolled. The building was moved to Port Sorrell by Eric Pierce, driving a solid­wheeled, solid-tyred International Truck owned by Walpole 's Transport.

(Port Sorrell Sesquicentenary Committee 1994:37)

 

A further rich insight into vernacular and basic building is derived from Groves ' store on the Muddy Creek Esplanade:

Groves ... was an old sailor who arrived at Port Sorrell in an unseaworthy vessel about 1940 and decided to stay. The store had walls of palings and flattened-out bitumen drums and a mafthoid4 roof.

(Port Sorrell Sesquicentenary Committee 1994:35)

 

In 1998 when the writer visited the estuary, an area of Shearwater was marked out in building plots for sale - reminiscent of pictures of England in the 1930's. Three years later much building had taken place, creating a neighbourhood of, in the main, detached bungalows of a conventional type. This small area was said to have been one of the fastest growing in Tasmania for a period. But the pace had slowed down. Planning Officers in both Latrobe and Devonport said informally that the location is too far from facilities available only in Devonport. No primary school had been built, thereby creating a situation in which three-quarters of the children at Wesley Vale School were from Port Sorrell and Shearwater. Development at Hawtey includes some individually designed beachside and riverside houses, some of which are attractive and some, either individually or in relation to each other, aggressive and lacking in quietness and harmony.

 

Latrobe is a small town attractive to visitors. The approach road from Devonport follows the line of the Second Western River , the Mersey . One becomes aware that one has reached a bridge with some riverside activity nearby. Within a moment or two, one is driving along a wide, absolutely straight street, Gilbert Street , with shops and other facilities on either side. On the left, the street backs immediately on to Dooley's Hill. On the right there is a plain and various streets perpendicular to Gilbert Street . The far background is of snow-capped (when the writer was there) range of hills. The Information Centre is prominent in the middle of the town. Visitors are obviously welcome and a significant part of the town's present livelihood.

 

The atmosphere of the town is well encapsulated by - and in part created by - Badcock's Latrobe's Heritage (1999). She notes that the town was laid out in 1856 and that building commenced in 1858. Within twenty years it was to become the most popular and prosperous town in the area, `the Capital of the North West '. Badcock's technique is to offer her own drawings and brief notes on some fifty-five buildings. Most of these are included in the registers of the National Trust of Australia ( Tasmania ). Four have the highest status, that is they are included in the National Estate Register and the remainder are either 'classified' or `recorded'. For inclusion in the National Register, buildings must have `aesthetic, historic, scientific or social significance, or other special value' for present and future generations. (Badcock 1999:59).

 

Badcock commences her survey 1.5km back from Latrobe on the Devonport road. Here is the residence Frogmore built in the 1880's for one of the pioneer businessmen of the town, George Atkinson. The National Register explains that it is a large [relatively, for the area] two-storey brick Victorian Italianate Villa, with a three-storey tower and two-storey return verandah. To the visitor from England , it is highly reminiscent of Queen Victoria 's Frogrnore on the Isle of Wight .

 

Now located in the vicinity of the bridge is Sherwood Hall, originally built in 1850 in Raifton Road but because of flooding, transferred to its present site in 1993. Although not classified by the National Trust in any way, it is regarded as a near unique example in this area of a colonial type home. The Restoration Committee comment:

 

When Sherwood Hall was re-erected on site in Bell 's Parade there was much to be done. The weatherboards on all walls except under the verandah had to be renewed and the shingles for the roof had to be found. In addition, internal doors to suit the era had to be found or made, window and hand-made bricks for the chimney to be obtained. It seemed a mammoth task but with the assistance of a retired builder and retired tradesmen, all these tasks could be completed with extreme accuracy.

(Sherwood Hall Newsletter 162)

 

In discussion with the writer, the housekeeper added that the 10 000 roof shingles for the restoration were made single-handedly by an octogenarian tradesman. She also brought out the significance of the fad that the people for whom (or by whom) the house was originally built, Thomas Johnson and Dolly Dalrymple Johnson, were, respectively, a discharged convict and a true Aborigine. The house symbolises a marriage of which there was disapproval but which united two strands in the Tasmanian people.

 

Badcock continues to work her way up Gilbert Street , with diversions from time to time into adjacent streets. As one accompanies her through and around Gilbert Street , one is aware that elevational materials are sometimes timber Gadding and sometimes brick or rendering. Roofs may be corrugated sheet or tiled. There is a mix of one- and two-Storey buildings. Much of the housing dates from the Federation period - Australia became a Federation of States in 1901. Such housing is marked by bull-nose canopies over veranda, ornamental cast iron work and Georgian type windows. Classical styles are evident in Unquhart's Keep (`keep' meaning bank), Oddfellows Hall, the Masonic Hall, the composite Post Office, Museum and Library, and in some of the stores.

 

The town has a complement of at least four churches. The Uniting Church , commenced in 1879, is on the National Estate Register.

 

The architect and builder of the church was William Gadsby of Formby (Devonport), and Mr Michael Woods was Clerk-of-Works. The building was completed within eighteen months at a cost of Ł888...

[It] consists of a rectangular nave (1 5.5x8 metres), a chancel (4x5 metres), and a vestry to the south of the chancel. The style of the church is 'Victorian Free Gothic' with early English influences. The external walls are face brickwork, with deep coloured clay bricks in English bond.

(www.ahc.gov.au/cgi-bin/heritage/28/08/01)

 

Badcock also illustrates the Anglican, Baptist and Roman Catholic churches. The first two have Gothic nuances but the third is the most authentically Tasmanian, the main part of it being a simple weather-boarded structure immaculately maintained.

 

In addition to Frogmore and The Uniting Church, buildings included on the National Estate Register are the Lucas Hotel and, as an item in its own right, a prefabricated iron shed which is one of its outbuildings. Documentation from the Australian Heritage Council deals summarily with the hotel, noting that its style is Georgian, that it was built about 1870 and that it has been considerably altered in detail. The Commission deals at length with the shed. It is of a type manufactured in Britain in the 1840's to 1860's. It is intact, the only one of its kind in Tasmania and one of very few in the whole of Australia . Prefabricated buildings were exported to Australia in the mid-nineteenth century when population growth was exceeding the availability of skilled tradesmen and materials. This one's main use was as a sample shed for use by commercial travellers.

 

This traverse now moves to the Upper River Areas. Central to this consideration is Haygarth's text, Cradle Mountain- Lake St Clair & Walls of Jerusalem : A History of Tasmania 's Forth River High Country. Haygarth goes into much detail on the early exploration of the area and mining for tin, gold, copper, silver and other commodities. The building story is the familiar one of tracks, huts and surveys, all well illustrated photographically. All this came to an end. `Silence settled over the highlands as the Great Depression took hold'. (Haygarth: 1998:123).

 

Tourism would inevitably follow. Gustav Weindorfer, an immigrant from Austria , wanted to build a house, a village and a road so that visitors could come to see the natural glories of the area. He envisaged a national park for enjoyment by all the people. While urging government to build a road, he and his wife opened their own tourist centre, Waldheim, described thus by a visitor in 1921:

And Wakiheim is a pleasure in itself! Its charming, unexpected nooks, its clean, beautiful, natural materials, the fanciful yet practical design, the fitness (perfect!) to its surroundings, the bath house, the lovely tent room, and last the marvellous little garden. - And then we have not mentioned its own special spirit or feeling which really is there. All are to be enjoyed freely.

(Haygarth: 1996:131)

 

In a rich mix of text and colour photography, Harding and Dale (2000) recall Weindorfer's words of 4 January 1910 :

There must be a National Park for the people for all time. It [the area] is magnificent, and people must know about it and enjoy it.

(Harding and Dale 2000:5)

 

In 1989 the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair area and the adjoining Walls of Jerusalem area became one World Heritage Area.

 

Walls of Jerusalem ' has a particular significance for this thesis. Harding and Dale state that the area was first visited by Jorgen Jorgenson in 1826. In 1849 the surveyor James Scott visited the area and was responsible for naming some of the features. Reg Hall, a visitor in the 1920's, was responsible for adding a distinctly biblical nomenclature including The Temple, The Pools of Bethesda and Siloam, King David's Peak, Lake Salome , The Damascus Gate and Solomon's Throne. This contrasts with the Greek nomenclature, such as Mount Olympus and The Acropolis, used in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair area.

 

There is a haunting power in the thought that names of built places in Jerusalem are given to vast, natural places in Tasmania . It is almost as if, to transpose John 1: 14 , the flesh has become Word, a word for all the people, for all time.

 

The hydro electricity works of this area are fundamental. Lupton (1999) is the chronicler of hydro electricity in Tasmania in the twentieth century. Great expansion followed World War II:

By the 1950's the consumption of electricity in developing countries was doubling every eight years. In Tasmania , it was doubling every five. By 1951, 3000 miles of transmission lines were carrying power at high voltage to most centres of Tasmania and another 2000 miles of low voltage lines distributed it to 82 545 homes, offices, shops and factories.

Street lighting was an increasingly incidental and relatively unprofitable source of the HEC's revenues, but remained one of the most highly visible features of its public profile.

(Lupton 1999185)

 

Another aspect of public visibility was the impact of the structures themselves:

Clark Dam was, by the standards of the times [1950's], a massive structure, taller by half than the tallest building in Australia . Together with Tarraleah's sixth generating set and Butler 's Gorge Power Station, it virtually doubled the output of the statewide power system.

(Lupton 1999:196)

 

The Tasmanian Anglican (September 2001) tells how the present Bronte Park Highland Village used the centenary of Australian Federation (1901-2001) as an occasion to express `gratitude for the life and work of people of many nations who built the Hydro story'. Permanent marks included the planting of 100 trees, the restoration of some of the temporary buildings and, inside one of the buildings, a Tree of Life bearing the words:

 

The Tree of Life

To inspire us in spirit

To share in strength and energy

To allow us to see the growth of history in the Central Highlands of Tasmania where the major development of Hydro Power took place from 1910-1968

To recognise the legacy of that development.

 

(Diocese of Tasmania 2001:8)

 

 

10.5 General Built Environment texts

A text by Shepheard (1997) is to be considered first; it provides an important insight into the experience of traverse and the associated experience of seeing.

He explains, `This book is about seeing things that are too big to see.' (Shepheard 1997:vii). It is about the relationship between the wilderness - the world before humans appeared in it-, cultivation - everything we have done to it-, and landscape - another name for the strategies that have governed what we've done. What we've done includes architecture: `Architecture is not just buildings ... It is not everything but it is more than buildings. No narrative can encompass it, no revelation can solve it. Action is required: architecture is the art of the solid, uncompromising, conclusive material worid.' (Shepheand 1997-.viii).

 

Shepheard does not work with a theoretically argued text but with a series of studies. In one, he goes to Ely, the cathedral city of Cambridgeshire and the heart of a flat, fenland,one at a point five miles out and take a photograph. They do the same at each mile point until they reach the city. They discover that there is a critical distance, one-and-three­-quarter miles out: `at that critical distance all the finials and carving and buttressing become dear, and mass is swapped for detail. I think that is the distance Gothic buildings are set up for. They are pitched at people walking toward them in the surrounding countryside. There is a pull to it, like wind catching the sails, which puts excitement into the last three thousand yards of the journey.' (Shepheard 1997:13).

 

As Shepheand and his companion pursue their web-like journey, they become aware that there is 'a thing called heritage' going on. `It's why old things have to be restored to an authentic narrative - so they can be made new. Restoration is a theme in a strategy, and the strategy is to cling to the past with all the strength that modem methods can muster. Authenticity is the science lurking in the nostalgia.' (Shepheard 1997:14).

 

Shepheard's final piece is entitled Vision. He takes a party of architectural students to Harrow Hill to see the view across London to St Pauls. One of them is called Eve. She reflects:

There is no knowledge without experience - that's why you've brought us up here isn't it? You couldn't just tell us about the London Basin , we have to feel it, don't we?'

She's right.

`You have to eat the apple, don't you?'

        (Shepheard 1997:190)

 

Coincidentally, Eve's boyfriend and fellow student is called Adam. He and a fellow student,

Alex, are remembered thus:

 

The Telecom Tower peeps over the hill to broadcast over it. Canary Wharf and the NatWest tower are higher than the hill for a less fundamental, but possibly as profound, reason - they are both striving to be the tallest building in the patch.

`In that case,' says Alex, ' Canary Wharf has won. The black one's obsolete. They should destroy it.'

`Or build a higher one still and destroy Canary Wharf ,' says Adam. Is the boy a prophet?

(Shepheard 1997:192)

 

 

The myths of Genesis live, recognised or not, in the conversations of architectural students whose homes are in the Pacific Rim , who attend an American university, and who are on a study visit to London .'

 

Brand (1994) sheds interesting light on traverse through time in relation to particular buildings. He argues that buildings are thought of too statically and are not perceived to flow through time. While 'architecture' may sometimes set out to make a permanent mark, buildings are always being built and rebuilt. Technology, money and fashion are irresistible forces stimulating change. Brand argues for a considered rather than a chaotic approach to the management of flow and change. He suggests that different time frames apply to different facets of buildings:

SITE                            is [relatively] eternal

STRUCTURE            persists and dominates over time

SKIN                           is mutable

SERVICES                become obsolescent

SPACES                   layouts are changed

`STUFF'                     just keeps moving ie Contents  

 

Brand suggests that too often Site dominates Structure, which dominates Skin, which dominates the Services, which dominate the Space plan, which dominates the Stuff. And all too often the Stuff dominates the SOUL of the user, making us Servants to our Stuff.

 

In other circumstances, the slow moving of buildings over time is what is desirable. Slow can be healthy. The steadfast persistence of a site and a structure can give beneficial security.

 

The management of growth and change need to be in the direction of getting better and becoming good.

 

10.6 General Biblical Theology texts

 

Traversing built environments is about engaging with particular locations. Some Australian theologians are asking whether they need to engage more explicitly with their own country and its circumstances.

 

Stockton (1999) entitles his piece on developing Australian theology A Bush Theologian Goes His Way. He is one of those searching for an Australian spirituality and an Australian Jesus. He recalls the visit of Pope John Paul II to Canberra in November 1986, when the Pope gave this invitation:

 

Look, dear people of Australia  

and behold this vast continent of yours.

It is your home! The place of your joys and pains,

your endeavours and your hopes.

And for all of you, Australians,

the way to the Father's house passes through

 this land.

Jesus Christ is the way.

 

(Stockton 1999: 249-50)

 

Malone (1999), the editor of the volume in which Stockton is writing, explains Stockton 's approach: `He is not putting himself down when he refers to himself as a bush theologian. He is reminding us of a theology which is based on experience and story-telling, which develops its methods not only from the intellect but from the imagination and from the heart.' (Malone 1999:23). Stockton himself says that he has `grown utterly convinced that we cannot really talk about an Australian theology, spirituality or whatever, without a strong sense of our own sacred story. In this story we are inspired to find God revealed, the Word enfleshed in our own culture.' (Stockton 1999:258).

 

Fletcher (1999), Stockton 's co-contributor, takes the thinking further.

.... we non-Aboriginal Australians live in two worlds spiritually: we live in the religion we inherited full-blown from our immigrant forbears, and we live in this land. The inherited spirituality was formed in an ages long relationship with other lands (for example, Ireland ). We are only slowly recognising the impact of those other lands, their history and culture on the style of our spirituality. It is not that we must devalue that inheritance. But there is a need to weave that inheritance together with the experiences of immanence that are evoked in this land and in the history of this society.

(Fletcher 1999:276-77)

 

Sheldrake (2001) is concerned with generic issues of Spaces for the Sacred. He makes a traverse of his own subject area, touching as he goes on various matters referred to in this thesis.

 

He speaks of God as light, quoting Dionysius, `Light comes from the Good and light is an image of this archetypal Good` (Shekirake 2001:56). Light was a major feature of medieval cathedrals. Between 1150 and 1250, `In terms of biblical theology there was a move from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation, from a Garden restored to a New Jerusalem`. (Sheldrake 2001:59). The Gothic cathedral was as heaven on earth. As Gothic developed, there was a `progressive de-materialization of walls with a sea of glass and a flood of light....' (Sheldrake 2001:59). Moving from light to space and time, God finds presence in space and time in the person of Jesus Christ. In Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.' ( Col 2:9-10). And 'From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace' (John 1:16 ).

 

Places can be identified with human sinfulness and alienation. This has usually been based on the biblical story of Cain as the founder of the first city. The first murderer becomes the first city builder.' (Sheldrake 2001:93). `Not an auspicious basis' Sheldrake continues, `for the spiritual nature of built environments. The city has been portrayed at best as a place of ambiguity and at worst as a representation of humanity's rebellious heart and its rejection of God'. (Shekirake 2001:93).

 

Speaking of monasteries, Sheldrake says: `Hospitality is always a blending of inside and outside. In other words, hospitality creates a `between' place". (Sheldrake 2001:114). Again, in relation to religious life the Kingdom of God is a replacement for home.

 

Reflecting on the role of the city and the need for renewal, Sheldrake poses the ethical questions at the heart of all city and built environment work:

Whose place is it?

Who owns it?

Who is kept out or marginalized?

Who is not made to feel at home?

Why cities, what are cities for?

What is a humane or humanizing city?

(Sheldrake 2001:163-4)

 

He urges reflection on the civilising possibilities of the city and suggests that `the aesthetic and moral potential of cities will take over from the economic or other functional purposes'. (Sheldrake 2001:163). The human city would have room for individuality and collectivity,

 

In practical terms, looking to the future of the city, Sheldrake writes:

There are serious theological questions which we must reflect upon if our built environments are to support the kind of relationships that will enable humans, individually and collectively, to achieve their deepest identity.

There is another biblical image of the city apart from the one in Genesis of Cain the  murderer becoming the first city dweller or the people of Babel seeking to replace the authority of God. This lies in the Jerusalem tradition, for example in the Psalms. Here the city is to express the peace of God. Those who live in the city are required to share God's peace with one another.

(Sheldrake 2001:167)

 

10.7 Psalms

 

The three psalms under consideration do resonate with a sense of traverse.

In Psalm 8:3 'When I look at your heavens............' relates to a traverse of the eye.

In Psalm 19:4, `Their voice goes out' creates the notion of an auditory traverse. Two verses . further on, the sun goes out on its circuit.

In Psalm 48:12, readers can envisage the Walk about Zion. `

All the commentators whose work was studied in Section 5.3 convey a sense of encounter with God in the outdoor environment. With a more urban slant, Cottar asks of God that we ,may recognize you in streets and in squares'. (Cottar 1989:102). From a biblical theology perspective, all traversing of places and times carries expectation of recognizing God, sometimes Sheldrake's `peace of God'. (Sheldrake 2001:167).

 

10.8 Synthesis and centripetal dynamic

 

There was symmetry about our traverses of Chelmsford and Tasmania .

 

The Chelmsford traverse started with the wide aerial views of the surrounding area, moved to the highly concentrated street walks through Chelmsford town centre and around Writtle, noting much detail of the interactions of built environment and life, and including Marriage's calm reflections on the town and the Navigation.

 

With Tasmania , the sequence was reversed. The traverse started with the estuary around Port Sorrell noting some of the recent developments, went on to take the town walk through Latrobe and through history, ending with the Weindorfers and their privileged visitors, and the builders and operators of the hydro in the mountain areas, noting particularly the biblical names in the Walls of Jerusalem area.

 

Again, there was symmetry in the general built environment texts. Shepheard explore space and sight, first around Ely and then on the outskirts of London . In a way, these experiences were shared with the archetypal Adam and Eve, any students, learning how to look. Brand's traverse was through time, emphasising how buildings naturally change and are changed through time, how conserving and holding on can be detrimental, and how designers and users need to relate to the ways in which buildings and built environments, almost as living organisms one realises, may die if they are not permitted to adapt.

 

The Australian theologians were traversing their own land and history, past and future. The Pope saw that the way to the Father's house for Australians lay through their country, both bush and city. Other writers showed that land has its own story and its own sacredness, which those who would love it or work for its good must traverse for themselves. Balancing the particular scenarios of Australia with the sacred aspects of space more generally, leads one to the generic questions enunciated by Sheldrake:

Whose place is it?

Who owns it?

Who is kept out or marginalized?

Who is not made to feel at home?

 

The Psalms create their ambiances of traverse, whether of limb, eye or ear, whether out in the vicinity of the Tasmanian Walls of Jerusalem or in a Chelmsford street.

 

Ultimately, as Sheldrake suggests, the inward, centripetal pull may be to an archetypal Jerusalem , city of the peace of God. Its walls are not the enclosing walls of Nehemiah's city, nor even the walls with open gates depicted in Revelation but, perhaps, the quite different `walls' of a Tasmanian mountainside, where a psalmist might feel at home.

 

 

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