JUMPING JELLICOES

 

If you grew up in Sheffield, as I did, there’s a good chance that many of your formative walking experiences took place in the Peak District.  I was going to say it’s ‘just down the road’ from Sheffield, but in fact parts of Sheffield are now actually in the Peak District.

 

Much of my own walking, often with my dad though sometimes with others, centred around Castleton which is at the head of the Hope Valley – undulating peaks and tors, some of them exhaustingly steep, and pierced by various caverns. There was a local expression, at least in our house, ‘We live in hope but we’ll die in Castleton.’ 

 

PHOTO BY JOHN FINNEY PHOTOGRAPHY

And at some point as we looked across the Hope Valley we’d see a white industrial conglomeration in the distance. It’s what used to be called The Hope Valley Cement Works, now Breedon Hope Cement Works.

 

Most observers would think it’s a blot on the landscape, but looking back I can’t believe how unsurprising it seemed.  Perhaps this was because wherever you walked in Sheffield you were bound to see industrial sites, mostly concerned with the steel and cutlery industries, so in one sense it was just more of the same.  But I’m still surprised by how accepting everybody seemed to be.  It was just part of the landscape. I understand there are now two public footpaths that go through the site but if they were there in my day, I certainly wasn’t aware of them.

 

         Only recently did I decide to look into the history a little. The Hope Cement Works opened at 1929, and was extended in 1935-8, against some resistance,  not enough to halt the plans but enough for the owners to bring in Geoffrey Jellicoe, architect, landscape architect, town planner and garden designer, and by many accounts one of the great garden theorists, to create some sympathetic landscaping, using waste products from the mining operation, to hide what were essentially two big quarries.  This wasn’t until 1942 when – for Pete’s sake – there was a war on, but Jellicoe produced a plan of intent for future quarrying, which held up at least until the 1980s. Jellicoe was born in 1900 lived to be 95

         

         Now, Geoffrey Jellicoe is some way from being an open book to me, though I knew the name, and a little further research revealed thatI’d done more walking in Jellicoe’s footsteps than I’d imagined.  For instance, I now know that when I walked around the pedestrianized center of Gloucester I was treading the ‘Via Sacre,’ part of the Jellicoe’s redevelopment plan for the city centre.

 

I’ve been in Fitzroy Square in London which was pedestrianised in the 1970s, as part of a Jellicoe scheme.  I know I’ve been tothe RHS garden at Wisley where Jellicoe designed the Canal Garden, though I can’t say I remember it.  And I’ve always been an admirer of the Ben Nicholson (no relation) wall in the Jellicoe-designed garden at Sutton Place, but I’ve only ever seen pictures.

 

And then, while looking for something quite else on a map of London I spotted something called Jellicoe Gardens, north of Kings Cross and St Pancras stations.         

 

Now, the Jellicoe Gardens weren’t designed by Jellicoe but by Tom Stuart-Smith Ltd who were, and I’ll quote, ‘commissioned by Argent to work with them and the Aga Khan Development Network to design a garden inspired by the early Persian garden traditions, where sunlight, shade and water are balanced to create a place of calm, comfort and quiet reflection.’  A visit seemed to be in order.

 

         That bit of territory around Jellicoe Gardens is now all linked open squares and fresh out of the box architecture, and nearby is Lewis Cubitt Park which seemed a bleak and desolate place on the day of my visit, though you can just about see one or two people walking there.

And as for Jellicoe Gardens themselves, they seemed to be, let’s say, minimalist. I saw exactly one person there, sitting on a bench looking forlorn.

This may be only to say that my visit was in mid-February and not much was growing and thriving as yet, but the place undeniably has good bones.  And I really did like the pergola, if that’s the right word, through which you see the zesty modern architecture all around it.  A second visit will surely be called for.

To quote Tom Stuart-Smith Ltd again, ‘Inspiration has been taken primarily from the great garden Bagh-e Fin, a traditional Persian garden located in Kashan, Iran. It is on a much larger scale, but the plan is quite similar.’ I can’t say how many visitors to the Jellicoe Gardens know anything about Geoffrey Jellicoe or about Persian Gardens, though since they’re adjacent to the Aga Khan Centre perhaps they may be more familiar with the latter than the former.  

 

On a final not-quite-Jellicoe note, and returning obliquely to thoughts of the Hope Valley, I’ve observed that cement works are curious beasts wherever they are. When I lived in Los Angeles, and I sometimes walked along La Brea Avenue and there amongst the rather fashionable shops and restaurants was another cement works – in its way even more surprising than the one in Hope Valley.  This was the CEMEX Hollywood Concrete Plant, which had been in business for over 60 years.  It was a magnificent monster of a place covering one and a half acres, although when I mentioned it to Angelenos, most of them had no idea what I was talking about. 

 

In fact I gather there are now plans to build a huge apartment block on the site.  I’m not sure whether or not that’s a pity.

 

MOM AND POP WALKS

There’s a story, told by the man himself, that when Richard Branson (he of Virgin airlines) was a kid, his mother used to push him out of the car and  make him, as he says, “find his own way to granny’s” on foot, which was some five miles away.  It made a man of him, apparently.  Here is walking neither to, nor with, his granny.

This is at least somewhat similar to a walking experience that some of Osama bin Laden’s children must have had.   In an interview with New York Times magazine Julie Sasson, author of Growing Up bin Laden, said,  “Osama (she was apparently on first name terms) had these kicks where he would take the boys out into the desert and have them march long distances and not give them water …
 Omar (bin Laden’s son) said his father just loved walking over those mountains (the Tora Bora). He told me: ‘Once I tumbled off the mountain and thought I was going to be killed. My father remained completely calm. He just stood there, watching me. When I finally got my footing, I looked at him and said, ‘My father, what would you have done if I had been killed?’ And he just said, ‘Well, I would’ve buried you, my son.’ ” 

          Indeed.  What else would a father say?

Growing up in Sheffield, when we wanted to go out walking on a Sunday afternoon my dad would take us to the Peak District (Britain’s first National Park) – rugged terrain but walking rather than climbing country, and certainly less rugged than Tora Bora.  The issue was always that you’d start at the bottom of what seemed to be the highest peak. You’d climb it, but when you got to the top you’d see there was another, higher peak just a little way ahead that had been hidden by the first one.  You’d climb that second one and see another beyond it too.  And so on.  You can pick the metaphors out of that till you’re blue in the face.  My dad, of course would always egg me on, one more peak, and then just one more, then another. What else would a father do?  I suppose that’s a father’s role.

I was  friends with the Evans family in Sheffield.  Their dad was a city architect, the kids were all smart and driven and they’ve all done very well for themselves.  Was it their dad’s influence?  The Peak District’s?  Well, their dad certainly insisted that the kids went walking in the Peak District on Sunday afternoons.  But there was a catch.  Dad had only one leg, and obviously couldn’t go hiking over rough hill and vale, so he would drive the kids to some spot outside Castleton or Hathersage, then drive to a spot some miles down the road, to which the kids had to walk.  I suppose there was always the possibility that they wouldn’t arrive, but evidently they always did.  And, as I say, they’ve done pretty well for themselves; doctor, hospital administrator, senior civil servant, all perfectly content as far as an outsider can tell.

As for Omar, that’s him above, if his memoir is to be believed, he was at least man enough to stand up to his dad.  Osama bin Laden tried to persuade him to become a suicide bomber.  Omar preferred to keep walking.