Product Description

On a remote edge of the North York moors, where a grassy hillside overlooks the Vale of York, there is a secluded acre of land, edged by woods, called Scotch Corner. A mysterious war memorial chapel stands there, a simple stone building, decorated with bold carvings. Madeleine Bunting's father - an artist and visionary, but also a fiercely conservative man, with romantic, old-fashioned views about England - erected the chapel in his youth. He was a difficult, distant parent, and Bunting fled her home life in Yorkshire as a teenager. But after her father's death, Bunting wanted to understand him and his passionate, lifelong attachment to this plot of land, and she wanted to explore how we find a sense of belonging. Bunting discovered that this quiet spot has a rich history. It had been home to Neolithic forts and earthworks, farmed by the monks from nearby Byland Abbey and fought over by medieval Scots. Many have passed through the Plot. Thousands of cattle walked its drovers' road for centuries, and Wordsworth and other romantics searched for beauty and the picturesque in its views and valleys. Others have been more permanent inhabitants: the sheep that patiently crop the moorland, the grouse slaughtered there every autumn, the farmers struggling to make a living from the land. And Bunting's father, who tied his life so closely to this acre. In learning about the Plot, Bunting comes to see how 'wisdom rests in places', how important it is for us to understand the places that shape our lives, and she reaches an understanding of her father and his ideals. "The Plot" is an original and heartfelt book which deftly balances the emotional and the political, and shows what a contested, layered place we inhabit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3961 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-05
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Review
'A wonderful excavation of what a 'sense of place' might mean' - Robert Macfarlane, author of The Wild Places --Review

'She paints a vivid, poignant picture of a corner of England, precious to her' - Simon Jenkins
--Review

'Beautifully written ... among the very best recent non-fiction about what it is like to be English' - Financial Times --Review

'Researched with great intelligence and richly supported by detail' - Guardian --Review

'She swoops over her subject with the ease and grace of a glider'
- New Statesman --Review

`A thought-provoking, rewarding narrative' - Conde Nast Traveller
--Review

Review
`Madeleine Bunting's book is full of engaging stories, imaginatively researched and written with great tenderness' - Edward Stourton

About the Author
Madeleine Bunting is a leading columnist for the Guardian. Born in North Yorkshire, Bunting read History at Cambridge. She joined the Guardian in 1990. She is the author of The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands under German Rule, 1940-45 and Willing Slaves: How the Overwork Culture is Ruling Our Lives (both HarperCollins). She lives in London with her husband and three children

Customer Reviews

Absorbing and Interesting
Madeleine Bunting wanted to find out more about her late father, John Bunting, the sculptor and art teacher, what motivated and drove him. In doing so she decided to look at the plot of land that he bought at Scotch Corner and why he built a chapel on it.

What we are given is part biography and part history as she delves further into the land. This may not sound like everyones cup of tea - but what we are given here is something highly interesting and thought provoking. Not only does Bunting show what has happened on the plot of land itself over the millennia but also what has happened in the surrounding area. From drovers passing through and monks starting a community we also have the battle between Robert the Bruce and Edward II, which led to the latters ignominous escape. This area of land doesn't just show local history but some of the more broader aspects which have shaped the history of the British Isles. We are forced to think about what is real untamed wild land and what is really shaped by man, indeed so much that we take as the natural land has actually been made by us over the centuries. From this we also have to think about how we use the land and what impact our actions can have with any changes that become apparent climate change.

Farming has always been difficult in this part of North Yorkshire and with people willing to buy up farmhouses as weekend retreats and farmers trying to survive we are shown the problems of this area, also what effect has been made by tourism and those who shoot grouse. I must admit that I wasn't sure whether I would really like this book when I got it but after starting it I was fully immersed and absorbed, and was really glad that I ordered it. Admittedly this is never going to be a huge seller but if you like such tv programmes as 'Coast' and 'Countryfile', or just history you will probably enjoy this.

The Plot by Madeleine Bunting
In 1957 Madeleine Bunting's father bought a fifty-year lease on a small parcel of land in a remote corner of the North York Moors, and built a war memorial chapel on the site. John Bunting seems to have been a difficult and complicated man and Madeleine Bunting uses this book to help her come to some understanding of a formidable man who, in some ways, was difficult to know and love.

I felt that the title of this book was somewhat misleading and it turned out to be not quite what I expected. I was expecting an intense history of a smallish area of land from the Neolithic to the modern era. Who lived there, how the land was cultivated and it's place in history. It seemed to me, however, to be a book which could not make up it's mind what it wanted to be: is it a history, a biography, a memoir? It turns out to be all three.

It is comprised of a series of sketches, about the North York Moors, the changing practices of agriculture, and her fathers history and relationship with the plot. I would have liked more on the history of the area as those were the chapters I found most absorbing - the chapter on the ancient and symbiotic relationship between man and sheep, for example, although it sounds boring was fascinating. In these chapters Bunting's writing is most evocative and her enthusiasm for the subject is most evident.

Where my interest tailed off was on the chapters where she 'finds herself' as she tramps across the moors, musing on her relationship with her father and her own feelings for this tiny corner of England. I found these sections unconvincing and more than a little self-indulgent. I gave the book 3 stars because although there were some outstanding chapters and some beautiful writing it failed to hold my interest throughout the whole book.

Meandering Around The Plot
After the death of her father, Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting set herself the task of getting to know him, the land he loved and the ideas that informed his life, by writing this book, The Plot. It is the story of a one-acre plot on the Yorkshire moors (Scotch Corner, but not, as I thought for the first few chapters, *the* Scotch Corner service station on the A1!), and the surrounding area. It's also the story of a difficult man, his family life, hopes and dreams; and it's the story of how his daughter comes to something of an understanding and acceptance of him.

John Bunting bought the Plot as an idealistic young man, rejecting his suburban origins and determined to carve out an alternative life on his own terms. On it, he built a Catholic war memorial chapel, and a habitable hut, while raising his family five miles down the road in a village cottage.

Madeleine Bunting intertwines her father's relationship to the Plot with wider themes relevant to its history - companionship, war and change. We zoom in on the details, and then zoom out again to contemplate the abstract. I'm always fascinated by details of everyday life in history, so I enjoyed reading about the drovers' roads which went from the Scottish Highlands down to London, and the old occupations and ways of life which went with them - I could picture the farmhouses lit up on a dark moorland night, the cattle secured outside as the drovers bought their ale and waited for the blacksmith to shoe some livestock, glowing sparks flying. More universally, for example, she discusses the idea of landscape and the increasing dominance of vision over the other senses.

The latter third of the book examines the social changes of the twentieth century. Growing suburbanisation, and a precarious countryside which is abandoned and then nostalgically objectified.

I give this book four stars. I enjoyed learning parts of history that were previously unfamilar to me, and the many themes covered and alluded to did give me food for thought. However, the tone sometimes felt like a Guardian feature essay, and the Plot of land itself remains intimidating and mysterious. I was also put off by the presentation of dodgy anecdotes as fact - we are told that William the Conqueror got lost in the moorland fog and wound himself up into a rage, and therefore to this day, almost a thousand years on, the villagers use the expression "he was cussing like Billy Norman". This strikes me as an implausible and twee explanation for the phrase (I could believe it had originated in more recent history as a companion piece to the story of the frustrated conqueror, but not that it has been said continuously since the eleventh century), and I wish it had been explicitly presented as a colourful but dubious explanation. It's a minor gripe, but I feel the credibility of the book was let down by it.