About 54,000 years ago, Britain's uplands were teeming with megafauna like mammoths and woolly rhinoceros, not the rocky, sheep-grazed landscapes of today. Ed Douglas's book 'Upland' aims to restore a sense of color and carnival to these high places.
Defining mountains
In 1936, geographer Roderick Peattie argued that a mountain's essence lies in its power to enter the imagination of those living nearby. By the 1990s, the UN defined mountainous regions as areas with altitude variations of at least 300 meters over 7 kilometers. Douglas notes that his own home on Totley Moor in the eastern Peak District just qualifies.
Britain's uplands provide over 60% of the nation's water and are the origin of dietary staples like potatoes and barley. Douglas challenges the view that uplands are detached from lowland life, emphasizing their practical and historical importance.
Historical and cultural impact
Mountains have shaped British history. The Romans found lowland England cooperative, while the rugged north resisted. Evidence remains in Roman ruins: villas in the south, garrisons in the north. Later, Normans mined lead in the Peak District.
Douglas frames the exploitation of upland resources as internal colonialism. The Elan valley in mid-Wales was dammed in 1896 to supply Birmingham with water, submerging the village of Nantgwyllt. This echoes the Highland clearances, where tenant farmers were evicted for sheep farming, many emigrating to the US.
Resistance and resilience
The uplands have also been sites of resistance, such as the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745. Douglas highlights figures like Janet Lapworth, who sewed a specimen-sorting waistcoat for her geologist husband, and Hannah Mitchell, a suffragette who found freedom in rambling from her impoverished childhood near Kinder Scout.
Queen Victoria's purchase of Balmoral in 1852 led to what novelist George Scott-Moncrieff called 'Balmorality' – a romanticized view of the Highlands. Douglas weaves these stories into a survey from prehistory to modern concerns about second-home buyers.
