The English countryside is not a blank slate for the whims of city-dwellers — it has a hidden history of politics and power
No one expects to see pastoral scenes at Finsbury Park, north London, when they’ve just emerged from the underground. But there it was last Christmas: a huge billboard depicting the English countryside as one big meadow – a grassy landscape devoid of people, buildings or roads, imprinted with the words “Explore the life that could be …” Advertising Rightmove, the UK’s largest property-listings website, this was an invitation to Covid-weary commuters to opt out of stressful city life and run for the hills.
The pressures of lockdown life and the realities of working from home have been inducing many to move away from cities to smaller towns and villages. By the end of 2020, the words “detached”, “rural” and “secluded” were Zoopla’s fourth, fifth and sixth most common search terms. Estate agents have been reporting this phenomenon throughout the UK since mid 2020, and the same is true across the EU and in North America too. More recently, however, evidence of rural buyers’ remorse has emerged.
Vron Ware is the author of Return of a Native: Learning from the Land
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