Simon English
England Revisited
Summer 1971: Simon English visited 75 points across the country to write the word 'ENGLAND' on England.
Summer 2010: Simon English made a new artwork by revisiting those points.
Observation 1971
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Point:
68
Letter:
D
Date visited:
18th September 1971
Flag:
On fence post next to Arms Dump 1/2 mile S.W. of Sherfield on Loddon 3 1/2 miles N.E. of Basingstoke.
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Observation 2010
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label
Point:
68
Letter:
D
Date visited:
7th September 2010
Observation:
On the same concrete fence post that I used in 1971. This still encloses a MOD training area within a six foot chain link fence and topped with out angled runs of four strands of barbed wire. I used the old photographs to find the same post. This much is unchanged.
Within the army camp a stand of fast growing poplars has been planted along the stream that flows to the River Loddon. Where, within the perimeter, was open ground these trees now stand at 50 feet and screen the sheds that once stood on a regular grid within. The shed that was in the original photograph still stands as it was but others have been demolished. I assume that some of the camp still operates as a training ground as on visiting small arms fire could be heard.
On the farm side of the fence the two big oaks that stood at the top of steep land north of point 68 have fallen and their trunks lie with the branches bleached and barkless.
The farm is mixed cereal and dairy. Here they have reacted to the drop in milk prices by investing in a herd of Jersey cows and, as at point 20, make and market their own ice cream.
I should imagine that the rail track that went round the back of all the sheds in the MOD land has not been used for many years. Especially now that the land where it originally joined the main rail way line has been sold off and is having houses built on by Bryants. The south end of the MOD land seems to also been likewise developed. This is not the only point that I have visited where land, taken over for the defence of the realm during the Second World War, is bit by bit being decommissioned as need, defence requirements and most certainly finance changes. At point 68 it was always thus. Personal, tribal or national security and defence. In the field to the north there are the banks and ditches of an Iron Age(?) Fort and to the south, defence of a different sort, at Church End with what looks like a Moated Manor.
Points 60, 65 & 68