A Sense of Place
Aldborough Hatch Farm once lived on the edge of a grand forest. Over time, the farm and the surrounding area has become suburban. A semi-rural, residential locality on the north side of the A12, just beyond Newbury Park on London’s central line.
The Capital’s backdoor and entrance to rural Essex.
The Capital’s backdoor and entrance to rural Essex.
As the city merges with the countryside, the sense of place we know as London, as a city, is diluted first by suburban council housing and then it spreads across open fields. As it spreads it meets and mixes with landscape, history, memory, architecture and community and from this a new sense of place unfolds.
One of the dominant feelings for me of this space was the sense of ambiguity.
One of the dominant feelings for me of this space was the sense of ambiguity.
It is both urban and rural, public and private, transitional and uncertain, yet calm and peaceful.
Trying to interrogate the identity of this place is awkward as it feels ethereal in places but at the edge of the city, the sense of freedom is reinforced by a strange lack of ownership.
