Thank you for following Uncanny Landscapes. Here’s a new episode of the podcast; an interview with writer Ken Worpole. As you know, this is a free project, both newsletter and podcast - nothing is paywalled. If you're able to support my work through a donation (aka paid subscription) - thank you!! I truly appreciate it. And if you're not, perhaps you can support by telling a friend (or two, or 100) about the Substack's free subscriptions and accompanying podcast.
The podcast (and all back ‘issues’) are also available at:
https://uncannylandscapes.podbean.com/
… and on most podcast platforms. I’ve got gigs performing The Great Satanic Swindle in Stockton and in Leeds, coming up in April 2025. Links are below. And as always, books, records and events ‘n’at here: https://linktr.ee/oldweirdalbion
Links:
Ken Worpole
Little Toller Books
Micro Moon’s Figures in a Landscape
Justin Hopper presents The Great Satanic Swindle in STOCKTON and LEEDS
Ken Worpole is a writer and social historian whose work encompasses landscape, architecture and placemaking, with projects related to as diverse topics as the architecture of libraries and hospitals; cemeteries and changing traditions of burial; the flood of Eastern England in the 1950s; utopian communities and religious beliefs, and a host of literary topics to boot. Ken’s essay The New English Landscape is one of the key documents of the past decade of thinking about landscape in this country.
It’s being republished, alongside many other projects, in a new collection of Ken’s nonfiction writings on ‘landscape and memory’ in the book Brightening from the East from Little Toller Books.
Ken Worpole has been a key figure in my own thinking about landscape, and the talks I’ve heard him give, as well as writings such as The New English Landscape and his books 350 Miles: An Essex Journey and No Matter How Many Skies Have Fallen are part of the canon that Uncanny Landscapes is founded upon. It’s a real honour to have him onboard for this episode.
This episode’s music is from a beautiful new album Figures in a Landscape by Micro Moon, released on Clay Pipe Music, our London-based friends and one-time guests. Do take a moment to check out the whole thing, as what’s on the episode are mere snippets.
And don’t forget to take a listen back to the previous one, an interview with designer and urbanist David Knight about Plotlands communities and the writing of Colin Ward, a friend of Ken’s who comes up in this episode as well.
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