In Charles Dickens’ ‘Our Mutual Friend’, the famous dustheap at Battle Bridge [now, Kings Cross] is remembered as a ‘mountain range, like an old volcano’ and ‘a hilly country entirely composed of Dust’. The mound is central to the narrative and its characterisation has cast a long shadow through history, moulding the way we understand these landscapes and the people who lived off them. By the time of ‘Our Mutual Friend’s’ publication in 1865, however, the dustheap had long been cleared away.
This lecture examines the (literal) rise and fall of these lost landscapes, their associated industries and the people who made them. We will focus particularly on their cultural influence throughout history, their vanishing during the first half of the 19th Century and the curious mythological, artistic and literary legacy they left behind.
Frederick Hervey-Bathurst studied Architectural History at the universities of Virginia and Edinburgh. After a career in finance, he enrolled at The Bartlett School of Architecture in September 2024 to train as a Landscape Architect. Frederick writes regularly on architecture and landscape for publications like The New Criterion, Country Life, Garden History and the magazines of The Georgian Group and RIBA. He is an young committee member of the Georgian Group and a trustee of Europa Nostra UK.
All attendees will be sent a recording of the talk.