L
illy and I just finished watching a schmaltzy
movie “The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came
Down a Mountain.” It dealt with a village in Wales that had
a “hill” they wanted to be a “mountain,”
and called on an English cartographer to
do the surveying, It was found to be wanting
and so they piled up a mound of earth at
the top to make it a legal mountain.
This was (probably an apocryphal story –
you tell me) during the First World War (1917)
and might be seen through the eyes of a sensitive
writer as a symbol of the innocent retreat
into a desire to be more than one is seen
to be – to have value that can be created
by a bit of hard labor and love of intention.
The village people carried loads of earth
to the top and made a mountain. I find this
fascinating, even as a mere fantasy, that
we can see that these kinds of innocent undertakings,
even in our fictions, have the meaning of
calling us out of the dreadful moments of
reality that are too dark and sad to deal
with.
But, and sadly enough, today, we are apparently
not built that way; we are no longer innocent,
except in the great virtue of fiction, music
and poetry, wherein we can live lives in
the fantasies of the mind, lives that are
the kinds of minds that bring joy, laughter
and hope to a ever more depressing world
order. I would like to see a mountain built
from a hill, built out of the sheer will
to make a statement that it can be done because
it makes us feel better to do it. There was
no purpose in the mounding of the earth to
make something arguably false, in terms of
cartographic accuracy, except the purpose
of communal will that had its own agenda.
This was a very human enterprise, with the
ear marks of human frivolity, frailty and
nonsense, and yet, for me, it stands out
as an example of the purity of the human
spirit, that it can latch on to something
so simple, so absurd, so fleeting in its
greater meaning, that it indeed becomes transcendent.
Today, such adventures, at least here in
this modern world of computer games of virtual
violence and wars of real violence, such
simple and innocent activities would be,
it they happened at all, treated as an aberration
and ignored by most. Am I alone in my longing
for that simple and innocent time, wherein
it was the improbable, the impossible, the
silly and the almost meaningless that had
the most attachment to our hearts?
Am I a cast away, an old fogy, an ancient
romantic, who longs for something so fundamentally
simple as to be compared to a drop of water?
I suppose so. But I don’t mind. If that’s
the way the world is going, then that’s the
way the world is going, and I certainly cannot
stop it. But I retain the hope that there
is some cosmic pendulum that is swinging,
one that will bring those old awarenesses
back to life some day – how quixotic – how
old fashioned I am!
Richard E. Sansom
ADDENDUM (added by Jud Evans)
Article taken from "Backsights" Magazine
published by Surveyors Historical Society
THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME
DOWN A MOUNTAIN
This letter by Ed Sullivan of Visalia, California
appeared in Professional Surveyor, Nov./
Dec. 1998, discussing the whimsical movie
(and book) The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came
down a Mountain:
The story, which concerned Welsh villagers
building up the local mountain to the required
1000 feet so that English surveyors who had
previously measured it and called it a hill
would record it as a mountain, purportedly
was based upon a true incident. I was going
to Wales in July 1998 and decided it would
be interesting to locate the village, find
the mountain and climb it.
Ffynnon Garw was a fictional name. The real
village is Taff’s Well (Ffynnon Taf in Welsh),
and the mountain is Garth Mountain. Writer/Director
Christopher Monger was born in Taff’s Well
and had heard the story from his grandfather
and other villagers. (The filming of the
movie was not made at Taff’s Well. That area,
near Cardiff, was too built up to portray
village life in 1917. The actual filming
was done in northern Wales at Llanrhaeadr-yn-Mochnant,
located 10 miles west of Owestry.)
Garth Mountain and Taff’s Well are located
six miles northwest of Cardiff. I visited
the library in Taff’s Well. The librarian
was both interested and helpful. She gave
me a copy of the book and a copy of the only
large-scale map available, which was a 1921
edition of the Ordnance survey of the area.
Following the librarian’s directions, I climbed
the mountain. It was an easy climb because
a road went part way up. At the top there
clearly was a mound of dirt, and on top of
the mound was a concrete marker that appeared
to be a surveyor’s triangulation station.
In some ways, the book was more interesting
and satisfactory than the movie because the
book could include more details than is possible
in a movie. The movie never shows any actual
measurements being taken of the mountain.
However, the book describes three successive
measurements of the mountain, which will
be of interest to surveyors. In the first
measurement, the surveyors used a clinometer
and stepped-off distances, from which the
elevation was calculated. They acknowledged
this method was lacking in accuracy. In the
second measurement they used barometers.
This was less than successful because a low-pressure
front flowed through the area, causing the
base barometer to change while the observing
barometer was carried to the top. The third
measurement was made by triangulation with
two nearby peaks for which the elevation
was known. I wonder how accurate that was.
The villagers were suspicious of the English
surveyors. One villager asks, "I don’t
see that it’s possible. How will they measure
it?" The other responds, "And what
would they be doing with it once they’ve
got it?" The first one responds, "By
God, that’s the worry of it." That remark
leads to the conclusion, "The English
come only when they want something."
The Reverend Jones speculated in his mind
on the philosophy and practice of map-making.
"The most innocent maps were concerned
with helping one from place to place. The
English already had those - They’d found
a way here hadn’t they? No, they didn’t need
new maps for that. The more the Reverend
pondered the subject the more he concluded
that maps, by and large, were made for less
than altruistic purposes: maps were made
to define the borders of property, more for
reasons of exclusion than inclusion. Maps
were to measure properties for taxation.
Maps were made to define borders and thus
became more and more important in times of
war. Moreover, he had heard that these men,
these Englishmen, were from His Majesty’s
Ordnance Survey. Apart from ‘His Majesty’
there was another term in that title the
Reverend didn’t like: ordnance. Wasn’t that
a synonym for bombs and ammunition? The more
the reverend thought about it the more suspicious
he became."
In the end the villagers prevailed; they
delayed the departure of the surveyors and
raised the mountain. It was a good book and
a good movie.
Monger, in the epilogue to the book, says
that about five years after the event there
was a new edition of the map, which showed
"Ffynnon Garw Mountain - 1002 feet."
Soon all the villagers had a copy in their
homes. It is a good thing they did not see
the 1921 edition (which is in the library).
It says "Garth Hill - elevation 1000
feet." Although that is the 1921 edition,
the small print says the leveling was revised
in 1899 and partly revised in 1915.
My review of this matter is not really complete.
I did not have time to locate the most recent
large scale map of the area. I wonder what
elevation it shows . . .
Footnote from the webmaster: According to
the latest Ordnance Survey covering Cardiff
and Bridgend, the height of Garth Hill is
given as 307 meters (1007 feet), making it
a mountain.
|