444 CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 



be found nationally rather than locally. This would be the chief distinction 

 between a National Park and land normally controlled under the Town 

 Planning Act. In considering the sort of scheme which might be prepared 

 for the typical composite area,^ which would form a National Park, the 

 following division of its ground into different types of area or zone has 

 been suggested. It will be found that this composite area, as has been 

 already hinted, may contain both Crown lands. Common lands and 

 National Trust property already. These properties would fall into place 

 and would create no financial question ; they would most of them be found 

 in the first type of zone or reservation, which is to be now described. 



§4. 



The first zone would be that which should, so far as practicable, be 

 untouchable ; it would apply in a mountain area to the high ground, and 

 could in certain cases be delimited by a fairly constant contour line. This 

 type of ground will not usually be expensive to sterilize — it is for the 

 most f)art inaccessible and also difficult to build u2)on. At the same time 

 there may be places where a main road crossing a path invades it and 

 brings along with it all the perils of accessibility and even attractiveness 

 for certain uses, e.g. petrol filling stations, refreshment places and the 

 Germanic vice of Aussichtpunkt sophistication. Minerals, also, are 

 no respecters of solitude, and electric power and overhead railways render 

 places exploitable. Water catchment areas work both ways : in one way 

 they are an efiective check to development, and in one case have led to 

 the purchase of mineral rights over an area of 30,000 acres. In other 

 ways, however, they alter scenery by flooding valleys and by planting, 

 which may be necessary for water conservation. The other characteristics 

 of this zone would be its unobstructeduess ; it should be open to human 

 beings and to wild life, though not everywhere concurrently. 



The second zone, while scenically of as great importance as the first, 

 would not necessarily be as accessible. For most composite areas in this 

 country quite highly cultivated farming land will be found running up 

 the valley bottoms into the troughs of the hills. Prof. Trevelyan clearly 

 demonstrated this when he gave the valley farms of Langdale to the 

 National Trust : they were not to be diverted from their present use. 

 But in these valleys not only are farm buildings required, but an occasional 

 outlander's house is found ; and if the National Park is to be fully used, 

 hostels or other accommodation will have to be placed somewhere in them. 

 The greatest care is therefore necessary that every change and addition 

 shall not damage the natural setting ; the human additions shall here be 

 relegated to an unobtrusive position in the scheme of things, as recom- 

 mended by Wordsworth in the excellent rules he drafted for building in 

 the Lake District. In working out tliis zone the normal considerations 

 governing land suitable for building should not apply : a much more 

 drastic policy is required. The area is not a residential one nor a manu- 

 facturing one, but a National Park, and its prime function must not be 

 lost sight of. Thus it is not wise to lay down long lines of electric power 



2 This, as mentioned above, does not refer to those areas which are almost entirely 

 of Crown property, such as the New Forest and the Forest of Dean. 



