Hidden in plain sight: Local narratives, authorised discourses, and a First World War seaplane base

Hodsdon, Laura ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0817-4852 (2022) Hidden in plain sight: Local narratives, authorised discourses, and a First World War seaplane base. In: 43rd Theoretical Archaeology Group conference, 15-17 December 2022, University of Edinburgh.

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Abstract / Summary

On a picturesque section of the South West Coast Path between Newlyn and Mousehole in Cornwall, UK, the footpath runs closely along the shoreline. Amongst the large rocks and shingle can also be seen concrete and metal debris, though innocuously rock-like and obscured entirely at high tide. These are the few material remains of Newlyn Royal Naval Air Service
seaplane base, established in 1917 and decommissioned in 1919. No information boards flag their presence, they are not mentioned in guidebooks, and many locals are unaware of their existence: despite their presence in plain sight they are absent from the storyscape. Yet they
might easily have become another heritage narrative: for example, of Newlyn’s part in the First World War, or of early military aviation. This narrative absence has also ensured the remains are invisible in the planning for a proposed marina development, with clear implications for their preservation. Drawing on work from heritage studies (Smith 2006, Chronis 2005) and cultural geography (e.g. Edensor 2005, de Silvey 2017), I consider the remains in the context of the imaginative geography surrounding this particular cultural landscape. Focusing on the discourses and associated practices that govern what ‘counts’ as worthy of memorialisation, I describe local narratives on one hand, and authorised narratives on the other, and suggest that these influence and direct which stories are told, and which are valued. Lost in the gap between normative and localised narratives of a cultural landscape, there is no place for the airbase’s story: with direct ramifications for its continued presence (or not).

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