BEAUTEOUS LANDSCAPES
“The natural beauty of Mount Wellington was always Hobart’s greatest attraction.”
Not many Acts of parliament require the inclusion of the word ‘beauty’, but in the Wellington Park Act (1993) it occurs twice. Indeed, the preservation and protection of natural beauty is one of the Act’s five cardinal purposes and this purposeful protection is not confined to the land. It extends and includes any beautiful features of the land. Here is what the Act requires of the Park’s trustees:
“The park is reserved for the purpose of the preservation or protection of the natural beauty of the land or of any features of the land of natural beauty or scenic interest.”
That the mountain has natural beauty is implicit in the Act but in legal effect, the Purpose is simply descriptive. It is not proscriptive however a recent pronouncement strongly suggests that the trustees consider the bare purpose sufficient. We argue that in order to fulfil the purpose what exactly is naturally beautiful and where it resides need to be determined and inscribed.
The meaning and limits of the key terms: ‘natural beauty’, ‘feature of the land’ and ‘scenic interest’ are not defined in the Act nor were they debated during the enactment so we are required to apply their ordinary meaning by consulting the English Dictionary.
Natural beauty is the beauty of nature itself. Such beauty has no scale, its features may be as small as a pond, as vast as a mountainous landscape. Natural beauty includes whatever form beauty takes, but what is beauty? Beauty itself is that quality in the aggregate that gives pleasure to the aesthetic sense; it is the qualities that delight the eye, the ear or the mind. Thus, there are limits and the theoretic spanner of aesthetics is involved. While the look or sound of even the description of falling water may be beautiful, its pure taste or its cool deliciousness cannot be (explicitly) described as beautiful. The mountain’s beauty spots may be composed of stone or wood, but the ‘spots’ are made by us: their built beauty is not included. Strictly (perhaps) features described as handsome cannot be beautiful. Then there is the Sublime. The Sublime has sometimes been described, paradoxically, as an ‘awful beauty’ or a terrible beauty, but it is more typically contrasted to the aesthetics of beauty. Sublime landscapes may not be covered either.
A Beautiful history
That the mountain is beautiful is not disputed—even if some might argue it is (relative to them) not much of a mountain. The mountain’s beauty has been extolled in the pages of the Tasmanian press throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. It is not unusual to have it conceitedly described as possessing the most beautiful view on Earth.
Beauty + Mount Wellington Trove search results
The interest in beauty waxes and wanes, but note that Trove results past 1954 are so sparse they cannot be relied upon to suggest that beauty has waned.
A quick (and dirty) Boolean term search of Trove’s newspaper database for the phrase “Mount Wellington” + “beauty” finds 11,000 results. The results by state and by decade are screenshot.
Remove advertisements and the hits halve. (But here is one advertisement: ‘At the back is commanded a fine view of our lofty Mount Wellington, whose Wild grandeur as a background object in the scenery cannot be surpassed’. Tasmanian Times 7/1/1870. To this day, in Hobart real estate listings, even a glimpse of the mountain from within the property boundary rarely goes without notice and a demonstrative image.)
1820-
The earliest is April Fools Day of 1828 under the heading of The Weather. ‘On the 21st ultimo, Mount Wellington presented a most beautiful appearance, being entirely covered with snow, which still remains.’
‘Sydney Town wants that picturesque appearance, as to situation, which the capital of Van Diemen’s Land enjoys in an eminent degree. There is no Mount Wellington in Sydney, throwing its awful background to the town.’— The Australian (Sydney) 18/7/1828
‘It was a beautiful, clear morning - the mist that at early dawn, had been overhanging the summit of Mount Wellington, had gradually disappeared, exhibiting its rough and towering majesty in all its splendour…’ Colonial Times 30/10/1829.
1830–
This Mountain stands about four miles from Hobart, (bird's flight) but in the evening at dusk in a particular state of the atmosphere, it appears to overhang the town, and has then a sublime appearance.’ The Tasmanian 17/1/1834
1840–
‘… a tract visible to the naked eye 140 miles in diameter, forming a panorama which, for beauty and diversity of scenery, we believe is not to be surpassed in the world.’ Courier 22/4/1845
‘Mount Wellington, in towering majesty, bounds the City westward ; - sublimely raising his snow-crowned brow, frequently above the clouds, which roll in grandeur beneath his feet.’ Hobarton Guardian 28 August 1847
‘For the beauty of the landscape, the inhabitants of this island were peculiarly favoured—and the lecturer [Bicheno] referred to the view of Mount Wellington—the glorious mountain.’ Courier 20 June 1849
1850–
Who can look on the sublimity of that magnificent mountain that towers above them (Mount Wellington) with its varying veil of mist…without sensible delight?’ The Britania 21 June 1851
1870–
'Mount Wellington overhung the city in all his primeval and barbarous beauty.’ — Marcus Clarke The Settler in Tasmania 50 years Ago from “Old Stories Retold” The Australasian 2 July 1870.
1890–
‘When the sun is shining brightly it pierces here and there through the dusky foliage, so that the chequered light and shade and the alternation of green and gold colours produced are lovely to look upon. You feel you are in one of Nature's temples…’ E.P.D. Mercury in January 1899.
1910–
‘I have climbed mountains in four States, and in my memory have something of a collection of inspiring views, but nowhere do I know of a panorama so fairy-like and enchanting as the wide vista which with lightning change and almost bewilderingly varied beauty evolves itself to the right seeker who ventures to the rock-strewn cap of this silent sentinel of Southern Tasmania.’ P. de Crespigny, Mercury, 14 Sep, 1912
1930–
‘This beauty seems to be more than earthly, in the reaction of the mountain to the light of dawn and the splendour of the sunrise; or when the mountain appears to float in blue sea-haze, or responds to the interplay of light and cloud; or when, to the pale sun, its snows are dazzling white in contrast with the blackness of the immensity of its base; or when the height looms wine-dark against the sunset. It is grim and forbidding only in the darkest moods of storm. Its magnificence is changeless; its beauty moves with the pageant of the seasons.’ Roy Bridges, Melbourne Argus 1931.
The crude survey results shows that our conception of the mountain’s natural beauty is not only long-standing—it arises very early—but remains remarkably durable. A few spots thought beautiful have since been robbed of their beauty, a few places have only lately emerged as beautiful, but only a handful of once-thought beautiful places have fallen from favour.
A community survey by the trustees in 2012 found that ‘the most important individual values all related to landscape and aesthetic values’ (MP p 81).
“In different seasons the mountain presents itself anew: sometimes a huge, almost overwhelming massif, so brightly lit as to astonish even those who have lived in the town below all their life.”
Aesthetic practice
Beauty may be in the eye of its million beholders. Do practitioners concur? Every colonial-era painter of stature painted the mountain and today it is, if anything, more popular with artists today who create entire shows devoted to it. Ditto photographers.
Critical opinion
For the purposes of heritage recognition the mountain must be recognised by experts as ‘important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics’ (Heritage Tasmania Guidelines).
THOSE AGAINST
Against the terrific splendour of admiration, only a couple of critics have beg to differ. In a lecture on Art and Ugliness read by a Dr Mercer (reported in the Daily Telegraph Launceston 17 Aug 1905), the good doctor opined on beauty and concluded that “the finest mountain in Tasmania was not Mount Wellington, as perhaps they thought he should say, but Mount Roland”, and he descanted at some length on the particular beauties of this 'grand old feller.' In his survey of the work of de Wesselow, the Hobart artist Max Angus wrote ‘Its features and general appearance are therefore better known than some other Tasmanian mountains which possess a more dramatic or spectacular form.’ Neither judgement goes so far as to say that the mountain is not naturally beautiful. The author and critic Peter Conrad did. He described it as a dark and ugly presence.
Beauty Management
Notwithstanding the value in further research into the mountain’s aesthetics, regarding its natural beauty the mountain’s trustees proceeded with confidence. References to and discussion of beauty as well as aesthetic qualities, aesthetic values and aesthetic characteristics appear throughout the Park’s management plan:
‘Wellington Park…is an area of outstanding natural beauty’ (p 15).
‘The visual beauty of Wellington Park is one of the most important factors shaping people’s perception of it.’ (p 24).
‘The geology, striking landform, cultural history, running waters and diverse vegetation, and temporal changes of lighting, climate and atmospheric effects all contribute to the Park’s outstanding aesthetic characteristics. Mount Wellington, in particular, is a powerful and memorable landscape because of its naturalness, scale and rugged features, which provides a dramatic backdrop to, and views over, Hobart’ (p17). ‘Its setting, height, shape, geology, striking landforms, steep altitudinal cline … all contribute to its aesthetic beauty.’ (p 80)
Certain specifically beautiful features are named. ‘Prominent’ geological features named in connection with ‘the landscape character of the Park’ are: Sleeping Beauty / Collins Cap, Collins Bonnet and the Organ Pipes. (p17 and 74). Lost World, the Yellow Cliffs, the ‘spectacular’ Organ Pipes, the ‘very unusual’ Disappearing Tarn and the ‘large, perched boulder’ known as the Rocking Stone. (p 20).
The land’s ‘striking landforms’ include ‘the toppling dolerite columns along its eastern escarpment’, its ‘continuously and diversely vegetated slopes’ in combination with its ‘variety of smaller landscapes’ such as the high-altitude, periglacial landforms, the dolerite boulder streams and boulder fields that ‘provide much of the landscape character of the higher parts of the Park’ (p 74).
All this is scenic beauty, but the management plan goes on to suggest that visual beauty also resides in the park’s ‘running waters’ and in its ‘wildness’ (p 24).
Recently, the beauty of the Park in darkness has been recognised by the trustees.
This beautiful landscape is mapped. The management plan contains two maps (commissioned for the Plan itself) bounding Scenic Beauty. The beauty blobs are frequently over prominent (i.e high) points such as mountain peaks (Table Mountain, Cathedral Rock, The Organ Pipes, Collins Cap) but also include the Wellington Falls Area and ferny gullies on the lower eastern slopes.
High Scenic Quality map of Wellington Park. WPMP page 63
Visual Management Sensitivity plot. WPMP page 83
Panoramas that create the aesthetic effect of the Sublime
Gwenda Sheridan’s Landscape study 2010
Some questions remain. On the effect of a foreboding, obscuring cloudscape of storm and mist across the toppled tors or the diversely vegetated slopes—i.e. atmospheric effects generally—are they a feature of the land or the sky? And even presuming they are a feature of the land, if they cannot be preserved or protected are they thus out? Snow is a highly regarded feature of natural beauty but it cannot be preserved. Can it be protected? How?
Notwithstanding all this careful mapping and description, none of these mentions throughout the management plan obtain any legal standing. Moreover, the trustees have recently forewarned in their Annual Report that they are considering removing from their Historic Heritage Register features of natural beauty on the basis that they are protected by the Act. Enshrine considers this inadvisable. Firstly because the Act alone is unable to preserve or protect anything.
The mountain’s natural beauty requires recognition in local, state and national heritage registers.
HERITAGE VALUES
Beauty Spots exhibit Historic, Indigenous, Aesthetic, Scientific and Social heritage values.
HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE
The Wellington Range appears on the first map of the area, by Hayes, in 1798.
The Beauty Spots have been captured by artists, poets and writers ever since.
Tracks have been built to reach beauty spots, and shelters and lookouts built beside them.
Regal inspection Queen Elizabeth II inspects the mountain in 1954. Whilst visiting Cape Town, South Africa in the early 1960s and taking in the view from Table Mountain, the Queen reportedly told palace staff it was not as beautiful as Mount Wellington and the view over Hobart. The Advocate newspaper 29 May 1989
The View of the Mountain’s landscape has not displeased the only humans who can be mentioned in connection with nobility and majesty. Royalty.
During the visit to Tasmania in 1900 by the then Duke and Duchess of York, hence England’s King and Queen, a Mr Knight, reporting for London’s Morning Post wrote that from the deck of the royal ship chartered for the cruise: “We had seen in Australasia a succession of the finest harbours in the world. It would be difficult to pick between them, but as far as the aspect of a city as seen from the sea is concerned, I think that Hobart must take the palm; behind the picturesque city covering the lower foothills stands a grandly shaped mountain, its slopes covered with dense forest from near the summit to the foot of a precipice of dark, rocky pillars, like the pipes of a gigantic organ. Truly Mount Wellington forms as noble a background to a city as can be found in the world.”
So impressed was Hobart’s Mercury, it republished the comment thirty years later—and ENSHRINE can’t resist either. Does this give the view international significance? Certainly, this pair were not the only or the last Royals to be impressed, as Tasmania’s Advocate newspaper reported: ‘Whilst visiting Cape Town in the early 1960s and taking in the view from Table Mountain, the Queen of England reportedly told her palace staff that it was not as beautiful as Mount Wellington and the view over Hobart.’ (Advocate 29 May 1989)
An additional cultural significance is attributable to the mountain at night. It is a place popular for aurora-seekers, but its dark beauty has been significant to indigenous Tasmanians too.
Their importance is so great (as noted above) their ‘preservation or protection’ is one of the four key purposes of the Wellington Park Act 1993. This legislative purpose finds expression at the heart of the management plan in statements such as this: ‘The visual beauty of Wellington Park is one of the most important factors shaping people’s perception of it’. WPMP page 24
Entanglement
It may seem that scenic interest has been ignored. Scenic interest, it may reside in a beautiful landscape but it is also broader. Scenery is the general appearance of a place and its natural features, regarded from the picturesque point of view—and the dictionary identifies both tree and cloud scenery, and notes scenic railways. More significantly (as the Act’s purpose itself is a carryover from the Scenery Protection Act 1915) “scenic interest” is broader because it can pertain to land lacking aesthetic value if said land is of significant scientific or historic worth. Historical scenery is significant for being where a great event of history took place, say a battlefield, the spot upon which a great artist or scientist stood to paint or stooped to collect, the houses of famous people. One quotation from Dickens (among many) may suffice to show that a mountain is likely to be scenic. ‘The country round this town being very flat, is bare of scenic interest.’
The practice of preserving and protecting scenic interest is well-founded in Tasmania in the local planning scheme and in the National Parks Act that subsumed the Scenery Protection Act. Enshrine has nominations for scenery protection before both the Hobart and the Kingborough Councils. That should be enough on scenery here—the issue here is natural beauty—but both are compacted into the same Purpose and the management plan notes (p24) that ‘cultural history contributes to [the Park’s] aesthetic beauty’.
Anthropologists and sociologists find embedded in every religious/legal ethical system in every culture, in every story, links to large, impressive or unusual geological relics such as river canyons, mountains and beaches (as well as small, local commonplace things like the shapes and colours of the stones lying around the place) and also to grand geological processes like floods and earthquakes.
Such features inspire artists to create stories and images. Natural features influence cultural behaviours and customary practices and these practices change the places. This con-fusion of the natural with the cultural is known as entanglement.
This entanglement happens on the mountain. A few places have been beautified, and the courses of tracks have been turned to pass beauty spots; indeed, some of the walking tracks were built in order to allow admiration them. Bench seats and lookout platforms and sometimes shelters have been constructed to extend the ease of enjoyment. Subsequently, by frequent depiction in literature, upon canvas, and on waterproof map; and, by being protected by law and custom: the con-fusion is deepened. And in the Wellington Park Management Plan the mountain’s “earth systems”—its waterfalls, cliffs, gullies, rocks and viewpoints—are recognised, simultaneously, as the ‘foundation for the Park's ecosystems’ and ‘the basis for its high landscape value’. ‘The highly significant visual value placed on the broader Wellington Range, is directly attributable to the scale and prominence of the Range and its features and to the integrity of its ecosystems (McConnell, 2012)’ (p 81). Thus, the mountain’s ecosystem (natural) and its landscape (cultural) are entangled.
HERITAGE ASSESSMENT
A 208 Network report to the Wellington Park Management Trust concluded that the views of Mount Wellington from the City of Hobart ‘have or possibly have National Estate value for their scenic qualities alone.’ A statement cited in McConnell and Handsjuk’s WPMT’s 2010 Summit Area Heritage Assessment.
The Glenorchy, Kingborough and (soon) Hobart Planning Schemes all contain an overlay of their portion of the mountain park protected a Scenic Protection Area.
The reservation of scenic areas dates back to the 1860s in Tasmania, and regarding Mount Field, it was written in 1913 ‘Nature almost seems to ask us that some attempt should be made to treasure and preserve this spot, upon which she has lavished all her charms.’
LOCAL HERITAGE
Tasmania’s local planning scheme does not have an overlay for beauty spots. The best fit for preserving or protecting the mountain’s beauty is to recognise it in a Scenic Protection Area overlay.
Both Kingborough and Glenorchy planning authorities have recognised this scenic value and added the overlay to their planning schemes.
Hobart City Council has agreed to introduce the layer into its new planning scheme now before the Tasmanian Planning Commission.
A SPA is required to be assessed by the methodology in the associated document Guidelines for Scenic Values Assessment that seeks to fit its frame of reference landscapes (page 100) with landform, vegetation, “waterform”, cultural/heritage and/or native wildlife features. The mountain appears to have all four in the High Quality Class. See our nomination here.
STATE HERITAGE
An aesthetics criterion does not exist in the Tasmanian Heritage Act.
NATIONAL HERITAGE
In the Statement of Significance under the title Beauty, Landscape and Sense of Place, the management plan states that: ‘Mount Wellington is … important to all Australians as a visual reference point for much of southeast Tasmania and the signature landmark for the city of Hobart. The area’s natural and landscape significance is heightened by its close proximity to a capital city, a feature unique in Australia’ and goes on to state: ‘While most Australian capital cities are located near the coast on rivers or harbours, Hobart is unique as the only capital city with an inspiring mountainous backdrop close to the city. (p16–17)