Abstract
IT may be remembered that at the Cambridge meeting of the British Association, Dr. Vaughan Cornish described his efforts to preserve the natural scenic beauty of the cliff regions near Sidmouth by ensuring thatconsiderable tracts of land in his possession should be restricted entirely to agricultural purposes. The Times of April 26 announces that Dr. Cornish has decided to extend these restrictions to cover (during his lifetime) the lands of Thorn Farm, near Salcombe Regis. This is a place of considerable historic interest as well as of natural beauty, which takes its name from an old “Holy Thorn” tree used as a landmark from Saxon times, and replaced with suitable ceremonial by another whenever itdied. This decision has, also, its scientific aspect, on account of theproximity of the Norman Lockyer Observatory to Thorn Farm, where (but fr the action of Dr. Cornish) it would have been possible to erect some six hundred houses under the local town planning scheme. It is well known that the work of Greenwich Observatory is badly hampered by smoke and glare from the surrounding district. The erection of six hundred houses in the vicinity of the Norman Lockyer Observatory might have been the first step towards a similar interference with the work of this observatory, and it is a matterof satisfaction that this annoyance has been at least postponed during the lifetime of Dr. Cornish.
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Preservation of the English Countryside. Nature 143, 815–816 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143815b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143815b0