The Essay: The Meaning of Beaches 

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The Essay: The Meaning of Beaches: The Giant's Causeway

The Giant's Causeway

The Meaning of Beaches

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Professor Fiona Stafford explores the ultimate beach-as-symbol, the Giant's Causeway.

Professor Fiona Stafford explores the ultimate beach-as-symbol, the Giant's Causeway, which has spawned myths and legends for millennia.

A further series of essays by Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College Oxford, following her much-praised The Meaning of Trees and The Meaning of Flowers, Fiona explores the symbolism, importance, topicality and surprises of five British beaches, all of which are unique and quintessentially British in very different ways. Fiona deconstructs what we thought we knew of these five beaches, with the multiple surprises and eloquent wordsmithery which has captured so much attention for her previous five series of essays.

The Giant's Causeway is the ultimate beach-as-symbol with its 40,000 basalt hexagonal columns spawning myriad myths and legends across the millennia, still fascinating mathematicians, geologists, writers, artists, witches and tourists many of whom visit Northern Ireland primarily to come to this beach. The iconic rocks are a result of volcanic eruption 50 million years ago, with some of the weathered formations described as resembling a giant's boot, chimney stacks and a camel's hump. Some of this County Antrim beach is owned by the National Trust, but not all of it. Some is owned by the Crown Estate and some by private landowners. Parts of the beach are now restricted and have opening and closing times, with the gift shop supporting a craft industry in Northern Ireland as it has a rule that 80% of crafts sold must be made in Northern Ireland. Large numbers of visitors is perhaps unsurprising since the Giant's Causeway is Northern Ireland's only UNESCO World Heritage site. The size of the columns was dictated by how fast the lava from the volcano cooled, the faster the cooling, the smaller the columns hence the diameter of the hexagons varies cross the beach. 

Producer - Turan Ali 
A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3

The Essay: The Meaning of Beaches

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Fiona Stafford's portraits of five iconic British beaches.

Fiona Stafford, professor of literature at Somerville College, Oxford, with portraits of five iconic British beaches.

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