KUBLA KHAN. A Hutton Man?
The Hutton Think Tank's outsourced Poet- in -Residence Professor Harriet Archbold also saw the reference to Kubla Khan at Eyemouth piece on the Berwickshire Website (she is out sourced considerably and does not normally see our local papers in hard copy).
She writes: Of course Coleridge never got to China but he must have visited the Borders on a short break vacation-indeed there is no conclusive evidence that he didn't. Looking at the context of then contemporary disquiet at Asylum seekers congregating in rural areas such as the Merse –including a number of Chinese cockle pickers in Eyemouth, Coleridge was doing is best to romanticise foreign people in order to reassure his compatriots that they presented no threat to the British way of life-indeed they could make a positive and beneficial contribution. 'Kubla Khan' thus represents an investment- bringing foreign building developer and 'Xanadu' is a coded reference to an exotic location almost certainly the Whiteadder Valley- Thus the poem could appropriately have started:'At Hutton Mill did Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure dome decree' .'Alph the sacred river' is of course the Whiteadder which via the Tweed ran 'through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea' (an excellent description of the Whiteadder gorge below Hutton village-certainly 'measureless' is apt given the primitive nature of instrumentation in Coleridge's time. Sunless sea' is especially apposite-the Haar is no modern phenomenon as the poet found to his discomfort. And of course 'gardens bright with sinuous rills' can still be seen in both Hutton and Paxton. Moreover the river above Hutton Mill is accurately described as 'five miles meandering with mazy motion through
wood and dale'etc. The clincher is the reference to Berwick itself: 'So twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers are girded round'. Again areas are imprecise but the reference is clear enough. Much of the rest of the poem is thought to be ale- induced gibberish as befits a poet who enjoyed the Borders' taverns but the mention of 'an Abyssinian maid with her dulcimer' brings us back to the immigrant theme as mentioned above. I could rabbit on endlessly but am inclined not to given the miserable pittance I get as an honorarium from the HTT..
As to what happened to the Pleasure Dome, contemporary records unearthed in the remains of an old loo at St Boswells indicate that planning permission was turned down by the Berwickshire Area Committee. No reason given but perhaps there was unease that this might be the start of ribbon development 'outwith an existing building group' along a river then charmingly undeveloped.
I hope that the Borders Tourist Board can make good use of yet another literary/historical connection to the area.
