Accessing the Wellbeing Commons

Accessing the Wellbeing Commons is a research project based at Newcastle University, in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, and funded by the Wellcome Trust. In many parts of the world, rivers, lakes, hot and mineral springs and seas are valued for their healing or therapeutic qualities. Seen as shared natural resources, these places can improve people's physical and mental wellbeing, but not everyone is able to use or gain from them equally. The project asks why that might be, in the past and now. Its other field sites are mineral springs in Mongolia and hot springs in Sikkim, India.

The Devon field site is a 5.5 year study of the rivers that rise on Dartmoor National Park, and of its reservoirs, lakes and quarry pools. These waters are used for a wide range of recreation, and the project's focus is swimming.

The research involves speaking to wild swimming groups, visitors at popular swimming sites, landowners and commoners, and organisations working to protect and represent Devon's rivers, and to anyone with something to say about the history, present and future of the moor's waters. A set of oral history interviews is planned for the spring, to capture stories of Dartmoor's waters through time and to weave them together with existing oral history collections and written material from local archives.

Dr Lena Ferriday is the Research Associate for the Devon site, and Dr Elizabeth Turk is the project's Principal Investigator. The project's Devon page gives Dr Ferriday's email address for anyone who has something to say about the moor's waters.