Presenting the research into the landscape history of the Bourn Valley, west of Cambridge, this book is published as the first volume in a series of mid-length monographs on unusual subjects within local and regional history. It is illustrated throughout with maps and photos.

This paperback edition of a book first published in hardback in 2002 is a fascinating and provocative study which looks at castles in a new light, using the theories and methods of landscape studies.

A stimulating introduction, this book explores the concept of 'landscape' in theories and writings of the last twenty to thirty years, to aid students in fully comprehending this vast and complex topic.

Considering the minor settlements of England's Danelaw--villages known as thorps or throps--this history demonstrates how place-name evidence can be used to understand early cultures. By integrating linguistic and archaeological approaches, it establishes a compelling connection between the creation of these place-names and the fundamental changes taking place in the English landscape between AD 850 and 1250. The integral role of thorps in revolutionizing agricultural practice at that time is thoroughly analyzed.

The Anglo-Saxon period was crucial to the development of the English landscape, but is rarely studied. The essays here provide radical new interpretations of its development. Traditional opinion has perceived the Anglo-Saxons as creating an entirely new landscape from scratch in the fifth and sixth centuries AD, cutting down woodland, and bringing with them the practice of open field agriculture, and establishing villages. Whilst recent scholarship has proved this simplistic picture wanting, it has also raised many questions about the nature of landscape development at the time, the changing nature of systems of land management, and strategies for settlement. The papers here seek to shed new light on these complex issues. Taking a variety of different approaches, and with topics ranging from the impact of coppicing to medieval field systems, from the representation of the landscape in manuscripts to cereal production and the type of bread the population preferred, they offer striking new approaches to the central issues of landscape change across the seven centuries of Anglo-Saxon England, a period surely foundational to the rural landscape of today. NICHOLAS J. HIGHAM is Professor of Early Medieval and Landscape History at the University of Manchester; MARTIN J. RYAN lectures in Medieval History at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Nicholas J. Higham, Christopher Grocock, Stephen Rippon, Stuart Brookes, Carenza Lewis, Susan Oosthuizen, Tom Williamson, Catherine Karkov, David Hill, Debby Banham, Richard Hoggett, Peter Murphy.

It has long been recognized that the landscape of Britain is one of the 'richest historical records we possess', but just how old is it? The Fields of Britannia is the first book to explore how far the countryside of Roman Britain has survived in use through to the present day, shaping the character of our modern countryside. Commencing with a discussion of the differing views of what happened to the landscape at the end of Roman Britain, the volume then brings together the results from hundreds of archaeological excavations and palaeoenvironmental investigations in order to map patterns of land-use across Roman and early medieval Britain. In compiling such extensive data, the volume is able to reconstruct regional variations in Romano-British and early medieval land-use using pollen, animal bones, and charred cereal grains to demonstrate that agricultural regimes varied considerably and were heavily influenced by underlying geology. We are shown that, in the fifth and sixth centuries, there was a shift away from intensive farming but very few areas of the landscape were abandoned completely. What is revealed is a surprising degree of continuity: the Roman Empire may have collapsed, but British farmers carried on regardless, and the result is that now, across large parts of Britain, many of these Roman field systems are still in use.

The first study to describe 100 years of pre-enclosure agricultural systems throughout England from one of the foremost authorities on medieval field systems.

A record of the National Mapping Programme project in Northamptonshire. It recovered and mapped archaeological evidence from field systems, through settlement remains, to funerary monuments, and ranges from the Neolithic to the 20th century.

Garden design evolved hugely during the Georgian period – as symbols of wealth and stature, the landed aristocracy had been using gardens for decades. Yet during the eighteenth century, society began to homogenise, and the urban elite also started demanding landscapes that would reflect their positions. The gardens of the aristocracy and the gentry were different in appearance, use and meaning, despite broad similarities in form. Underlying this was the importance of place, of the landscape itself and its raw material. Contemporaries often referred to the need to consult the ‘genius of the place’ when creating a new designed landscape, as the place where the garden was located was critical in determining its appearance. Genius loci - soil type, topography, water supply - all influenced landscape design in this period. The approach taken in this book blends landscape and garden history to make new insights into landscape and design in the eighteenth century. Spooner’s own research presents little-known sites alongside those which are more well known, and explores the complexity of the story of landscape design in the Georgian period which is usually oversimplified and reduced to the story of a few ‘great men’.