The Making of the British Landscape

The Making of the British Landscape

The small area of the British landscape belies its rich complexity. W. G. Hoskins’ classic The Making of the English Landscape first described how the land was shaped by human activity. With the benefit of five intervening decades of knowledge, Francis Pryor revisits the ground covered by Hoskins. From suburban streets that trace the boundaries of long-vanished farms to the towns that sprang up alongside the railways, he reveals human fingerprints everywhere on the British landscape. In Wiltshire we find the ridges left by Iron Age field banks, while Neolithic settlements are still visible on Bodmin Moor not far from 19th-century tin mines. This is also the story of Britain’s inhabitants, from the farmers of the Roman era to Victorian industrialists and factory workers. The story is brought up to date with wind farms, Bluewater Shopping Centre and Prince Charles’s Poundbury. A farmer as well as an archaeologist, Pryor can outline the problems faced by the earliest sheep farmers and explain why January and February are the best months for archaeologists to survey fields. Informed by five decades of fieldwork and rigorous scholarship – what historian Kathryn Hughes calls Pryor’s ‘bedrock of flinty data’ – this book also communicates a deep and abiding respect and love of the landscape. It will enhance the experience of anyone who has ever wished to understand more about Britain.