A traveller through the length and breadth of England is soon aware of cultural differences, some of which are clearly visible in the landscape. The eminent English historian Charles Phythian-Adams has put forth that England, through much of the last millennium, could be divided into regional societies, which broadly coincided with groups of pre-1974 counties. These shire assemblages in turn lay largely within the major river drainage systems of the country. In this unusual study Alan Fox tests for, and establishes, the presence of an informal frontier between two of the proposed societies astride the Leicestershire-Lincolnshire border, which lies on the watershed between the Trent and Witham drainage basins. The evidence presented suggests a strong case for a cultural frontier zone, which is announced by a largely empty landscape astride the border between the contrasting settlement patterns of these neighbouring counties.

The Records of Early English Drama (REED) series aims to establish the context for the great drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries by examining the historical manuscripts that provide external evidence of drama, secular music, and other communal entertainment and ceremony from the Middle Ages until Puritan legislation closed the London theatres in 1642. REED's sixteenth collection, Kent: Diocese of Canterbury contains the evidence of dramatic, musical, and ceremonial activity in the city of Canterbury and in the towns and parishes of the diocese of Canterbury, taken from the borough records, parish records, civil and ecclesiastical court records, and from personal papers such as wills, diaries, and letters. This collection includes over 4,000 payments to travelling players from the earliest recorded payment in 1272, when the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, paid for entertainment on the feast day of St Thomas Becket, to the last recorded payment in 1641 in Puritan Canterbury for players not to play. It also features the Canterbury marching watch with pageants, including the pageant of St Thomas Becket; the New Romney passion play; numerous visits of nobility and royalty to Faversham, Canterbury, and Dover, being the main stops along Watling Street between London and the Continent; the activities of waits, drummers, and other civic musicians in the ancient towns and cities of Kent; and extensive evidence from court cases, borough ordinances, and chamberlains' payments of the suppression of dramatic activity during the Puritan years of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As with all the REED volumes, Kent Diocese of Canterbury is transcribed from the original sources, edited, and presented with explanatory notes, translations, and a general introduction. The resulting volume forms the largest collections thus far in the REED series.

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.

While historical and protected landscapes have been well studied for years, the cultural significance of ordinary landscapes is now increasingly recognised. This groundbreaking book discusses how contemporary cultural landscapes can be, and are, created and recognised. The book challenges common concepts of cultural landscapes as protected or ‘special’ landscapes that include significant buildings or features. Using case studies from around the world it questions the usual measures of judgement related to cultural landscapes and instead focuses on landscapes that are created, planned or simply evolve as a result of changing human cultures, management policy and practice. Each contribution analyses the geographical and human background of the landscape, and policies and management strategies that impact upon it, and defines the meanings of 'cultural landscape' in its particular context. Taken together they establish a new paradigm in the study of landscapes in all forms.

A heavily illustrated study of the foundations and working mechanisms of modern communities.

Sustainability is highly topical but no-one has yet examined its relationship to landscape architecture in any detail Contributions from leading academics and professionals in the field Will be regarded as the definitive work on the subject Breadth of approach: subject examined from planning, design, science and management perspectives

Even in an age of emerging nationhood, English men and women still thought very much in terms of their parishes, towns, and counties. This book examines the vitality of early modern local consciousness and its deployment by writers to mediate the larger political, religious, and cultural changes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

First published in 1999. The Issues in Heritage Management series is a joint venture between Routledge and English Heritage. It provides accessible, thought-provoking books on issues central to heritage management. Each book within the series is designed to provide a topical introduction to a key issue in heritage management for students in higher education and for heritage professionals. Rapid changes are taking place in countryside management today, making their impact on the historic landscape. In an accessible format, this volume examines the questions and conflicts that arise in Managing the Historic Rural Landscape. It is essential reading for students and professionals concerned with countryside management, in particular those involved with cultural landscapes and students of planning.

A scholarly, up-to-date and readable survey of the shaping of the medieval English landscape.

Landscape and History explores a complex relationship over the past five centuries. The book is international and interdisciplinary in scope, drawing on material from social, economic and cultural history as well as from geography, archaeology, cultural geography, planning and landscape history. In recent years, as the author points out, there has been increasing interest in, and concern for, many aspects of landscape within British, European and wider contexts. This has included the study of the history, development and changes in our perception of landscape, as well as research into the links between past landscapes and political ideologies, economic and social structures, cartography, art and literature. There is also considerable concern at present with the need to evaluate and classify historic landscapes, and to develop policies for their conservation and management in relation to their scenic, heritage and recreational value. This is manifest not only in the designation of particularly valued areas with enhanced protection from planning developments, such as national parks and world heritage sites, but in the countryside more generally. Further, Ian D. Whyte argues, changes in European Union policies relating to agriculture, with a greater concern for the protection and sustainable management of rural landscapes, are likely to be of major importance in relation to the themes of continuity and change in the landscapes of Britain and Europe.