HISTORY OF THE COUNTRYSIDE

A classic of scholarship and imagination first published in 1986 and here in 2020 facsimile reprint with all the original line art, maps and black and white somewhat smudgy but nevertheless interesting photographs, the book is written with dignity, humanity and concern and a great deal of humour. Exploring the natural and man-made features of the land - fields, highways, hedgerows, fens, marshes, rivers, heaths, coasts, woods and wood pastures - Rackham shows conclusively and unforgettably how they have developed over the centuries. He covers a wealth of related subjects and the sometimes subtle and sometimes radical ways in which people, fauna, flora, climate, soils and other physical conditions have played their part in the shaping of the countryside. To give an example, whilst championing a method of ageing hedgerows known as Hoopers Law, Rackham advises that for it to work properly it must be considered along with other local evidence rather than simply being taken at face value. He covers everything around us from ancient pollarding techniques and forestry, designer parks, Celtic field systems, historical hedges and highways, heaths and moorland to anything about water and includes eight illustrated and well described walks explaining exactly how to decipher what we are looking at. Plans, maps, diagrams, the 25 plates include a pseudo-medieval park, a wood attacked by fallow deer, an Iron Age or Roman field grid, a black poplar and 500 year old oaks in Sherwood Forest among them. 445pp in large paperback.