Estate Landscapes Design Improvement And Power In The Post Medieval Landscape

An exciting study of the social and landscape phenomena of the Estate Landscape. In recent years, the post-medieval landscape has attracted new interest from archaeologists, historians, and geographers concerned to understand the development of the historic environment. One of the key structuring elements within these landscapes from the sixteenth century until the aftermath of the Second World War was undoubtedly the landed estate. However, it was not until the late nineteenth century that any systematic attempt to quantify the presence of these estates was undertaken, prompted by the move to democratic reform and the persistent link between political power and landed wealth. Yet the importance of the landed estate in structuring power, social relationships, and both agricultural and industrial production was not limited to the UK. From the eighteenth century, the link between the UK estates and patterns of landholding and exploitation in the colonies became increasingly complex and recursive. This volume explores the relationships between the form and structure of British and Colonial estate landscapes, their agricultural management and the political structures and social relationships they reproduced. The articles address themes as diverse as the creation and development of the agrarian landscape, improvement, ornamental landscapes and gardens and estate architecture. Overall, it highlights the wealth and diversity of existing scholarship and suggests new directions for post-medieval archaeology in this dynamic area of research.

The Ironbridge Gorge is presented as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and so part of a national narrative of heroic Protestant individualism. However this is not the full story. This book asserts that this industrial landscape was, in fact, created by an entrepreneurial Catholic dynasty over 200 years before the Iron Bridge was built.

Estate Landscapes in Northern Europe is the first study of the role of the landed estate as an agent in the shaping of landscapes and societies across northern Europe over the past five centuries. Leading us into the fascinating variations of manorial worlds, the present volume seeks to open the field to include a broader perspective on estate landscapes. Estate - or manorial - landscapes were distinctive elements within the historic landscape and created their own character. Marked by larger scale fields associated with the home or demesne farm as well as a higher proportion of woodland and timber trees the landscapes reflected the scale of the resources available to the landowner and the control they exerted over the local communities. But they also represented the performative aspects of life for the elite, such as their engagement with hunting. While existing works have tended to emphasize the economic and agricultural aspect of estate landscapes, this volume draws out the social, cultural and political impact of manors and estates on landscapes throughout northern Europe. The chapters provide insights into a broad range of histories, such as the social worlds of burghers and nobility in the Dutch Republic, or the relationship between the distribution of land and the agitation for electoral reform in nineteenth-century England. Elsewhere in Scandinavia the impact of the reformation and conquest in Norway is balanced against the continuity of ownership in Sweden, where developing the natural resources for industrial enterprise such as ironworks and sawmills brought in new owners. Estate Landscapes in Northern Europe is the first product of the collaboration of researchers from Norway, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and the Netherlands, joined together in the European Network for Country House and Estate Research (ENCOUNTER).

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2014 While few detailed surveys of fauna or flora exist in England from the period before the nineteenth century, it is possible to combine the evidence of historical sources (ranging from game books, diaries, churchwardens' accounts and even folk songs) and our wider knowledge of past land use and landscape, with contemporary analyses made by modern natural scientists, in order to model the situation at various times and places in the more remote past. This timely volume encompasses both rural and urban environments from 1650 to the mid-twentieth century, drawing on a wide variety of social, historical and ecological sources. It examines the impact of social and economic organisation on the English landscape, biodiversity, the agricultural revolution, landed estates, the coming of large-scale industry and the growth of towns and suburbs. It also develops an original perspective on the complexity and ambiguity of man/animal relationships in this post-medieval period.

A great deal has been written about the acceleration of English agriculture in the early modern period. In the late middle ages it was hard to see that English agriculture was so very different from that of the continent, but by 1750 levels of agricultural productivity in Britain were well ahead of those general in northern Europe. The country had become much more urban and the proportion of the population engaged in agriculture had fallen. Customary modes of behaviour, whilst often bitterly defended, had largely been swept away. Contemporaries were quite clear that a process of improvement had taken place which had seen agriculture reshaped and made much more productive. Exactly what that process was has remained surprisingly obscure. This volume addresses the fundamental notion of improvement in the development of the British landscape from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Contributors present a variety of cases of how improvement, custom and resistance impacted on the local landscape, which includes manorial estates, enclosures, fens, forests and urban commons. Disputes between tenants and landlords, and between neighbouring landlords, over improvement meant that new economic and social identities were forged in the battle between innovation and tradition. The volume also includes an analysis of the role of women as agricultural improvers and a case study of what can happen when radical improvement failed. The volume will be essential reading for scholars of landscape studies, rural and agrarian history, but will also provide a useful context for anybody studying the historical legacy of mankind's exploitation of the environment and its social, economic, legal and political consequences.

Lancelot “Capability” Brown is often thought of as the innovative genius who single-handedly pioneered a new, naturalistic style of landscape design, but he was in fact only one of many landscape designers in Georgian England. Published to commemorate the three hundredth anniversary of Brown’s birth, this book casts important new light on his world-renowned work, his eventful life, and the wider and robust world of landscape design in Georgian England. David Brown and Tom Williamson argue that Brown was one of the most successful designers of his time working in a style that was otherwise widespread—and that it was his skill with this style, and not his having invented it, that linked his name to it. The authors look closely at Brown’s design business and the products he offered clients, showing that his design packages helped define the era’s aesthetic. They compare Brown’s business to those of similar designers such as the Adam brothers, Thomas Chippendale, and Josiah Wedgwood, and they contextualize Brown’s work within the wider contexts of domestic planning and the rise of neoclassicism. Beautifully illustrated throughout, this book celebrates the work of a master designer who was both a product and harbinger of the modern world.

This new edition of The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies contains an updated and expanded selection of original chapters which explore research directions in an array of disciplines sharing a concern for ‘landscape’, a term which has many uses and meanings. It features 33 revised and/or updated chapters and 14 entirely new chapters on topics such as the Anthropocene, Indigenous landscapes, challenging landscape Eurocentrisms, photography and green infrastructure planning. The volume is divided into four parts: Experiencing landscape; Landscape, heritage and culture; Landscape, society and justice; and Design and planning for landscape. Collectively, the book provides a critical review of the various fields related to the study of landscapes, including the future development of conceptual and theoretical approaches, as well as current empirical knowledge and understanding. It encourages dialogue across disciplinary barriers and between academics and practitioners, and reflects upon the implications of research findings for local, national and international policy in relation to landscape. The Companion provides a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to current thinking about landscapes, and serves as an invaluable point of reference for scholars, researchers and graduate students alike.

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’.