The Making of the British Landscape
Francis Pryor (Trinity, 1964)
Penguin Press
This is the changing story of Britain from prehistory to the present day, as it has been preserved in our fields, farms, roads, buildings, towns and villages, mountains, forests and islands.
Men were hunting reindeer across Northamptonshire long before Britain became an island and human relationships, patterns of trade and commerce, religion, warfare and politics have had an enormous effect on the making of its landscape ever since. From the undulating folds left by the three-field system to the Norfolk Broads, formed when medieval peat pits flooded, from the ceremonial landscapes of Stonehenge to the spread of the railways -- evidence of how man's effect on Britain surrounds us. In The Making of the British Landscape, historian, archaeologist and farmer, Francis Pryor explains how these clues interlock to tell the fascinating history of our land and how people have lived on it.
Covering both urban and rural landscapes and full of pictures, maps and drawings showing how to pick out Bronze Age fields on Bodmin Moor to the defensive landscapes of World War II, this highly acclaimed book -- both compellingly written and argued -- will permanently change the way you see your surroundings.
Former president of the Council for British Archaeology Francis Pryor has spent thirty years studying the prehistory of the Fens. Excavating sites as diverse as Bronze Age farms, field systems and entire Iron Age villages, he appears frequently on TV's Time Team and is the author of Seahenge, as well as Britain BC and Britain AD, both of which he adapted and presented as Channel 4 series.
Publication date: 7 April 2011
978-0-141-04059-2
Added: 17 May 2011
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