Walking back through time: a landscape history of pathways

For a while now I have been contemplating researching a comprehensive landscape history of paths, or at least the pathways of Britain. Paths, such an intrinsic topographical element, both a symbolic and practical medium for accessing and moving through much of the landscape, really should have their own history told. Somewhat surprisingly, no-one seems to have done this yet in a holistic way (though there is, of course, a vast array of books, pamphlets and web pages devoted to walking and related experiences, to describing routes through the landscape, and to recording often locally specific paths, tracks and byways). What lies below our feet - the actual path - often seems to be curiously incidental to these narratives, perhaps taken for granted (even, dare I say it, by academic specialists, psycho-geographers and new nature writers).

These musings have been honed into a research proposal so that I can hawk this around for funding (so far unsuccessfully!) or undertake the project independently. I'm beginning to think that the latter pathway is more likely and has many advantages, less constraints, and allows a wider ranging, should I be able to find the time to carry it out (and walk the miles). Anyway, here is what I have in mind. If anyone has any comments or suggestions then please do get in touch. It is written as an academic research proposal so please bear that in mind if you slightly loose the will to live before reaching the end.

Footpaths are not simply conduits for moving through the landscape: from prehistory to the present day, they have played a fundamental role in shaping both the land and the people who have walked them. Each pathway has a topography and social history of its own which tells the story of its original purpose and subsequent use. And yet, paths and their infrastructure – and the meanings which have become associated with them – have seldom featured in the historiography of the British landscape. This research will fill that gap.

Defining a path as a route used for non-vehicular passage away from the main arteries of commerce and travel, this project will examine a variety of different types of British pathway. These include routes used for everyday local movement and connection alongside long-distance routes such as pilgrim ways, drovers’ roads, and recreational trails. Pathways with special functions, for instance industrial tracks, will be studied together with both formal and informal circuits of protest and celebration. In terms of geographical and chronological scale, investigation will concentrate on a British context from the early medieval to the present day, drawing on comparisons and evidence from further afield and prehistory where necessary. While recognising that every path is the unique product of its own history, this research will explore a number of themes relevant to all. Temporal and spatial consideration will be given to the permanence or ephemerality of paths, and their stability or instability as landscape features. 

The research will also address such issues as the extent to which pathway origins can be traced, and how their courses, material fabric, names, and purposes might have changed over time. It will examine pathways as networks of movement and connection, and how patterns of footpaths have formed in different regions and landscape settings, and at different times. It will look to explain why pathways take different physical forms. It will examine how people have understood paths whether as public spaces or common rights of way, or as symbols of social memory and community custom, markers of boundaries, and channels for dissent. 

Complementing these historical perspectives, the project will also address the part paths play in the contemporary landscape: how are they now managed, to what extent are they at risk or under-appreciated as a public good, and what role might they play in a more sustainable society?

The history, physical form, and utility of routeways has been addressed to some extent in scholarly discourse (Allen and Evans, 2016; Hindle, 1991; Morriss, 2005; Taylor, 1979). The substantial corpus of research accumulated for other elements of the historic landscape, such as fortifications, religious and ritual sites, settlements and field systems, is, however, lacking for the pathways that connect these spaces. What has been published has tended to focus less on paths and walking, more on roads and highways as networks for elite movement, trade, and communication: for instance, the outputs of the recently concluded Travel and Communication in Anglo-Saxon England project (Brookes et al, 2019). Moreover, though W.G. Hoskins’ ‘mud on your boots’ ethos has permeated the empirical landscape archaeology and history tradition in Britain, the paths used to explore and record the historic environment (and walking as a fieldwork technique, beyond the structured practice of ‘field walking’ to identify artefact scatters) are generally overlooked, for instance, in the fieldwork guides of Brown, 1987 and Muir, 2000.

Prehistorians, anthropologists and cultural geographers have been more interested in paths and walking than those examining trackways and footpaths in the historic period (Bell, 2020; Leary, 2014; Wylie, 2005). Mobility through the landscape has appeared as a key theme, though phenomenological approaches based on inhabiting the landscape, and considerations of flows of people and objects have left surprisingly little space for examining the materiality of paths and tracks (Gibson et al, 2019; Ingold, 2011; Sen and Johung, 2016; Tilley and Cameron-Daum, 2017).

A slew of popular yet highly literate narratives around path-making and -taking (Macfarlane, 2012; Solnit, 2002), together with psycho-geographical tracts constructed around novel walking practice, often in urban, contested or prohibited settings (Papadimitriou, 2003; Sinclair, 2002), provide further contemporary context. Wider public and policy interest in landscape responses to environmental and climate change such as future farming practices, rewilding, and flood control are also of relevance here, not least because walking footpaths remains one of Britain’s most popular outdoor pursuits, valued for cementing a sense of place as well as its health and well-being benefits (de Moor, 2013; Ramblers, 2010).

This research will draw judiciously from the various methodological and theoretical approaches taken in these previous studies of pathways, extending them further and applying them in new contexts.

Six case studies will anchor the research, chosen to represent a diversity of topography, geography, and history: a deep survey of specific localised footpath networks at the scale of the historic parish or group of parishes (as long-established territorial units). Close study of medieval tracks associated with monasteries in south-east Wales has already tested the feasibility of this approach (Procter, 2019). A matrix of criteria will be used to identify the case study parishes, taking account of the existing path network, and richness of historic mapping and primary sources. Representation from across England, Scotland and Wales and a range of landscape settings, such as heavily wooded, upland, low-lying, industrial and urban will also be ensured. Case study selection will precede the main research study. The Cotswold scarp of Gloucestershire has been provisionally identified as the location for an example of ‘ancient’ countryside and a parish characterised by planned enclosure will be selected in the Feldon area of south Warwickshire. In addition, a study of Offa’s Dyke Long Distance Trail will focus on contemporary trail-making and recreational utility.

Building on my own doctoral research practice, an interdisciplinary methodology will integrate topographical, archaeological, cartographic, etymological and historical evidence. Applied experience and knowledge of working as a Public Rights of Way Officer and leading volunteer parties maintaining National Park footpaths will supplement academic research skills. The archaeology and physical characteristics of the paths in each case study area will be examined in the field to establish geographical patterns and networks, their fabric and form, function and evolution, and classify related landscape features, such as boundaries, stiles, and bridges. Public rights of way, permissive routes, and unofficial and disused tracks will be extensively walked, photographed and recorded, harnessing the assistance of local history and walking groups. Key exemplars will be subjected to more intensive investigation through measured survey. This field evidence will be combined with an analysis of references to case study footpaths in existing data sets (HERs, archaeological reports, etc.), and primary and secondary sources held within local and national archives (including estate, enclosure and tithe maps, legal cases relating to rights of way, highway commissioners reports, and manor court records and surveys). Corroboration will also be provided from aerial photography, satellite imagery, LiDAR, and other geo-spatial resources. These data will be combined, analysed and where appropriate modelled in GIS; and the research outcomes illuminated by a set of GIS-based maps of the case study path networks, written and photographic commentaries of selected walks, and detailed plans of example path types. 

Archival sources, such as early medieval charters and later medieval court rolls, references to perambulations and ‘Beating the Bounds’ of parish boundaries, will be interrogated alongside local legend and folk tales, early modern chorographies, and literary and artistic representations to chronicle how the case study pathways have been experienced and perceived through time. An indication of contemporary attitudes to the footpath network will be highlighted through small-scale qualitative on-line, social media, and in-person survey of users and other stakeholders within the case study areas, complemented by analysis of quantitative data-sets available from bodies such as National Parks, The Ramblers and National Trust.

The primary output from the project will be a monograph or book. Detailed, place-specific spatial and temporal descriptions of the origins, and material and cultural evolution of the case study pathways will inform an overarching landscape history of British footpaths. There are currently no titles that cover this territory. Additionally, two articles on elements of the project (for example, the walking fieldwork practice and a case study) will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals such as Landscapes, Landscape Research, and others across related fields including archaeology, cultural geography, history, and literary studies. The emerging research will also be disseminated through conference papers (particularly targeted at conferences with an inter-disciplinary landscape focus).

Wider public engagement will be threefold. First, a dedicated blog and social media profile, highlighting interactive maps of the case study path networks, walk commentaries and suggested routes, and enabling interaction with local interest groups within the case study areas. Secondly, such groups as well as cultural festivals and events with a landscape, walking, nature, or travel writing component will be approached as platforms for talks (where possible combined with themed guided walks). Finally, several short-form articles will be submitted to relevant magazines, websites, and blogs with both niche and wider audiences outside of academia, ranging from ‘new nature writing’ and psycho-geography to walking and outdoor titles.

Bibliography

Allen, V and Evans, R (eds.) (2016) Roadworks: Medieval Britain, Medieval Roads (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

Bell, M (2020) Making One's Way in the World: The Footprints and Trackways of Prehistoric People (Oxford: Oxbow).

Brookes, S, Rye, E and Oksanen, E (2019) Bridges of Medieval England to c.1250, Archaeological Data Service database <https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/medbridges_lt_2019/>, accessed 12/02/20.

Brown, A (1987) Fieldwork for Archaeologists and Local Historians (London: Batsford).

De Moor, D (2013) Walking Works, Walking for Health review report (The Ramblers).

Edwards, J and Hindle, P (1991) ‘The Transportation System of Medieval England and Wales’, Journal of Historical Geography, 17(2), 123-134.

Gibson, C, Cleary, L and Frieman, C (eds.) (2019) Making Journeys: Archaeologies of Mobility (Oxford: Oxbow). 

Ingold, T (2011) Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge, and Description (Abingdon: Routledge).

Leary, J (ed.) (2014) Archaeological Perspectives to Movement and Mobility (Farnham: Ashgate).

Macfarlane, R (2012) The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot (London: Hamish Hamilton).

Morriss, R (2005) Roads: Archaeology and Architecture (Stroud: Tempus).

Muir, R (2000) The New Reading the Landscape (Exeter: University of Exeter Press).

Papadimitriou, N (2013) Scarp: In Search of London’s Outer Limits (London: Sceptre).

Procter, E (2019) ‘The Path to the Monastery: Monastic Communication Networks in the Southern Welsh Marches’, Landscape History, 40(1), 59-70.

Ramblers, The (2010) Walking Facts and Figures 2: Participation in Walking <https://www.ramblers.org.uk/advice/facts-and-stats-about-walking/participation-in-walking.aspx>, accessed 14/02/20.

Sen, A and Johung, J (eds.) (2016) Landscapes of Mobility. Culture, Politics, and Placemaking (Abingdon: Routledge).

Sinclair, I (2002) London Orbital (London: Granta).

Solnit, R (2002) Wanderlust: A History of Walking (London: Granta).

Taylor, C (1979) Roads and Tracks of Britain (London: Dent).

Tilley, C and Cameron-Daum, K (2017) An Anthropology of Landscape: The Extraordinary in the Ordinary (London: UCL Press).

Wylie, J (2005) 'A Single Days Walking: Narrating Self and Landscape on the South West Coast Path', Transaction of the Institute of British Geographers, 30, 234-47

Brief thoughts on a PhD journey completed

Well its done. I've been awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy in Archaeology.

My research has ranged over landscape archaeology, landscape history, monasticism, cultural geography, psychogeography, landscape in art and literature, folklore and further afield. I've probably meandered a bit too widely. 'Deep topography' is what I call it (nicked from Papadimitriou), but that doesn't yet have much currency in academia.

Three full years of landscape contemplation in the field, on walks, at my desk. Sometimes a slog but mostly stimulating and rewarding roaming, a privilege. Followed by a strange few months when its hard to get your bearings, to know when to sit back and think 'phew, I've done it': thesis submitted, but now I need to get a job as PhD funding stops at this point; viva successful with corrections to do, but bloody hell that was a hard experience and now I've got to work on those corrections (in my spare time); corrections submitted and now another wait; examiners approve corrections, subject to formal approval; official award notification - I think this is it: the last hoop, job done. Except the graduation to come with the daft cap and gown number, but that's the 'fun' bit.   

Anyway, the thesis is available through the University of Exeter's ORE open access portal 
and the data-set appendices along with links to related articles and other stuff can also be found here. The core strands of the thesis now need to be synthesized into a long-form journal article and the data-sets lodged with the relevant Historic Environment Records.

I hope that all of this is of some use to others researching or with an interest in the historic landscape, sense of place and our complex reactions to it.  

Now my attention turns to scaling the heights of postdoc funding for a future project on paths in the landscape, to future writing projects and to my day job looking after the public footpaths of Bristol town. I might even get round to writing some more long-winded Landscapism blog posts. 

PhD research paper #1. Approaches to the study of landscape archaeology and history

From time to time I will post 'bite size' chunks of the material I am preparing for my PhD thesis: works in progress, but content which I feel may be of interest to a wider audience. All will be very much draft versions, not necessarily - probably not - reflecting the final wording that will eventually appear in the Thesis. In-text references are included but a full bibliography is not. This paper is based on a section of the initial literature review. 

Approaches to the study of landscape archaeology and history

Landscape archaeology in context

Figure 1: A landscape-scale view of medieval strip lynchets flanking an Iron Age hillfort with a post-medieval deer park in the background, Dyrham, Gloucestershire (Author).

In 1998 a collection of papers that examined the contemporary state of landscape archaeology was published in honour of one of the discipline’s key founding figures: Christopher Taylor. In his introductory chapter Tom Williamson (1998, 1) provided a lucid explanation of what archaeological research at a landscape scale encompasses (see Figure 1):

‘It is distinguished, not so much by a coherent body of applied technique or theory, but by subject-matter. In essence, landscape archaeologists are concerned with explaining how what we see today came to look the way it does, and with interpreting the spatial patterns and structures created in the past in terms of social and economic behaviour. In particular, landscape archaeology is characterised by an interest in scales of analysis wider than that of the ‘site’: it focusses on the broader matrices of settlement patterns, field systems, territories and communications. Lastly, its tools tend, for the most part, to be non-destructive – aerial photography, earthwork surveys and field walking’.

To this list we should now add Geographical Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, satellite imagery and other spatial computing technologies. Williamson goes on to point out that landscape archaeology and landscape history are to some extent interchangeable terms and many researchers who are involved in this area would be hard-pressed to confirm which of the two disciplines they fall into. I will make no distinction here and will use landscape archaeology, with an implied use of physical evidence alongside documentary sources, as short-hand for both terms from now on.     

The academic foundations and historiography of landscape archaeology will be touched on in due course but first it is instructive to briefly turn to the absence of theory touched on in Williamson’s quote. Theoretical context may not be thought to weigh heavily on contemporary landscape archaeology practice but is increasingly ingrained in academic discourse within the field, perhaps emblematical of a widening hinterland of complementary ideas and approaches that have the potential to converge around the concept of landscape. Two books which reflect on and aim to advance the relationship between landscape archaeology and theory provide examples of this.[1]

In the introduction to their edited volume Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives, Ashmore and Knapp (1999, 1) explicitly identify the move from landscape seen purely as passive backdrop, resource or object of gaze to an emphasis on its ‘socio-symbolic dimensions: landscape is an entity that exists by virtue of its being perceived, experienced, and contextualized by people’. In this sense they are acknowledging the increased importance of social theory in archaeological study of landscape: understanding how people interrelate with and imbue meaning to space and place through time. Foundational to this are the ideas of the pioneering American social geographer, Carl Sauer who first conceptualised the notion of cultural landscape, distinct from but interrelated to the natural landscape (Sauer 1963; Wylie 2007, 19). Building on this theoretical broadening Bender’s influential edited volume, Landscape: Politics and Perspective (1993), sought to bring together archaeological, anthropological and geographical perspectives on the cultural landscape (including phenomenological ideas of landscape as experience discussed later in this chapter), although with an emphasis on urban settlement and specific monuments. Ashmore and Knapp (1999, 4) sought to further embed a cross-cultural approach to the total landscape and therefore include a broad spectrum of contributors, in part to break-down the barriers between different academic traditions (e.g. American and British, processual and post-processual).

Of particular relevance to this Thesis are the ‘terms and themes’ that Ashmore and Knapp (1999, 8-19) identify for landscape. Building on UNESCO’s categorisation of cultural landscapes,[2] they provide a more nuanced triptych of interpretive descriptors: constructed landscapes, conceptualized landscapes, and ideational landscapes (the latter recognising imaginative and emotional ‘insider perspectives’). Within these categories they locate four often overlapping themes. Firstly, landscape as memory, where continuity (e.g. re-use, reinterpretation etc.) becomes an important consideration, and a key theme also examined at length by Shama (1995). Secondly landscape as identity, to help people self-locate the place they most identify with or that identifies them. Thirdly, landscape as social order: the role of place in cultural relationships, encompassing considerations of gender, class, race etc. And finally, landscape as transformation, recognising the interrelatedness of space and time and that: ‘Ancient sites, monuments and even entire landscapes may be transformed and re-used as people encounter and interact with particular places, as they re-create the past’ (Ashmore and Knapp 1999, 19). This will be a useful conceptual framework to return to in the interpretive and discursive sections of this Thesis.

In Ideas of Landscape (2007a) Matthew Johnson adopts a more partisan approach via a clear and stated agenda to deconstruct the empirical English landscape tradition of landscape archaeology, historical geography and local history, as exemplified by the pioneering work of Hoskins, Beresford and others (Hoskins 1955; Beresford 1957; Beresford and St Joseph 1958), and contrasting it with the more theoretically grounded explorations of landscape found in anthropology, cultural geography and post-processual archaeology (see, for example, Bender 1993; Cosgrove 2008; Ucko and Layton 1999, Wylie 2007). Moreover his aim is to promote a new agenda that brings together the best of these different approaches. In contrast to the focus on ancient and prehistoric landscapes in Ashmore and Knapp’s work, Johnson (2007a, 201-2) is keen to advocate a new landscape approach for non-intrusive historical archaeology, a discipline which he feels has been marginalised (or has perhaps always been marginal), particularly in the ‘sharp, critical environments’ of Oxbridge.

Johnson articulates a perceptive description and critique of existing traditions that to some observers (particularly in a lively debate with Andrew Fleming in the pages of the Landscapes journal (Fleming 2007, 2008; Johnson 2007b)) is excessive in its attack on still vital and relevant fieldwork techniques and only sets out a new agenda in brief and rather vague terms (Fleming 2007, 97; Pryor 2010, 748; Rippon 2009, 244-45). However, the author does helpfully articulate a clear delineation (within the UK) between scholars and practitioners engaged in landscape archaeology research and interpretation, and those who consider landscape from a cultural geography perspective. This somewhat fractured approach to landscape study is a recurring theme when reviewing the literature of the past forty years or so and might explain, or be a symptom of, the fact that there is no tradition of a single, unified landscape discipline in British academia. This is an on-going disconnect and there would seem to be significant scope for greater cross-fertilisation of knowledge and ideas (Fairclough 2012; Schofield 2007). Johnson’s underlying call for combined methodologies is reflective of the direction of travel of academic discourse and one that is taken up in this research project.

The development of landscape archaeology

  

The antecedents of the fieldwork tradition that Johnson critiques and which remains very much part of contemporary British landscape archaeology can be found in antiquarianism but were particularly developed by O.G.S Crawford during his long term of office as Archaeology Officer for the Ordnance Survey in the inter-war period and up to 1946 (Hauser 2007, 155-161; Rippon 2009, 232). His ground-breaking combination of field archaeology, aerial photography and mapping to record and understand the landscape, for instance the distinction between what he termed Celtic fields and later Saxon or medieval field systems, laid the foundations for modern archaeological interpretation on a landscape scale (Bowden 2001, 29; Gardiner et al 2012, 3).[3]

In the early post-war period historical geography and economic history were the disciplines providing the impetus for later developments in landscape archaeology, through local studies (e.g. village plans) and the mapping of historical data at a regional and national scale (Baker 2003, 6-9; Rippon 2009, 230).[4] W.G. Hoskins’ The Making of the English Landscape (1955) has, of course, to come into the picture here. Hoskins (see Figure 2) was an economic historian by background rather than a landscape archaeologist, and the book is now seen as very much of its time, outdated and open to criticism - for instance, acknowledgment of the role of monasteries in the landscape was limited (Bond 2000, 63; Fleming 2008, 74; Gardiner and Rippon 2007, 1; Jones 2015, 2-4). However, this remains a seminal empirical work that informed and inspired much of the later development of landscape archaeology, as well as setting the template for later widescreen landscape narratives at county, regional and national level.[5]

Figure 2: W.G. Hoskins, author of The Making of the English Landscape in the countryside of his native Devon (en.wikipedia.org).

Beresford, Crawford, Hoskins and their contemporaries provided the realisation that archaeology, particularly from the medieval and post-medieval periods, was not just buried in the ground but also all around as relict or still extant features in the modern countryside (Gardiner et al 2011, 4). It was on the shoulders of these pioneers of landscape history that the graduates of the new or expanding archaeology, geography and history departments of the 1960s, and the staff of the Royal Commissions on Ancient and Historical Monuments, helped refine and professionalise a distinctively British practice of landscape archaeology as a modern discipline, both in the field and in academia (Bowden and McOmish 2011, 21; Rippon 2009, 232). Within this tradition comes the large body of research and publications that spans the period from the 1970s up to the early years of this century.[6] Here is a legacy of immensely practical field guides to the analytical techniques of observing, interpreting and recording landscape features that are certainly not overburdened with theory. Innovation was, though, to the fore, for example: integrating New Archaeology agendas of spatial analysis adopted from geography; challenging the previously dominant invasion and migration paradigm to explain landscape development in the early Middle Ages; and placing a greater emphasis on studying the origins of the modern historic landscape and the largely anonymous ordinary lives of those who inhabited the villages, fields and farmsteads (Fowler 1988, 15; Rippon 2009, 233-4). Fowler and others also developed a new landscape-scale research agenda, combining traditional survey with aerial photo analysis, field-walking and paleo-environmental analysis (Rippon 2009, 232).

An important contribution to landscape archaeology from the same generation and one that brought valuable expertise from the fields of botany and ecological history was provided by Oliver Rackham (Rackham 1986; Rippon 2009, 230). His work helped to illuminate the distinction between the Planned and Ancient countryside of different English regions or pays, a general division that seems to have survived successive changes in land-use, settlement development etc. (Jones and Hooke 2011, 41; Rippon 2009, 228),[7] as well as demonstrating that woodland and other natural but managed vegetation could be just as indicative of the history of the landscape as more obviously man-made features (Gardiner et al 2011, 4). More recently, Rippon (Rippon 2012a, 240; Rippon et al 2013) has demonstrated a practical integration of ecological data into landscape archaeology through the use of paleo-environmental sequences from medieval sites (e.g. for preserved cereal remains and animal bones) to help provide evidence of changes in land-use over time.

Contemporary landscape archaeology research

In the context of the historic landscape, a number of key themes have been prominent in recent research activity that together help us understand many of the drivers and processes that saw the British landscape crystallise into the general character we still to a large extent see today (Gardiner and Rippon 2007, 2). Much of the rich and active research on medieval settlement and landscape is clustered around the membership and activities of the Medieval Settlement Research Group (Gardiner et al 2011, 6). A non-exhaustive and greatly simplified, but nevertheless indicative, list would include the following:

•      Settlement evolution, including debates about the origins and development of the village (perhaps most extensively examined in Roberts and Wrathmell 2002; see also Jones and Page 2006; Lewis et al 2001; and contributions in Christie and Stamper  2011);
•      Regional distributions of countryside typology, notably Woodland or Ancient and Champion landscapes (see Williamson 2003 for an outline of the different landscape types and debates around this subject; also Rippon 2004a, 2012b);
•      The origins, development and workings of the manorial system and transition from feudalism to a market-based economy (Dyer 2000; Faith 1997; Johnson 1996);
•      Elite landscapes of power and other designed landscapes (Creighton 2002, 2013; Finch and Giles 2007; Johnson 1996; Liddiard 2007).

The work of medieval historians such as Dyer has also emphasised the centrality of the activities, needs and interests of the, often unnamed and therefore unheralded, people of town, village and field in the dynamics of shaping the landscape (Dyer 2000, 2009; Whittock 2009). This self-evident relationship between common people and the land has become more embedded in landscape study (see, as illustration, contributions in Turner and Silvester 2012). Whilst much of this research is of relevance to the Welsh Marches landscapes of this study, the importance of regional and local variation also needs to be acknowledged. As Gardiner et al (2011, 7) stress, it is often difficult to discern clear patterns in research outcomes across this plethora of activity, in many ways the picture has become increasingly complex and locally nuanced. The body of research work in Wales (and Scotland) has tended to be less well developed than for many of the English regions with a focus on upland contexts and a reliance on empirical approaches (Austin 2006, 193).[8]

There is much evidence of a broadening of landscape archaeology research techniques and application across a wider spectrum of spatial and temporal contexts in recent years, together with an evolution from the largely descriptive to a focus on interpretation and explanation (Gardiner and Rippon 2007, 8). In Making Sense of an Historic Landscape (2012, 4) Rippon provides a particularly useful synthesis of the approaches that can now be used to study an historic landscape (in this case the Blackdown Hills), integrating traditional landscape archaeology methodologies with the study of other elements that can contribute to the understanding of local and regional landscape character variation, such as how landscape was perceived and the expression of identity through vernacular architecture and naming in the landscape. Other examples would include: the wide application of Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC), witness the county-level HLC’s sponsored by Historic England and other public bodies, though with a different approach adopted in Wales, where the focus has been on landscapes defined as of specific or outstanding interest rather than systematic mapping of the whole landscape (Fairclough 2013a; Rippon 2004a) (see Figure 3); the Whittlewood project applying integrated archaeological and historical research to examine in detail how villages developed (Jones and Page 2006); Partida et al’s (2013) reconstruction and mapping of the medieval landscape of Northamptonshire; the Fields of Britannia Project addressing continuity and discontinuity in the rural landscapes of Roman Britain (Rippon et al 2013); and the EngLaId project analysing mapping and artefact data on a national scale to help calibrate understanding of how the English landscape developed from the Bronze Age until the Domesday survey (http://englaid.com/about/ accessed 8/10/15).

Figure 3: The first HLC in England – carried out in Cornwall (© Cornwall County Council 2007 and ©Crown Copyright. All rights reserved. 100019590. 2007).

One important driver for such innovative landscape-framed approaches has been the opportunities presented by new technologies in terms of surveying, remote sensing, satellite imagery, data analysis, mapping and modelling, which is particularly apposite in the context of the harnessing of GIS to develop digital HLC mapping and to digitise modern and historic Ordnance Survey maps and some Historic Environment Records (HERs). Primarily developed to inform the planning process, HLC is not without its critics as comparatively broad-brush and one-dimensional in its reliance on field morphology and lines on the map in conveying landscape character (Rippon 2013, 180; Williamson 2007, 67-70). Nevertheless, its comprehensive application has led to some significant discoveries and provided a large resource of accessible data (Rippon 2009, 242). HLC data can also be integrated with other data layers in GIS as part of a broader process of historic landscape analysis (as espoused in Rippon 2004a). The use of GIS has enabled a move towards larger scale studies both regionally and thematically in the work of bodies such as Historic England’s Survey Team and the Royal Commissions in Scotland and Wales (Rippon 2009, 238). Verhagen (2012) provides further examples of the embedding of innovative practice in mainstream landscape archaeology at an international level (ranging from the detection of new features through the use of LiDAR to digital terrain modelling and the GIS application of cost surface and viewshed analysis), but also explores the challenges arising from the limitations of particular technologies, faddism, keeping pace with technological development and ensuring new tools are used in an appropriate and focussed way.

Connecting with other approaches to landscape

The brief overview provided here has identified that the study of the history of landscape is approached from a number of different traditions (empirical archaeological fieldwork, historical geography, cultural geography and so on). Mention has also been made of the historical lack of a clear body of ingrained and underpinning theoretical concepts within landscape archaeology in Britain. Some have proposed that any relative lack of engagement with theory is strongly counter-weighted by the establishment of well-developed and innovative methodologies for field work and the integration of new technologies (Jones and Hooke 2011, 31-5). Moreover, as Gilchrist (2009, 386, 397) has argued, the dichotomy between scientific, empirical data and theoretical approaches is largely a false one: theory has often reframed the types of research questions and methodologies used within landscape archaeology, theoretical developments across the humanities have been implicitly assimilated and, in any case, all methods of empirical data-collection are socially constructed and therefore intrinsically theoretical (Gardiner and Rippon 2009, 70).

While debates such as the Johnson-Fleming exchange mentioned above are generally a sign of a vibrant and healthy research environment, lack of communication between disciplines is not (Rippon 2009, 245). In part given impetus by pan-European convergences in the wake of the European Landscape Convention, there are perhaps the stirrings of a greater degree of coalescence around the concept of landscape across academic and professional boundaries, as evidenced by the complementary contributions from a wide range of disciplines in Howard et al’s The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies (2013). An incisive and thought-provoking identification of the opportunities for landscape archaeology to become a central element in an emerging ‘super-discipline’ is provided by Fairclough’s (2012) paper presented at LAC2010, the first international conference devoted to landscape archaeology. Fairclough (2012, 472-5) proposes that landscape archaeology can occupy the middle ground, a bridge between scientific approaches to landscape and cultural geography and social science perspectives, suggesting that ‘the underlying question is whether Landscape Archaeology exists to use the idea of landscape only to study the past (which will mainly interest historical disciplines) or also (or mainly) to use archaeology to study the landscape of the present-day, in both its materiality and mentality, and thus to connect to all landscape disciplines and to a wider public’. This idea of connectivity with approaches from other branches of landscape study will be explored further in my next PhD research post.

---

[1] Muir (1999) has also provided a more conventional historiographical perspective, exploring the key concepts, theories and philosophies of landscape study and surveying the various strands that encompass the landscape corpus in Western thought.

[2] ‘Clearly defined’, ‘Organically evolved’ and ‘Associative cultural’.

[3] Work that was brought to a wider audience with the publication in 1953 of his book Archaeology in the Field (Johnson 2007, 55; Muir 1999, 33).

[4] In particular, the regional Domesday Geography and Agrarian History of England and Wales series’. The historical geography tradition has also continued to be closely aligned with landscape archaeology, through the work of Darby, Hooke (see, for instance, her edited volume Landscape: The Richest Historical Resource (2000)), Thirsk and others (Baker 2003; Thirsk 2000).

[5] See, for instance: Hodder and Stoughton’s The Making of county series of the late 1960s and early 1970s; Collins England’s Landscape regional guides (2006-7); and Pryor (2010).

[6] Key examples include: Aston and Rowley’s Landscape Archaeology: An introduction to Fieldwork Techniques on Post-Roman Landscapes (1974); Aston’s Interpreting the Landscape: Landscape Archaeology in Local Studies (1985); Brown’s Fieldwork for Archaeologists and Local Historians (1987); The New Reading the Landscape (2000) and Landscape Encyclopaedia: A Reference Guide to the Historic Landscape (2004) by Muir; Fowler’s Archaeology and the Landscape (1972) and Landscape Plotted and Pieced: Landscape History and Local Archaeology in Fyfield and Overton, Wiltshire (2000) and the prodigious output of Taylor, including his handbook on Fieldwork in Medieval Archaeology (1974).

[7] A pattern also reflected in other categorisations of landscape character, such as the Highland and Lowland Zones identified in Fox’s Identity of Britain as far back as 1932, Roberts and Wrathmell’s (2002) settlement research, Phythian-Adams (1999) Cultural Provinces and HLC mapping.

[8] Volumes edited by Edwards (1997) and Roberts (2006) provide a useful overview, see also Leighton and Silvester (2003). 

Topographical legacies of monasticism: evolving perceptions and realities of monastic estate landscapes in the south eastern Welsh Marches

I will be commencing a full time PhD at the University of Exeter in September. Here is my research proposal; the landscapes and places that will be occupying my time, inspiring me and driving me to distration over the next three years. If anyone has any expertise, knowledge or interest in the subject matter outlined here I would be delighted to hear from you.

Monastic estates, in contradistinction to monastic buildings, have traditionally received limited attention from landscape archaeologists and historians and few previous studies have attempted to examine the subsequent evolution of these estates beyond the Dissolution within the context of their monastic period antecedents (Bond, 2004; Everson and Stocker, 2007). However, a number of more recent agenda-setting publications (Aston 2007; Austin, 2004; Bezant, 2014; Walsham, 2011) have offered new methodological and theoretical frameworks to begin to address this subject, thus providing the foundation, impetus and broader context for this proposal. Examining in detail landscapes associated with a number of monastic houses in the south-eastern Welsh Marches and tracing their later trajectory, this thesis will assess the impact and legacy of monasticism on the historic landscape up to the present day, stretching the chronological survey of such landscapes into the post-Dissolution era and bridging the gap between medieval and post-medieval landscape study.

Adopting an interdisciplinary and multi-layered approach to the landscape, the core emphasis on tracing and accounting for the physical changes evident within the study area will be supported by an examination of the shifting perceptions of cultural and economic value, of landscape meaning and memory, which such changes reveal or provoke (Cosgrove, 2008; Schama, 1996).  Consequently, conventional themes long dominant in landscape historical and archaeological discourse such as ownership and land management will be addressed, but interweaved with the discipline’s more recent interest in how places and landscapes are perceived, appreciated and codified in both the past and present (Johnson 2007; Whyte, 2009; Wylie 2007).

This research will be driven by a number of core questions:

• Can distinct medieval ‘monastic’ landscape types or even, in Whyte’s words (2009), “religious topographies” be identified?
• What was the legacy of monasticism for subsequent secular landscape development?
• Is there any commonality in the post-Dissolution evolution of monastic estates as they were transformed from economic and religious spaces into, for instance, idealised designed landscapes in the early modern period, or designated heritage and touristic landscapes in more recent times?
• What historic and contemporary perceptions, reactions and emotions have these transfigurations engendered?

The south-eastern portion of the Welsh Marches, encompassing the historic counties of Brecknockshire, Monmouthshire, Glamorgan and Herefordshire has been carefully selected for its high potential to address the specific research questions posed here (Burton and Stober 2013). This area contains a mixture of pays— of both upland and lowland, and champion and bocage landscape character — offering a variety of physical settings in which to explore the human dimensions of landscape creation over the long term (Leighton and Silvester, 2003; Rowley, 2001). The region was also colonized by a number of religious orders during the middle ages. This provides the context to examine the estate organisation of specific religious orders as well as the particular landscape arrangements of individual houses. The wider geo-political dimension at play in the region during the medieval period—for example the establishment of monastic estates as a symbol of Norman colonisation, power and control in a contested borderland—provides an additional dynamic to enrich discussion on the cultural impact of these landscapes (Burton and Stober, 2013; Rowley, 2001). There is also considerable variation in the post-Dissolution histories of these monasteries: some became ruinous, with their estates broken up, whilst others were converted into gentry houses with associated landscaped estates.  The area has long attracted the attention of the artistic community, opening up the opportunity to explore the monastic legacy underpinning the evolution of these landscapes as cultural, spiritual, and artistic touchstones (Andrews, 1999). Finally, reflecting the desire to trace development to the present day, many of the monastic estates are located in what are now designated spaces or countryside on the edge of post-industrial urban areas; terrains viewed through the contemporary lens of high heritage and ecological value, but also facing competing pressures for change.

An interdisciplinary approach will be adopted from the outset integrating topographical, archaeological and historical evidence supplemented by analysis of literary and artistic sources, oral histories and contemporary opinion.  Examination will be multi-scale, with general surveys of the whole area supplemented by three detailed case studies chosen to ensure a reflection of the range of complex landscape histories it contains (the short-list of monastic houses for the case studies are: Craswall, Dore, Goldcliff, Llanthony, Llantharnam and Tintern).  Criteria in their selection will include: monastic order; landscape character and pays-type; heritage and conservation designations and value (including economic); current ‘risks’ of landscape degradation and fragmentation; access and ownership considerations; and availability of archive and research materials.

 

Foundational to the research will be to categorize, record, and map monastic features in the case study landscapes (including religious buildings, farmsteads and granges, field systems, communication routes and other infrastructure). GIS will be used to integrate, analyse and present modern and historic maps and plans, aerial photographs and satellite images, place- and field-names, and data layers from HER and archival records.  A limited sample of targeted fieldwork will be conducted on key features, focussed on rapid field assessment and measured surveys.  Once reconstructed, the ‘monastic era’ features of the case study landscapes will be analysed to identify and catalogue post-Dissolution continuity and change: patterns of preservation, adaption and despoliation.

A dual approach will be taken to the analysis and comprehension of shifting perceptions of the case study landscapes, of how such places are envisioned and represented (Andrews, 1999; Cosgrove, 2008; DeLue and Elkins, 2008).  Written, artistic, and cartographical landscape descriptions and depictions—from monastic records, folkloric representations, the works of antiquarians and the Romantics, through to diverse twentieth and twenty-first century viewpoints—will be examined.  This will be supplemented by survey and interview of a representative sample of those who work in, manage and visit these landscapes, including: National Park staff, walkers on Offa’s Dyke National Trail, local farmers, artists and residents, visitors to heritage sites, members of local societies, and those involved in outdoor pursuits. Social media will be used to engage with on-line conversations relating to the spatial and thematic subject matter of the study. 

Transcribed versions of documents from the monastic period, for instance Ecclesiastical Taxation (1291), Valor Ecclesiasticus (1535), Calendars of Ancient Deeds, Charter and Patent Rolls and other contemporary administrative and legal papers, will be reviewed for primary source references to topographical and tenurial information relating to the case study areas, as well as cartularies where they exist. Reference will also be made to antiquarian studies describing post medieval and early modern estates previously held by monastic houses in the study area, such as Beaumont’s A Tour throughout South Wales and Monmouthshire (1803) and Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum (1655-1673). National and local archives and HER’s will be consulted to review archaeological reports, estate and tithe maps and other source documents. Ordnance Survey maps will be accessed digitally from the Digimap on-line resource. Aerial photographs and satellite imagery will be obtained from the RCAHM (Wales) and English Heritage’s on-line archive and Google Earth. A useful on-line research resource for the study will be the Monastic Wales web site (http://www.monasticwales.org/), which provides listings of primary and secondary sources for all monastic houses in Wales. Other sources will also help to identify patterns of perception over time relating to the case study landscapes, including the work and commentaries of artists and writers (ranging from Giraldus’ The Journey through Wales to Wordsworth’s locally inspired output, through to more contemporary observers such as Raymond Williams and Owen Sheers), local folkloric tales and visitor survey data published by heritage and conservation bodies.

More than just the passive subject of our gaze or the repository for archaeological features of clearly demarcated temporal periods, in the words of Robert Macfarlane (2012), “landscape is not something to be viewed and appraised from a distance” but is “dynamic and commotion causing”, a collective term for the diverse components “that together comprise the brisling presence of a particular place”. This proposal outlines a vision for a work which, though rooted in the established practices of landscape archaeology and history, demonstrates a multi-dimensional approach based on the study of landscape as just such a many layered construct (Fleming, 2008; Johnson, 2007). In this case, exploring these ideas through a regional examination of the topographical legacies of monasticism imprinted in the evolving realities and perceptions of diverse monastic estate landscapes over time.

Ultimately the aim is to provide a coherent narrative – a biography of both the real and the imagined – for these particular places with complex pasts and presents in order to help inform contemporary decisions on how they are managed, utilised and presented to the wider public on a landscape scale now and in the future. For this is an urgent need, now more than ever, as competing pressures of land use (agriculture, housing, energy supply, amenity and so on) play out across rural Britain and the cultural and economic value of ‘heritage assets’ is increasingly seen to be realised on a landscape rather than a fragmented site-based level (Fowler, 2004; Rippon, 2004).    

References

Andrews, M, 1999. Landscape and Western Art. Oxford University Press.

Aston, M, 2007. Monasteries in the Landscape. Tempus.

Austin, D, 2004. Strata Florida and its landscape in Archaeol Cambrensis 153, 192-201.

Austin, D, 2006. The Future: Discourse, Objectives and Directions in Roberts, K (Ed.) Lost Farmsteads: Deserted Rural Settlements in Wales. Council for British Archaeology.

Bezant, J, 2014. Revising the monastic ‘grange’: Problems at the edge of the Cistercian world in Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies.

Bond, J, 2004. Monastic Landscapes. Tempus.

Burton, J and Stober, K (Eds), 2013. Monastic Wales, New Approaches. University of Wales Press.

Cosgrove, D, 2008. Geography and Vision: Seeing, Imagining and Representing the World. Tauris.

DeLue, R and Elkins, J (Eds.), 2008. Landscape Theory: The Art Seminar. Routledge.

Everson, P and Stocker, D, 2007. St Leonard’s at Kirkstead, Lincolnshire: The Landscape of the Cistercian Monastic Precinct in Gardiner, M and Rippon, S (Eds.) Medieval Landscapes. Windgather Press.

Fleming, A, 2008. Debating Landscape Archaeology in Landscapes 9.1 74-76.

Fowler, P, 2004. Landscapes for the World: Conserving a Global Heritage. Windgather Press.

Johnson, M, 2007. Ideas of Landscape. Blackwell.

Leighton, D and Silvester, R, 2003. Upland Archaeology in the Medieval and Post-medieval Periods in Browne, D and Hughes, S (Eds.) The Archaeology of the Welsh Uplands. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW).

Macfarlane, R, 2012. The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot. Hamish Hamilton.

Rippon, S, 2004. Historic Landscape Analysis: Deciphering the Countryside. Council for British Archaeology.

Rowley, T, 2001. The Welsh Border: Archaeology, History and Landscape. Tempus.

Schama, S, 1996. Landscape and Memory. Fontana Press.

Walsham, A. 2011. The reformation of the landscape: religion, identity, and memory in early modern Britain and Ireland. Oxford University Press.

Whyte, N, 2009. Inhabiting the Landscape: Place, Custom and Memory, 1500-1800. Windgather Press.

Wylie, J, 2007. Landscape. Routledge.