Landscape Detective: Discovering a Countryside Book

The countryside is a gigantic puzzle which contains within its intricate pattern of lanes, woods and farmsteads the keys to its history. This book takes the reader through the process of landscape detection, by way of a journey through a fascinating landscape in the Yorkshire Dales. Richard Muir shows how exploring landscape history can be compared to investigating a crime. The detective analyses different kinds of evidence to construct what happened, when and why. Along the way he or she has to think logically, to interpret all sorts of complex evidence, and be prepared to abandon false trails. Gradually, as the evidence accumulates, the past comes to life. It is much easier to understand how the process works if you actually look at a particular landscape. Ripley township covers only a few square miles, but crams a wealth of features into its tiny territory. The author finds a ?lost' Roman road, reveals field-systems dating from Anglo-Saxon times, and finds oak trees which may date from the time of Domesday Book alive in the deer park. He recreates the appearance of deserted medieval villages, discovers a lost formal garden, and evaluates the impact of landscaping and Parliamentary Enclosure. He also explores an abandoned church, and shows how one family created a village around 1400 and completely rebuilt it in the 1820s. The end result is a chronicle of the past times of Ripley, the story of a landscape. One of the great joys of landscape history is that the techniques employed here can be adopted by any reader who wants to understand his or her own patch of countryside. This is a book which is sure to stimulate the imagination. Dr Richard Muir is one of Britain's leading landscape historians. He edits the journal LANDSCAPES, and is the author of The New Reading the Landscape and many other books.Read More