Lecture 4: Changing UK Landscape 2

Question 1

Dark ages and Anglo saxon landscapes

Answer 1

Roman Britain ended in the 5th C AD (around 410) although the abruptness of the end is questionable, and while the political rule of Britain may have collapsed

the landscape was still as used as ever, and there is no pollen evidence for secondary succession

Question 2

The domesday book

Answer 2

The Domesday Book (1086) confirms that England was not a very wooded land – out of 12,580 listed settlements, only 6208 possessed woodland, and it was centred in certain areas

Question 3

Norman England

Answer 3

Farmland with islands of wood, with occasional areas of woodland with islands of farmland

no longer possible to be in woodland and be more than four miles away from habitation, though many habitations were more than a day’s journey from woodland

Similar landscape to modern day France – clearer distinction between wooded and non-wooded areas

Question 4

Early medieval period

Answer 4

increased value of woodland as source of timber and other products – woodland could provide a better living than farmland

• Many woods hedged, fenced, and even locked and guarded

• Use of timber for buildings was mainly an aesthetic choice and depended on local fashions
oak was most expensive but difficult to source in large sizes, and many trees were imported from Norway and central Europe

• But population was increasing between 1086 and 1350, and woodland declined from 15%-10% of land cover

Question 5

Late medieval period

Answer 5

The bubonic plague arrived in 1350, cutting short the population growth and halting woodland decline

• Following this time, woodland remained relatively stable due to its economic and social values (and the cost of destroying it), even expanding cover in some areas
• Woodland was not lost to industry as is usually supposed, nor to shipbuilding, though the value of oak as a timber/shipbuilding tree and of oak bark for tanning (price rises in 1820-1850) led to them being planted and cultivated

when the industries collapsed (around 1850) the oaks were not felled, and this led to the later (inaccurate) perception of them being naturally dominant in English woodland