John Hunter, (The Essex Society for Archaeology and History, 2003), pp. 41, £5.95 including postage and packing.
The book is the first in a New Series of Occasional Papers celebrating 150 years of the Essex Society for Archaeology and History. John Hunter’s interest in the Essex landscape will be well known through The Essex Landscape: a Study of its Form and History recently published in 1999. In the preface, Chris Thornton, President of the Society, has referred to the book as “a call to arms”. This is just what it is! The author exhorts the reader to dissect the Essex landscape, discover the clues to its previous existence, and reconstruct the history.
Under the section ‘Scope for Research’, the approach is described as a synthesis of deskwork and fieldwork. Deskwork is concerned with the available information sources such as county or local histories, cartographic evidence, additional documentary evidence such as court rolls. An important Essex resource is the records held by the Essex Heritage and Conservation Record maintained in County Hall by the Essex County Council. Of course, maps provide a rich source of evidence and valuable clues to the development of the farmed landscape can often be determined from field names in the Tithe Award maps of the parishes of Essex. Again an important local resource is the developing series of booklets on parish place names, the Essex Place Names Project run by the Society.
As Hoskins said, fieldwork involves getting one’s feet wet! The author promotes a total approach to the observation of the physical features is the present landscape. These are not just boundaries and banks and their generic shapes, but ditches and lynchets, caused by regular ploughing patterns. Hedges can often be persistent and revealing landscape features, their structure, species distribution and species counts can provide evidence of both age and purpose. Tree structure and size can also provide evidence of their use and age.
Four case studies have been chosen to illustrate the process. In Cressing, the demesne of the Templars, and its tithe free status, determined the medieval landscape, indicators of which are visible today. In the case of Little Easton, Broxted and Tilty, early maps can add much to our understanding not only of the demesne farms, which are still recognizable, but also of areas where “peasant” farms have disappeared. Maps of Littley Park shed light on the process of disparking. The parallel parishes of Little Warley, Childerditch, West Horndon and East Horndon are believed to facilitate seasonal migration of cattle and sheep between pastures. They follow the line of droveways, their origin dating perhaps from pre-history.
The book is completed with a short introductory commentary on the formative influences on the Essex landscape. The book is available from Dr Chris Thornton, 75 Victoria Road, Maldon, Essex CM9 5HE. Cheques should be made payable to “Essex Society for Archaeology and History”.