Charles Watkins
Biographic Data
| ID | 186718 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Charles Watkins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Charles |
| FAMILY NAME | Watkins |
| SIGNATURE | WATKINS C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Nottingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0618-3771 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 60 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 196 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 54 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 6 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
A historical analysis of urban green and blue spaces in socialist and post-socialist Zagreb, Croatia
Research indicates that urbanites are increasingly alienated from nature. The provision of urban nature is largely influenced by socio-political context. This study explored the provision of urban green and blue spaces (UGBS) in Zagreb, Croatia, over the socialist and post-socialist periods (1945–2016). Using aerial imagery and urban plans we analysed five neighbourhoods. Results show that the socialist regime provided abundant UGBS, which were m…
Temperance lives and landscape: Lady Elizabeth Biddulph, Lady Henry Somerset, and late nineteenth-century Ledbury
This article considers the relationship of two prominent leaders of British women’s temperance, Lady Henry Somerset and Lady Elizabeth Biddulph. They were noteworthy for taking opposing sides when the British Women’s Temperance Association divided on the question of the political reach of its work. Somerset and Biddulph were elite women, daughters of earls and near neighbours around Ledbury, a centre of cider apple and hop cultivation in Hereford…
From city in the park to “greenery in plant pots”: The influence of socialist and post-socialist planning on opportunities for cultural ecosystem services
The paper examines the links between the cultural ecosystem services concept, political ideologies and urban planning. In particular, it investigates the extent to which cultural ecosystem services were considered in urban planning in socialist and post-socialist Zagreb. We conducted a content analysis of three socialist and two post-socialist plans of Zagreb and interview transcripts with urban planners and academics. To take account of the rela…
Art Meets Ecology: The Arborealists in Lady Park Wood
The landscape history of the lower Wye Valley is a remarkably rich one with interlocking patterns of coal mining, charcoal production, iron smelting, quarrying, forestry, common lands, pastoralism
Making Dalmatia green again: Reforestation at the ‘horrible edge’ of Empire 1870–1918
Reforestation has been one of the main forestry activities in the karst terrain of Dalmatia, Croatia, for more than a century. This paper examines the history behind reforestation schemes in Dalmatia, a kingdom at the periphery of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It explores how the ideas of Austrian foresters, based at the centre of Empire, were transmitted and put into practice. Late nineteenth-century forestry debates in contemporary forestry text…
Women and estate management in the early eighteenth century: Barbara Savile at Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire (1700–34)
There is a rich and increasing body of research pointing to the significant role that elite women played in property management during the eighteenth century. In this article we examine the contribution of an elite widow, Barbara Savile, to the management of her son Sir George Savile’s extensive landholdings in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire from 1700 until her death in 1734. We establish that Barbara Savile had a deep understanding of estate busi…
Badger vaccination in England: Progress, operational effectiveness and participant motivations
In 2010 a vaccine was licensed for use in badgers in the United Kingdom to reduce the severity of Mycobacterium bovis infection, and hence the risks of onward transmission to cattle. National legislation was enacted to allow its deployment by lay persons, but the efficiency and feasibility of badger vaccination has been the subject of ongoing debate. We conducted quantitative analysis on badger vaccination records and undertook interviews and par…
Questioning the view: Historical geography and topographical art
This article argues that a recent resurgence of interest in topographical art has opened up a new and exciting debate about how such drawings and paintings can be used by historical geographers. This is demonstrated by a review of recent research by historical geographers, art historians, and historians, which explores how topographical art is being interrogated to examine landscape history and environmental change. Topographical views provide in…
Introducing a practice perspective on monitoring for adaptive management
Adaptive management (AM) is one of the most prominent ways ecologists contribute to ecosystem management, policy, and planning. AM treats management actions as experiments to monitor and learn from, creating a central role for ecologists in constructing the monitoring programs intended to guide learning. Yet, ecologists have found monitoring for AM challenging. They face a daunting series of dilemmas: How to produce monitoring programs that are r…
Linking farmer and beekeeper preferences with ecological knowledge to improve crop pollination
Pollination by insects is a key input into many crops, with managed honeybees often being hired to support pollination services. Despite substantial research into pollination management, no European studies have yet explored how and why farmers managed pollination services and few have explored why beekeepers use certain crops. Using paired surveys of beekeepers and farmers in 10 European countries, this study examines beekeeper and farmer percep…
‘We secured the tussac’: Accounts of ecological discovery, exploitation and renewal in the Falkland Islands
Sheep farms dominate the Falkland Islands landscape and have for over a century. The introduction of sheep, and several other species, has significantly transformed the ecology of this archipelago—the near elimination of tussac grass being one of the most notable changes. Tracing back to early accounts of tussac grass in the ‘Falklands’, this paper captures its discovery, exploitation and current stage of renewal, including a closer look at the c…
Cultivating identity through private land conservation
Private land conservation is driven by a variety of influences. As a voluntary action undertaken by landowners, it is influenced not only by external factors such as financial incentives, but also by personal and psychological factors. Using William James’s concept of the “extended self”, this study investigates how protected land becomes a part of landowners’ identity. The study is based on narrative interviews with 27 landowners who had purchas…
Intention of preserving forest remnants among landowners in the Atlantic Forest: The role of the ecological context via ecosystem services
Unravelling the psychological processes determining landowners’ support towards forest conservation is crucial, particularly in rural areas of the tropics, where most forest remnants are within private lands. As human–nature connections are known to shape pro‐environmental behaviours, the intention of preserving forest remnants should ultimately be determined by the ecological context people live in. Here, we investigate the pathways through whic…
Measuring long-term landscape change using historical photographs and the WSL Monoplotting Tool
This paper assesses the potential of software developed by the research group of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in order to georeference and vectorise historical landscape photographs. The use of this ‘Monoplotting’ Tool introduces a new application for topographical photographs and opens up the possibility of using such photographs for measuring land-use change. This paper reviews the literature on the …
My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones’: Children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape
Recent studies of children have argued that children are suffering from a deficiency in nature experience. Some argue that a lack of experience leads to poor affective relations which for wooded environments may be manifested as fear. This study investigates a geographical knowledge gap in understanding children’s relationships with woodland. This interactive qualitative study included 21 junior age children living in a rural setting in Derbyshir…
Art and landscape history: British artists in nineteenth-century Val d’Aosta (north-west Italy)
This paper explores the value of landscape and topographical art for understanding contemporary landscapes of the Val d’Aosta, northwest Italy. The region became very popular with British tourists in the early nineteenth century and several amateur and professional artists depicted its landscapes. The paper focuses on the case study of Saint-Pierre, its castle and the surrounding landscapes, examining views by amateur artists like Henrietta Fort…
Travel, Modernity and Rural Landscapes in Nineteenth-Century Liguria
New roads and, later, railways were essential for the modernisation and rapid economic development of north-western Italy in the early nineteenth century. The new routes also encouraged an increasing number of foreign travellers to visit the region. They opened up fresh tracts of countryside and provided novel viewpoints and points of interest; many travellers took the opportunity to record these views with topographical drawings and watercolours…
Botanical relics of a lost landscape: Herborising ‘ upon the Cliffs about the Pharos ’ in Genoa, March 1664
This paper uses approaches derived from historical ecology to show how knowledge can be gained about the historical and cultural value of neglected urban landscapes. We study the area around Genoa’s lighthouse and consider the long-term survival of individual plant species and some implications for landscape conservation. We examine topographical representations over the last 500 years to establish the landscape context of the lighthouse. We then…
Rethinking Ancient Woodland: The Archaeology and History of Woods in Norfolk
Saved from the sordid axe’: Representation and understanding of pine trees by English visitors to Italy in the eighteenth and nineteenth century
Pine trees were frequently depicted and celebrated by nineteenth-century English artists and travellers in Italy. This paper examines how British visitors gained knowledge of Italian trees through drawings, paintings and prints, before and during their visits to Italy. It considers knowledge of pines by late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century authorities such as William Gilpin and John Claudius Loudon and then focuses on the representation …
An incredibly vile sport’: Campaigns against Otter Hunting in Britain, 1900–39
Otter hunting was a minor field sport in Britain but in the early years of the twentieth century a lively campaign to ban it was orchestrated by several individuals and anti-hunting societies. The sport became increasingly popular in the late nineteenth century and the Edwardian period. This paper examines the arguments and methods used in different anti-otter hunting campaigns 1900–1939 by organisations such as the Humanitarian League, the Leagu…
Oliver Rackham OBE FBA 1939–2015
The Wolf in the Landscape: Antonio Cesena and Attitudes to Wolves in Sixteenth-Century Liguria
The recent reappearance of wolves in many areas of Europe has stimulated an interest in the past relationships between the species and humans in various different geographical locations and historical epochs. The image of wolves approaching and entering human settlements is a potent image of the wild, ‘natural’ world encroaching on that of the domestic and ‘cultural’. This paper examines the existence of the wolf in the psychological and physical…
The Battle of the Fields: Rural Community and Authority in Britain during the Second World War
The cultural and land use implications of the reappearance of the wild boar in North West Italy: A case study of the Val di Vara
Animal landscapes: Otters and wildfowl in England 1945–1970
The paper considers otter hunting and wildfowling in England between 1945 and 1970, showing how arguments over human conduct in relation to the animal were linked to scientific studies of populations, moral arguments over cruelty and the abilities of field sports to restyle themselves as modern. If wildfowling restyles itself as a new conservationist practice, otter hunting is increasingly regarded as a form of landed barbarism. Detailed studies …
Exploring Knowledge-Cultures: Precision Farming, Yield Mapping, and the Expert-Farmer Interface
Over recent years the concept of 'knowledge' in the singular has been increasingly challenged by ideas of differentiated, contextualized 'knowledges'. In this paper we propose the concept of 'knowledge-cultures' as a way of exploring the fluidity of diverse forms of knowledge and the rules, norms, and values that enable or constrain their production. Elaborating on Shotter's idea of knowledge-from-within, we argue that knowledge-cultures are soci…
People in the Countryside: Studies of Social Change in Rural Britain
Introduction - T Champion and C Watkins Recent Developments in the Social Geography of Rural Britain People Moving to the Countryside - S Harper Case Studies of Decision Making Middle Class Housing Choice - P Cloke, M Phillips and D Rankin Channels of Entry into Gower, South Wales Still no Homes for Locals? - M Shucksmith Affordable Housing and Planning Controls in Rural Areas People Working in Farming - G Clark The Changing Nature of Farmwork Ne…
Conserving English Landscapes: Land Managers and Agri-Environmental Policy
There is increasing public policy interest in the management of rural landscapes for conservation, both in terms of natural and cultural heritage. Agri-environmental policies are an important part of an emerging vision for a sustainable countryside, with increasing support for the existing Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) and Countryside Stewardship (CS) schemes. This paper provides insight into the nature of land-manager attitudes towards th…
Human Geography and Law: A Case of Separate Development in Social Science
S'il est vrai que le caractère de l'esprit et les passions du coeur soient extrêmement differents dans les divers climats, les lois doivent être relatives et à la difference de ces passions, et à la difference de ces caractères (Montesquieu, De l'Esprit des Lois). Trois degres d'élévation du pôle renversent toute la jurisprudence, un méridian décide de la vérité ... Plaisante justice qu'une rivière borne Vérité au deça des Pyrenées erreur au delà…
The cultural and land use implications of the reappearance of the wild boar in North West Italy: A case study of the Val di Vara
Sustainable farmland management as political and cultural discourse
Pollarding Trees: Changing Attitudes to a Traditional Land Management Practice in Britain 1600–1900
The pollarding and shredding of trees were widespread and common practices in Britain until the eighteenth century. Trees were an important source of fodder and their branches were regularly lopped so that sheep and cattle could eat their twigs and leaves. The branches could be used for firewood and other purposes. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the practice of pollarding was becoming increasingly rare, and it had virtually died out by t…
Legal services in rural areas: Problems of Access and Local Need
Estate and empire: Sir George Cornewall's management of Moccas, Herefordshire and La Taste, Grenada, 1771–1819
Picturesque Landscaping and Estate Management: Uvedale Price at Foxley, 1770–1829
Georgian landscaping is conventionally studied as an example of high culture, in terms of the history of art, literature and aesthetics. We take a more down to earth view and look at landscaping as an example of estate management, in terms of such topics as farming, planting, leases and rents. We do not pretend that the study of estate management offers a sort of ground-truth for understanding landscaping. Terms like ‘rent’ and ‘estate’ are of co…
The Distribution of Solicitors in England and Wales
After a consideration of the relative paucity of studies of legal services provision, this paper identifies the difficulties to be found in using the Solicitors' Directory as a source for mapping the distribution of solicitors in England and Wales, and goes on to consider the number of persons per solicitor at regional, county and district levels. Changes in the distribution of solicitors between 1971 and 1985 are assessed and, using a standard '…
The Spatial Analysis of Legal Systems: Towards a Geography of Law
t This is thefinal version of the third working paper in a series giving details of the research methods and results of the ESRC-funded, Access to Justice in Rural Britain Project (Grant EOO 232 054). A version revisedfor geographers will appear in (1986) 10:3 Progress in Geography 371 under the title Human Geography and Law: A Case of Separate Development in Social Science. The paper was presented at the 1985 European Conference of Critical Lega…
From city in the park to “greenery in plant pots”: The influence of socialist and post-socialist planning on opportunities for cultural ecosystem services
The paper examines the links between the cultural ecosystem services concept, political ideologies and urban planning. In particular, it investigates the extent to which cultural ecosystem services were considered in urban planning in socialist and post-socialist Zagreb. We conducted a content analysis of three socialist and two post-socialist plans of Zagreb and interview transcripts with urban planners and academics. To take account of the rela…
My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones’: Children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape
Recent studies of children have argued that children are suffering from a deficiency in nature experience. Some argue that a lack of experience leads to poor affective relations which for wooded environments may be manifested as fear. This study investigates a geographical knowledge gap in understanding children’s relationships with woodland. This interactive qualitative study included 21 junior age children living in a rural setting in Derbyshir…
Nature Trails: The Production of Instructive Landscapes in Britain, 1960–72
This paper examines the introduction of a novel and modern form of natural history education in Britain in the 1960s, the nature trail. The rise in the number of nature reserves owned by county conservation trusts and the Nature Conservancy after the Second World War raised the issue of how they might best be used by members of the public. Reserves were initially seen by many as places from which the public should be excluded. The American concep…
English Geographies 1600–1950 Historical Essays on English Customs, Cultures, and Communities in Honour of Jack Langton
Japanese gardens in Edwardian Britain: Landscape and transculturation
Pratiques paysannes oubliées: L’étêtage et l’émondage des arbres en Grande-Bretagne (1600-1900)
En Grande-Bretagne l'étêtage et l'émondage des arbres étaient des pratiques courantes jusqu'au xviie siècle. Au milieu du xviiie siècle, l'émondage devient plus rare et tend quasiment à disparaître au cours du xxe. Il persiste dans les régions rurales méditerranéennes, en Scandinavie et dans la zone intertropicale. Cet article retrace le cheminement des idées d'auteurs spécialistes de l'agriculture, de la forêt et du paysage, dont les écrits, pub…
Common land. The report of the common land forum
Temperance lives and landscape: Lady Elizabeth Biddulph, Lady Henry Somerset, and late nineteenth-century Ledbury
This article considers the relationship of two prominent leaders of British women’s temperance, Lady Henry Somerset and Lady Elizabeth Biddulph. They were noteworthy for taking opposing sides when the British Women’s Temperance Association divided on the question of the political reach of its work. Somerset and Biddulph were elite women, daughters of earls and near neighbours around Ledbury, a centre of cider apple and hop cultivation in Hereford…
Travel, Modernity and Rural Landscapes in Nineteenth-Century Liguria
New roads and, later, railways were essential for the modernisation and rapid economic development of north-western Italy in the early nineteenth century. The new routes also encouraged an increasing number of foreign travellers to visit the region. They opened up fresh tracts of countryside and provided novel viewpoints and points of interest; many travellers took the opportunity to record these views with topographical drawings and watercolours…
Botanical relics of a lost landscape: Herborising ‘ upon the Cliffs about the Pharos ’ in Genoa, March 1664
This paper uses approaches derived from historical ecology to show how knowledge can be gained about the historical and cultural value of neglected urban landscapes. We study the area around Genoa’s lighthouse and consider the long-term survival of individual plant species and some implications for landscape conservation. We examine topographical representations over the last 500 years to establish the landscape context of the lighthouse. We then…
Natural History and Local History in Late Victorian and Edwardian England: The Contribution of the Victoria County History
In 1899 the Victoria County History (VCH) was established as a ‘National Survey’ of England which was intended to show the present day condition of the country and trace the ‘domestic history’ of all English counties to the ‘earliest times’. Natural history was seen as a key component to be included in the first volume for every county. In this paper we examine the reasons for the prominence given to natural history and demonstrate how the expert…
Botanical Transculturation: Japanese and British Knowledge and Understanding of Aucuba japonica and Larix leptolepis 1700-1920
Two species, Aucuba japonica and Larix leptolepis , introduced from Japan to Britain provide examples of different types of transculturation. We demonstrate the complexity of the interchange of Japanese and European knowledge of natural history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The importance of this exchange and interaction was consciously underplayed by those recounting the discovery of plants by European collectors. We ide…
An analytic model of conflict
The use of Forestry Commission censuses for the study of woodland change
The Spatial Analysis of Legal Systems: Towards a Geography of Law
t This is thefinal version of the third working paper in a series giving details of the research methods and results of the ESRC-funded, Access to Justice in Rural Britain Project (Grant EOO 232 054). A version revisedfor geographers will appear in (1986) 10:3 Progress in Geography 371 under the title Human Geography and Law: A Case of Separate Development in Social Science. The paper was presented at the 1985 European Conference of Critical Lega…
Human Geography and Law: A Case of Separate Development in Social Science
S'il est vrai que le caractère de l'esprit et les passions du coeur soient extrêmement differents dans les divers climats, les lois doivent être relatives et à la difference de ces passions, et à la difference de ces caractères (Montesquieu, De l'Esprit des Lois). Trois degres d'élévation du pôle renversent toute la jurisprudence, un méridian décide de la vérité ... Plaisante justice qu'une rivière borne Vérité au deça des Pyrenées erreur au delà…
Holding your ground
Country Solicitors: Their Professional Role in Rural Britain
Common land. The report of the common land forum
The Distribution of Solicitors in England and Wales
After a consideration of the relative paucity of studies of legal services provision, this paper identifies the difficulties to be found in using the Solicitors' Directory as a source for mapping the distribution of solicitors in England and Wales, and goes on to consider the number of persons per solicitor at regional, county and district levels. Changes in the distribution of solicitors between 1971 and 1985 are assessed and, using a standard '…
Legal services in rural areas: Problems of Access and Local Need
Harvest of change: The Royal Agricultural Society of England 1838–1988
The allotment; its landscape and culture
Citizens Advice Bureaux: Problems of an Emerging Service in Rural Areas
Nineteen eighty nine marked the Golden Jubilee of the CABx in the UK. Over the past 50 years it has established itself nationally as the prime provider of generalist advice, but there are special problems associated with delivering the service in rural areas. These include: the logistical difficulties of serving remote communities with small and scattered populations; maintaining the independence of bureau, especially from the local authorities t…
Picturesque Landscaping and Estate Management: Uvedale Price at Foxley, 1770–1829
Georgian landscaping is conventionally studied as an example of high culture, in terms of the history of art, literature and aesthetics. We take a more down to earth view and look at landscaping as an example of estate management, in terms of such topics as farming, planting, leases and rents. We do not pretend that the study of estate management offers a sort of ground-truth for understanding landscaping. Terms like ‘rent’ and ‘estate’ are of co…
People in the Countryside: Studies of Social Change in Rural Britain
Introduction - T Champion and C Watkins Recent Developments in the Social Geography of Rural Britain People Moving to the Countryside - S Harper Case Studies of Decision Making Middle Class Housing Choice - P Cloke, M Phillips and D Rankin Channels of Entry into Gower, South Wales Still no Homes for Locals? - M Shucksmith Affordable Housing and Planning Controls in Rural Areas People Working in Farming - G Clark The Changing Nature of Farmwork Ne…
A review of the redundant building grant scheme
Land Use Changes in Europe: Processes of Change, Environmental Transformations and Future Patterns
The Picturesque Landscape, Visions of Georgian Herefordshire
Church, landscape and community: Rural life and the church of England
In this paper we consider the influence of the Anglican Church on the rural landscape of England and its interpretation and use. We begin with a discussion of the Church's role in the formulation of attitudes towards nature, land development and community. We then focus on the relationship of its major landscape feature, the church building, with ideas of community and heritage using material from an interview survey, undertaken by the Rural Chur…
Estate and empire: Sir George Cornewall's management of Moccas, Herefordshire and La Taste, Grenada, 1771–1819
Exploring Knowledge-Cultures: Precision Farming, Yield Mapping, and the Expert-Farmer Interface
Over recent years the concept of 'knowledge' in the singular has been increasingly challenged by ideas of differentiated, contextualized 'knowledges'. In this paper we propose the concept of 'knowledge-cultures' as a way of exploring the fluidity of diverse forms of knowledge and the rules, norms, and values that enable or constrain their production. Elaborating on Shotter's idea of knowledge-from-within, we argue that knowledge-cultures are soci…
The Most Revolutionary Measure: A History of the Rural Development Committee 1909–1999
Secure from Rash Assault: Sustaining the Victorian Environment
Pollarding Trees: Changing Attitudes to a Traditional Land Management Practice in Britain 1600–1900
The pollarding and shredding of trees were widespread and common practices in Britain until the eighteenth century. Trees were an important source of fodder and their branches were regularly lopped so that sheep and cattle could eat their twigs and leaves. The branches could be used for firewood and other purposes. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the practice of pollarding was becoming increasingly rare, and it had virtually died out by t…
Conserving English Landscapes: Land Managers and Agri-Environmental Policy
There is increasing public policy interest in the management of rural landscapes for conservation, both in terms of natural and cultural heritage. Agri-environmental policies are an important part of an emerging vision for a sustainable countryside, with increasing support for the existing Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) and Countryside Stewardship (CS) schemes. This paper provides insight into the nature of land-manager attitudes towards th…
Japanese gardens in Edwardian Britain: Landscape and transculturation
Geography (43 works) · Political science (28 works) · History (25 works) · Archaeology (23 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Ecology (19 works) · History (18 works) · Law (18 works) · Biology (16 works) · Law (14 works)