William D Shannon

Biographic Data

ID5166676
NAMEWilliam D Shannon
GIVEN NAMESWilliam D
FAMILY NAMEShannon
SIGNATURESHANNON W D
AFFILIATIONSindependent scholar
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS6
TOTAL CITATIONS0
WORKS AS AUTHOR6
WORKS AS EDITOR0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2012
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2024
H-INDEX0

  • Hemp Cultivation and Processing in North-West England

    William D ShannonARTICLENorthern History2024

    Although by the 1830s–40s it is unlikely that any of the 150 fields named ‘Hempland’ or similar in the tithe surveys for the counties of Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland, were actually then growing hemp, nevertheless these field-names are a useful source for a study of its cultivation in the region. This paper shows that although such cultivation is found back to the early medieval period, it expanded in the early modern period, moving in s…

  • Sleech Salt Making from the Solway to the Mersey in the Medieval and Early-Modern Period

    William D ShannonARTICLENorthern History2023

    Salt making by the method known as ‘sleeching’ was practised extensively along the coasts of North-West England and southern Scotland, from earliest times until it came to a sudden end in the eighteenth century with the widespread availability of cheap rock salt from Cheshire. The method involved the gathering of salt-enriched sand from below the high-tide mark, and washing the same in troughs to produce a concentrated brine, which was then evapo…

  • The control of salters (deer-leaps) in private deer-parks associated with forests

    Graham J Cooper, William D ShannonARTICLELandscape History2017

    The legitimate means of populating a deer-park in the medieval period were principally by imparkment of woods already containing deer coverts, a royal grant of live deer, or the use of salters (deer-leaps) licensed by the monarch. Salters encouraged and enabled deer to enter parks through modified pale fence systems, but impeded their egress. Private parks within or close to forests were scrutinised to identify and control unauthorised salters en…

  • Moss Rooms and Hell Holes

    William D ShannonARTICLELandscape History2015

    Large-scale local maps are rare before the eighteenth century, so for one small district in the north-west of England to have seven such maps dating from the end of the sixteenth century is remarkable. These maps were produced in connection with land disputes heard before the Court of the Duchy of Lancaster and depict a mossland landscape where the absence of natural boundary markers, and a history as an intercommon rather than in single ownershi…

  • Christopher Saxton’s Last Maps

    William D ShannonARTICLEImago Mundi2015

    Although it has been generally held that Saxton in his later life did not work far from home, two previously unrecognized maps in The National Archives show him surveying in 1607 for the Earl of Cumberland in the dangerous Border country. These maps throw new light onto the working methods of Saxton and his son, suggesting that by this date Robert was doing most of the work. The original map appears to have been commissioned as an estate map but …

  • The Survival of True Intercommoning in Lancashire in the Early-Modern Period

    William D ShannonARTICLEAgricultural History2012

    English medieval law assumed there was no land without a lord and that the normal landholding was the manor, held directly or indirectly of the Crown. However, it is clear that at an early period much wasteland was held at a higher level, as a resource to be shared by all the surrounding manors. Although true intercommoning had probably generally died out by the sixteenth century, in NorthWest England it lingered in those upland and lowland waste…