The Changing English Landscape

Bibliographic Data

ID4642187
AuthorsH C Darby (corresponding author)
Year1951
Volume117
Issue4
Pages377
Publication date1951-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7398 • E-ISSN: 1475-4959
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1790680
OpenAlexW2316646482
LanguageEN
Citations received18

It was william cowper poet who once wrote that God made country and man made town, a sentence that reads strangely to anyone who thinks about English landscape. It is true that there is much about English scene that is non-human; Lord Avebury began his delightful book on 'The scenery of England' (1902) by saying that the scenery of any country so greatly depends on structure and arrangement of rocks of w7hich it is composed, that it cannot be described without some reference to geological causes. It is to geologist, and not least to geomorphologist, that we look for an explanation of foundations of our landscape, for English scene as we view it today represents a collection of legacies from past, and many of these legacies are from geological time. But not all; some are more recent in origin, and it is of them that I wish to speak. It was Vidal de la Blache who said that geography is science of places, but he meant places as modified by man and not as they were on first morning of creation. Art as well as Nature has gone into making of our sweet especial English scene. But at this point a question naturally arises. Where shall we begin in our search for origins of this humanized landscape ? The answer to this is fairly clear; coming of Anglo-Saxons opened a new chapter in history of settlement and land-use of Britain, and Anglo-Saxons were followed in north and east by Scandinavians. Both groups of invaders, with a fine eye for country, covered Roman Britain with their new villages and, in so doing, sketched pattern of our English human geography. The Anglo-Saxons did not come into an empty land, and many contributions from pre-Saxon days have entered into making of England. But even so, as far as there ever is a new beginning in history coming of Anglo-Saxons was such a beginning. Since then an immense and unceasing struggle has resulted in clearing of woodlands, draining of marshes and reclamation of heathlands. Not only have limits of agriculture been extended, but its character has been changed and its field systems altered. And, even as cultivated land was being extended, it was also being encroached upon by rising tide of industrial development. The black satanic landscapes of Midlands and North are in their way as ^5

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