I Remember When... Exploring landscape, narrative and time using computer games
Hoskins' england class 5
1. W.G. Hoskins and the Making of
the English Landscape
Class 5. An excess of sheep.
Tudor and Georgian England.
Tutor: Keith Challis
hoskins-england.blogspot.co.uk
2. Recap: Last Week
(Awaiting the Sound of a human voice)
The Colonization of Medieval England
• The landscape of 1086
• The clearing of woodland
• Marsh, Fen and Moor
• Buildings in a Landscape
The Black Death and After
• The abandonment of villages
• New colonization
• New buildings
60 years on: Critique of Hoskins and a counterpoint
Hoskins’s England hoskins-
3. Class Summary
Structure
• Hoskins Rural Idyll (?)
• Tudor to Georgian England
• 60 years on: Critique of Hoskins and a counterpoint
Coffee Break
• Historic mapping and Map Regression
• Laxton Group project: Working with historic
mapping, Mark Pearce’s map of 1635
Hoskins’s England hoskins-england.blogspot.co.uk
4. Class Summary
Learning Outcomes
• Understand Hoskins’s view of the main
trends in 16th-18th century rural England
• Appreciate how more recent ideas and
evidence have challenged Hoskins’s
orthodoxy
• Explore the use of old maps through map
regression
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6. Tudor to
Georgian England
Hoskins’s Rural Idyll
• More than any other period this
captures the essence of Hoskins’s
England
• “The narrow margin between a
hard life and death from starvation,
which had haunted so many
generations…had widened with the
bringing into cultivation of millions
more acres of land” (p163)
• The Stuart or Georgian yeoman
reached for a book in the evenings,
rather than for the axe or mattock
of his forebears” (p163)
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7. Tudor to
Georgian England
Hoskins’s Rural Idyll
• A conscious romanticising of the past…
• “There was plenty of scope for poachers of fish and
game, and plenty of fresh air and space for everybody,
and silence if they wanted it. No industrial smoke,
nothing faster on the roads than a horse, no incessant
noises from the sky: only three million people all told,
spread thinly about the country…how infinitely more
pleasant a place England the was for the majority of her
people!” (p 139)
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8. Tudor to
Georgian England
Hoskins’s Rural Idyll
• The contrast with the hated present of the mid
20th century
• “Few boys lived beyond easy walking distance of
thick woodland, or of wild and spacious heaths
where they could work off freely the animal
energies that in the twentieth century lead too
many of them in the foul and joyless towns into
the juvenile courts” (p139)
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9. Tudor to
Georgian England
Hoskins’s Rural Idyll
• Hoskins’s archetypal story has its roots in this
period.
• How much does his romantic vision cloud his
judgement?
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10. Tudor to
Georgian England
Chapter 5. Structure
• The Landscape in 1500
• The Enclosure of the Midland Fields
• The Flowering of Rural England
• Country Houses and Parks
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11. Tudor to
Georgian England
The Landscape in 1500
• “The most striking single aspect
of the English landscape at the
beginning of the sixteenth
century was that there were
about three sheep to every
human being”
• An almost finished landscape
struggling to reach its final
great state
• Dominated by woodland and
pasture
• Still wild in large part
• Governed and shaped by
seigniorial interests
(depopulation, enclosure,
emparking)
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12. Tudor to
Georgian England
The Enclosure of the
Midlands Fields
• Enclosure, beginning in
the late middle ages, is a
new force in the
landscape
• Population decline and
agricultural reorganisation
drive the trend
• Early enclosure by
agreement is resisted by
authority and law
• Post 1660 enclosure
embraced by government
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13. Tudor to
Georgian England
The Flowering of Rural
England
• The 16th century ushered in
an period of unprecedented
economic and social
stability
• Rural incomes increased
• Wealthy landowners and
yeoman farmers invested
income in new styles and
sophistication in building
• Medieval dwellings were
swept away by this great
rebuilding
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14. Tudor to
Georgian England
Country Houses and
Parks
• Political stability made the
castle obsolete
• Wealthy landowners
invested in new county
houses centred in
increasingly designed
landscapes
• Creation of deer parks
and agricultural
innovation together led to
depopulation of villages
• Houses became
increasingly ostentatious
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15. Tudor to
Georgian England
• Discussion…
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17. Tudor to
Georgian England
The Myth of the Great Rebuilding
• Hoskins’s great rebuilding is now generally
considered to be only the most visible of a series
of continuous rebuildings affecting rural
dwellings
• Contrary to Hoskins’s assertion archaeology
demonstrates the substantial survival of pre-15 th
century rural houses, often much modified
• Archaeology provides evidence of waves of
rebuildings from the early Saxon period onward
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18. Tudor to
Georgian England
Aesthetics of Landscape
• Hoskins underplays the impact of new
aesthetics of landscape on the designed
landscapes of great houses
No mention for…
• Towns
• Rural industry
• Agricultural innovation
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19. Tudor to
Georgian England
Coffee Break
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21. Using Historic Mapping: Map
Regression
Map regression involves comparing maps drawn up at different dates, to
understand changes over time. Modern and old Ordnance Survey, tithe, enclosure
and estate maps can all be used for this purpose. Map regression can be used for a
number of purposes:
• To understand and determine those features that have changed and those that have
not.
• To locate features which may be on earlier maps but have vanished from modern
maps.
• To determine the phases of a building, although there can be inaccuracies on
maps when recording buildings especially on the earlier types of maps.
• To identify field and other boundaries, trackways and roads, as well as locating
particular features.
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22. Using Historic Mapping: Map
Regression
How is map regression done?
Start with the most recent map, such as a modern
Ordnance Survey map and gradually work back through
time comparing the relevant maps.
Map regression is made simpler if all the maps have been
reduced or enlarged to the same scale. Maps can then be
overlaid.
A good starting point is to identify a number of features or
structures, which have not changed, as this provides a
framework from which to start locating other features and
comparing maps.
Hoskins’s England hoskins-
31. Self Assessment
Learning Outcomes
• Have a better understanding of the principal
themes of the b16th-18th century countryside
• Critically assess the extent to which Hoskins’s
romantic view of the countryside coloured his
judgement
• Recognise challenges to Hoskins’s ideas, such
as the great rebuilding
• Feel able to work with comparative study of old
maps
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32. Further Study
Suggested Reading
• The making of the English Landscape chapter 6
• Pryor’s Making of the British Landscape
Self Study Themes
• Work with the maps of Laxton published on the
website to explore maps regression
Hoskins’s England hoskins-
Editor's Notes
Typical map regression sequence – corner of City of Nottingham. Sherwood Forest map is earliest (1609), then onwards.
Start with modern map then next most recent map – OS 1861 map. Area is probably a bit too large so should start with smaller area.
Smaller area – Chapel Bar at western end of market place in City of Notts. This was one of medieval gates into Notts. With smaller area gets easier to see parts of urban areas that have survived – e.g. plots and roads.
Then go back in time – 1744, can still trace some of features in modern landscape. Such as passageways and alleys, plots, etc. But are also seeing broad changes in landscape as well/ Shape of market place has changed and can also see ‘Maid Marion Way’ to the south, a 1960s urban freeway which cuts through historic street pattern.
If compare modern to 1610 then is much less of modern topography that is represented. There are some elements there – e.g. parts of urban topography still visible in modern landscape. E.g. route of Mount Street possibly represents the line of intra-mural wall of medieval city of Nottingham. Georefencing...
