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The History of the Countryside: The Classic History of Britain's Landscape, Flora and Fauna

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This book, written by a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, tells the story of the forces, human and natural, which shaped the landscape of the British Isles. Examples of the sort of ground it covers are given by Dr Rackham in his opening paragraph, when he says that in his childhood he wondered why roads had bends, why lanes were sunk into the ground, what dogwood and spindle were doing in the hedges, why fields were of odd shapes, and why elms stopped abruptly just north of Bungay. (A town in Norfolk, where he grew up). The book represents his attempts to answer these questions, and many others like them.

The book is not written in strict chronological order from the Ice Age to the 20th century (the book was written in 1986); Dr Rackham rather treats each different type of habitat- woodland, fields, heathland, moorland, marshes, etc.- in turn. He describes each type of habitat and then traces its development over time from prehistory to the present. In addition, there are chapters setting out his methods and the type of evidence he relies on, and dealing with Britain's native flora and fauna, especially those species which have become extinct in historical times (bears, wolves, wild boar) or which have been introduced by man (rabbits, fallow deer, pheasants, sycamore trees).

Dr Rackham lays to rest a few well-worn myths about the countryside. It is not, for example, true, as is sometimes said, that mediaeval England was a densely wooded country which a squirrel could have crossed from coast to coast without ever setting foot on the ground, before the dense woodlands were destroyed to provide timber for the Royal Navy. Certainly, prehistoric Britain was almost wholly tree-covered, but the coming of agriculture meant that most of the woods were felled. By the Middle Ages, only about 15% of the country was wooded, a higher percentage than in modern Britain but a lower one than in modern France or Germany. Much of the confusion is due to a misunderstanding of what was meant by a "forest" in mediaeval England. The term did not necessarily imply woodland- Sherwood Forest, for example, was predominantly heathland- but an area in which game, especially deer, was protected by special laws.

Nor is it true to say that the rural landscape is as much the product of deliberate human design as the urban one or, as is sometimes done by those who oppose conservationist attempts to preserve the countryside, that its current appearance is almost entirely modern, the result of the Enclosure Acts of the 18th and 19th centuries. Although Dr Rackham states that his is not primarily a book about conservation, it is written from a conservationist viewpoint, and he exposes the weaknesses of the arguments that the landscape is both modern and artificial. What we now think of as typical features of the countryside are often the result of a complex interplay of human and natural forces. Not all hedgerows, for example, were deliberately planted; many grew up naturally along the line of a fence, which has often disappeared, leaving the hedge as a semi-natural boundary feature.

Contrary to the "Enclosure Act Myth", many features of the landscape are very old. Dr Rackham distinguishes between two types of English lowland scenery, what he calls "Planned Countryside" and "Ancient Countryside". The former, which prevails in a band stretching from Dorset and northern Hampshire north-eastwards through the East Midlands to northern and western East Anglia, Lincolnshire and the East Riding, was the area which was once dominated by the tradition, dating back to the Middle Ages, of open-field farming. The latter, which prevails throughout the rest of lowland England, mostly in the West Midlands and the South-East, was the area where this tradition was less strong and where there was a larger number of smaller fields. It was the Planned Countryside landscape which was largely affected by the Enclosure Acts; the Ancient Countryside kept many more of its traditional features. Even today there are many differences between the two types of landscape; Ancient Countryside, for example, has more roads and public footpaths, more areas of heathland, more ponds and more ancient hedgerows. Villages in Planned Countryside tend to be larger, but fewer in number.

The book is highly informative, and contained much that was new to me. I had not, for example, appreciated that before the coming of man the dominant woodland tree in most of lowland England was neither oak, nor ash, nor beech, but small-leaved lime. Oak predominated in the upland areas of England and in much of Scotland and Wales. Nor had I realised that wild boar became extinct as long ago as the mid-thirteenth century, victims of the destruction of their woodland habitat and of reckless over-hunting. King Henry III had 300 killed for his Christmas feast in 1251, at a time when they were already on the verge of extinction.

I would have two complaints about the book. The first is that it I would have welcomed more illustrations, preferably in colour. The second is that Dr Rackham tends to concentrate on certain areas at the expense of others. England is treated in greater detail than Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and certain regions of England in greater detail than others. I would have liked to see other parts of the country get as much attention as East Anglia (doubtless singled out for special treatment because the author is a native of Norfolk and a resident of Cambridgeshire). Nevertheless, this is a valuable book that will be welcomed by all country-lovers who wish to understand the countryside as well as appreciate it.