In using documents to research landscape history and ecology, there are two related golden rules to observe:
In any conflict of evidence between what the landscape itself has to say and ...
The response to this photograph might be amusement, if not outright laughter. Certainly the explanation for the naming of this stile is demonstrated clearly in this photograph. Unlike a more ...
Local historians are well acquainted with the beautifully drawn and elaborate estate maps made for local landowners in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. They may be less familiar with ...
The Field is a series of photographs taken since 2005 in Welford on Avon, I wanted to show the changes in myself and the location.
I try to take a picture every ...
With the recent snowfall in the county (a tiny sprinkling in Leamington) it reminded me of snow days and skating on the iced Welches Meadow off Willes Road in Leamington.
The ...
A bit of history
Field names provide an unofficial record of rural history. In medieval times villages had two or three great fields with a crop-rotation system. These great fields were ...
I previously gave an introduction to field names and their history. The names of fields originated in a very practical way to identify them for illiterate farm labourers who had ...
One of our contributors, Christine Hodgetts, was moved to write this interesting article about the Autumn Crocus, in response to Mark Smith’s original article, A Splash of Autumn Colour.
The autumn ...
I found some unusual field names in Bulkington describing the plants and animals found there. These are recorded in the Tithe Apportionment documents dating from 1844. It looks as though ...