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Farms in England, prehistoric to present
Book Reviews for individuals to buy, perhaps, but this work would be a worthy addition to a library. A N T H O N Y MOYES
Department of Geography University of Ahervstwyth, U.K. Farms in England, Prehistoric to Present, Peter Fowler, vi pp., 97 plates (pages un-numbered), 1983, HMSO, London, £4.95p
This book is the fifth in the National Monuments' Records 'Photographic Archive' series and at first sight it might be easily written off as just another 'picture book' relating to the history of the countryside. However, on further consideration the book has more going for it than that. At one level it serves as a marvellous propaganda exercise on the part of the NMR, demonstrating even further the wide range and sweep of its archive resources, and acting as a useful argument for its continued maintenance at a time of financial stringency. At another level, the book provides a high quality, integrated, yet concise insight into the architectural/archaeological heritage of the English countryside. The format is simple; a short, general introductory text which has been written around the selected photographs, followed by some 97 plates, each with its own explanatory caption, designed to illustrate the history and development of the farm, and drawn from the English non-metropolitan counties. In his foreword, Peter Fowler explains that the word 'farm' has been used in three different senses to include 'farmhouse', "farmstead' and 'life on the farm' and to facilitate this discussion the plates are divided into sections illustrating Farming (Pls 1-2), Farms (Pls 3-10), The Farmhouse (Pls 11-23), The Farmyard (Pls 23-49), Crops on the Farm (Pls 50-74), Livestock on the Farm (Pls 75-95), and Farms in the Landscape (Pls 96-97). As an archaeologist, interested in landscape development generally, I was immediately impressed with P1. 4, an air photograph of the prehistoric farming complex on Leskernick Hill, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall and PI. 89, another air photo, this time of a medieval site, the Huntingdon Warren, Lydford, Devon. The quality of photographic reproduction here is of the usual high quality that one would associate with the RCHM and the NMR, the latter photograph especially providing a very useful insight into a type of site and its development, which is usually neglected in the normal run of archaeology publications. The plates are ordered to allow the reader to move from reconstructed Iron Age farm buildings through to the solid farm structures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, evoking along the way all kinds of images of a vanished England (e.g. Pls, 20, 23, 25, 26, 36, 40, 48, 71 and particularly H.W. Taunt's almost Pre-Raphaelite 'Bridge with Mower and Man', PI. 87) and it is with this latter point that I have my only quibble with the book. Most of the plates depicting life on the farm (see those above and Pls, 41, 46, 57, 74, 82, 83, 85 and 86) present the cosily acceptable 'to plough and sow and reap and mow and be a farmer's boy' attitude, with workers shown happy and healthy at their labours. Admittedly, the book acknowledges that these are posed views with possibly only PI. 45
289
'Woodcutting' giving some indication of the harshness of farm work, but what is lacking is an attempt to illustrate the realities of life on the farm and more importantly the conditions of labourers" dwellings. While this omission may be due to the fact that such photographs are not contained within the NMR (or indeed may never have been taken!) one can only hope that Peter Fowlers" request for further photographs made within his foreword, meets with some success. Overall then this book is "small but beautifully formed', well laid out, well illustrated and a useful indicator of the richness of the existing archive available to the researcher. Its main uses will be as a source of illustrative material for those people dealing with the development of farm houses and ancillary buildings and to a lesser extent those working on the development of farming techniques and "life on the farm'. It should also serve to whet the reader's appetite for further, more detailed research in the main body of the NMR. At a mere £4.95p it is excellent value for money and deserves a place on the bookshelf of all those interested in historical aspects of rural studies. ROBERT Y O U N G
Archaeology Unit, Department of Geography St David's University College Lampeter, U.K.
The Atlas of British Politics, Robert Waller, 2{)5 pp., 1985, Croom Helm, London, £16.95
In the run up to the general election of June 1983 Waller's then recently published Almanac of British Politkw provided a useful political form book for some pundits and commentators. The almanac contained a brief profile of each of the parliamentary constituencies, based upon combining census data and local election results with an understanding of local political history and geography. Although the almanac described itself as dealing with the 'political topography" and the 'political map' of Britain it was a literary rather than a cartographic exercise. Now Waller has produced a complementary volume to the almanac which aims through its predominantly cartographic format to contribute to our understanding of the social and political geography of the United Kingdom. It does of course draw upon the results of the 1983 general election: these are combined with the findings of the 1981 census to produce 161 national and regional maps of political Britain, again using the parliamentary constituency as the basic unit. The atlas shows very clearly the two "nations' of England: south of Stoke-on-Trent, and outside Greater London and the West Midlands Metropolitan County, the Labour-held seats can literally be counted on the fingers of one hand. In contrast to such geographical disparity the atlas also reveals the almost uniform distribution across the country of the Alliance share of the vote, in the 20-35% range, a pattern which virtually guarantees under-representation in a first-past-the-post system. Apart from the general patterns which emerge so clearly from the maps themselves, there are intriguing facts to be gleaned from the commentaries which accompany each of the maps - - that the highest proportion of owner-
Department of Geography University of Ahervstwyth, U.K. Farms in England, Prehistoric to Present, Peter Fowler, vi pp., 97 plates (pages un-numbered), 1983, HMSO, London, £4.95p
This book is the fifth in the National Monuments' Records 'Photographic Archive' series and at first sight it might be easily written off as just another 'picture book' relating to the history of the countryside. However, on further consideration the book has more going for it than that. At one level it serves as a marvellous propaganda exercise on the part of the NMR, demonstrating even further the wide range and sweep of its archive resources, and acting as a useful argument for its continued maintenance at a time of financial stringency. At another level, the book provides a high quality, integrated, yet concise insight into the architectural/archaeological heritage of the English countryside. The format is simple; a short, general introductory text which has been written around the selected photographs, followed by some 97 plates, each with its own explanatory caption, designed to illustrate the history and development of the farm, and drawn from the English non-metropolitan counties. In his foreword, Peter Fowler explains that the word 'farm' has been used in three different senses to include 'farmhouse', "farmstead' and 'life on the farm' and to facilitate this discussion the plates are divided into sections illustrating Farming (Pls 1-2), Farms (Pls 3-10), The Farmhouse (Pls 11-23), The Farmyard (Pls 23-49), Crops on the Farm (Pls 50-74), Livestock on the Farm (Pls 75-95), and Farms in the Landscape (Pls 96-97). As an archaeologist, interested in landscape development generally, I was immediately impressed with P1. 4, an air photograph of the prehistoric farming complex on Leskernick Hill, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall and PI. 89, another air photo, this time of a medieval site, the Huntingdon Warren, Lydford, Devon. The quality of photographic reproduction here is of the usual high quality that one would associate with the RCHM and the NMR, the latter photograph especially providing a very useful insight into a type of site and its development, which is usually neglected in the normal run of archaeology publications. The plates are ordered to allow the reader to move from reconstructed Iron Age farm buildings through to the solid farm structures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, evoking along the way all kinds of images of a vanished England (e.g. Pls, 20, 23, 25, 26, 36, 40, 48, 71 and particularly H.W. Taunt's almost Pre-Raphaelite 'Bridge with Mower and Man', PI. 87) and it is with this latter point that I have my only quibble with the book. Most of the plates depicting life on the farm (see those above and Pls, 41, 46, 57, 74, 82, 83, 85 and 86) present the cosily acceptable 'to plough and sow and reap and mow and be a farmer's boy' attitude, with workers shown happy and healthy at their labours. Admittedly, the book acknowledges that these are posed views with possibly only PI. 45
289
'Woodcutting' giving some indication of the harshness of farm work, but what is lacking is an attempt to illustrate the realities of life on the farm and more importantly the conditions of labourers" dwellings. While this omission may be due to the fact that such photographs are not contained within the NMR (or indeed may never have been taken!) one can only hope that Peter Fowlers" request for further photographs made within his foreword, meets with some success. Overall then this book is "small but beautifully formed', well laid out, well illustrated and a useful indicator of the richness of the existing archive available to the researcher. Its main uses will be as a source of illustrative material for those people dealing with the development of farm houses and ancillary buildings and to a lesser extent those working on the development of farming techniques and "life on the farm'. It should also serve to whet the reader's appetite for further, more detailed research in the main body of the NMR. At a mere £4.95p it is excellent value for money and deserves a place on the bookshelf of all those interested in historical aspects of rural studies. ROBERT Y O U N G
Archaeology Unit, Department of Geography St David's University College Lampeter, U.K.
The Atlas of British Politics, Robert Waller, 2{)5 pp., 1985, Croom Helm, London, £16.95
In the run up to the general election of June 1983 Waller's then recently published Almanac of British Politkw provided a useful political form book for some pundits and commentators. The almanac contained a brief profile of each of the parliamentary constituencies, based upon combining census data and local election results with an understanding of local political history and geography. Although the almanac described itself as dealing with the 'political topography" and the 'political map' of Britain it was a literary rather than a cartographic exercise. Now Waller has produced a complementary volume to the almanac which aims through its predominantly cartographic format to contribute to our understanding of the social and political geography of the United Kingdom. It does of course draw upon the results of the 1983 general election: these are combined with the findings of the 1981 census to produce 161 national and regional maps of political Britain, again using the parliamentary constituency as the basic unit. The atlas shows very clearly the two "nations' of England: south of Stoke-on-Trent, and outside Greater London and the West Midlands Metropolitan County, the Labour-held seats can literally be counted on the fingers of one hand. In contrast to such geographical disparity the atlas also reveals the almost uniform distribution across the country of the Alliance share of the vote, in the 20-35% range, a pattern which virtually guarantees under-representation in a first-past-the-post system. Apart from the general patterns which emerge so clearly from the maps themselves, there are intriguing facts to be gleaned from the commentaries which accompany each of the maps - - that the highest proportion of owner-