- Email: [email protected]
Hedges
REVIEWS
173
Evans may be faulted on few points of detail. The reader may be surprised to find that glaciers from Yorkshire deposited pebble flint along the east coast of Ireland (p. 62). Confusion may also arise from the commentary on the pollen diagram from Barfield Tarn (p. 11I) in which it is stated that, following the elm decline, regeneration of woodland did not occur. The diagram certainly shows various woodland constituents undergoing a partial decline, but the pollen curves for birch and hazel, pioneer regeneration taxa, increase their representation. There is a contradiction over whether Pfuntugo lunceoluta in the pollen record is an indicator of past pastoral (p. I1 1) or arable (p. 13 1) land use; it is in fact commonly associated with both at the present day. In his survey of the environmental history of the North York Moors (pp. 130-4) Evans omits mention of the palynological research of 1. G. Simmons and his associates. The author also appears to be unaware of the work of Pennington and Lishman which casts doubt on palaeoclimatic inferences drawn from the chemical analysis of lake sediments (pp. 77 and 145). The reviewer found the notes and referencing system to be a most frustrating aspect of the book. In order to trace a reference it is necessary to go from the text to a section of notes which then directs the reader to the bibliography. Overall, however, John Evans is to be congratulated on providing such a lucid introduction to a complex interdisciplinary field. The readable style, numerous apt diagrams and extensive bibliography provide a stimulating diet and many jumping-off points for more detailed study. The book should appeal to all who are interested in environmental reconstruction, both within the British Isles and also elsewhere. The Queen’s Unklersity of Belfast
KEVIN J. EDWARDS
E. POLLARD, M. D. HOOPER and N. W. MOORE, Hedges (London : Collins, New Naturalist Series, 1974. Pp. 256. E3.50) This addition to the New Naturalist series examines three aspects of hedgerows within Great Britain: their history, their flora and fauna, and their contemporary place in rural economies. The historical sections of the monograph are essentially by Hooper who considers the evolution of enclosed landscapes in Britain and discusses the origin and development of hedge flora, in particular the shrub element, in relation to techniques of dating hedgerows. The gradual enclosure of many parts of Britain up to the mid-eighteenth century is subjected to an impressively effective and well-exemplified lightning sketch where one and a half millennia pass in twelve pages. Next, enclosures by act and award explain the extension and frequent intensification of the hedged landscape in Georgian Britain. Judicious use of example again adds much to the story. Nineteenth-century controversies over the use of hedgerows as enclosures are then outlined. The various prize essays condemning hedges in the early numbers of the Journul of the Royal Agricultural Society oj England might have been used more fully, in spite of the fact that Grant’s examples from Devon and Grigor’s strictures on overwide Norfolk hedges would have been familiar to many readers. Indeed, many of the Society’s prize essays on county agriculture, from 1841 onwards, discuss the state of hedgerows, a source untapped by Hooper. There is, in fact, a leap from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth, with a bridging passage suggesting that “because of shortage of information it is difficult to give a synoptic view of change in the last century but clearly . . . this was a stable period”. Accepting that it was a time of relative stability of field boundaries, though not of agriculture, one nevertheless queries the supposed shortage of information; data do exist, albeit in a variety of little used forms. The post-war trend towards larger fields, and hence fewer field boundaries, and the shift from living hedge to wood and wire fence, conclude the historical review. 12
174
REVIEWS
Species content and species diversity in hedgerows vary in relation to a number of environmental and management factors. Considering the number of shrub species present, Hooper claims that “72% of the variation between hedges can be accounted for by age”. He has calculated that, generally, age of hedge = (110 x shrub species number) +30. One thus has a colonization rate of approximately one new shrub species per century, an elegantly simple general relationship between age of hedgerow and its shrub content. Two aspects of this formula have worried the reviewer, One is the straight line curve described by the regression equation. A straight line is almost as abhorrent to nature as a vacuum. If a form of succession is taking place (which Hooper elsewhere suggests is possible) a sigmoid curve would be expected, perhaps truncated and modified by the peculiar nature of the hedgerow habitat type. Because the time scale involved is so great, an experiment designed to monitor and explain the processes involved cannot be undertaken, though work is being undertaken at Monks Wood, Birmingham and elsewhere on contemporary ecological processes acting in and on hedges. Secondly, to whom is the hypothesis of value? To the historical ecologist it may indicate a descriptive but unexplained relationship. To the historical geographer and local historian it offers a crude predictive tool whereby, in the absence of documentation, a distinction can nevertheless be made between, say, Saxon, Tudor and Georgian hedges; but, given the confidence limits of the model, changes within a shorter time period cannot be inferred. In spite of these comments, one has no hesitation in recommending this informative and stimulating historical introduction to hedgerow studies. University of Birmingham
P. J. JARVIS
ALAN ROGERSand TREVOR ROWLEY, Landscapes and Documents
(London: Bedford Square Press of the National Council of Social Service for the Standing Conference for Local History, 1974. Pp. 85. El-50)
MICHAEL ASTON and TREVOR ROWLEY, Landscape Archaeology: An Introduction to Fieldwork Techniques on Post-Roman Landscapes (Newton Abbot: David and Charles,
1974. Pp. 217. E5.50) The study of landscape history has gained popularity in recent years partly perhaps as a result of the example and enthusiasm of a number of pioneer workers. Among archaeologists, 0. G. S. Crawford and Sir Cyril Fox made outstanding contributions to the history of the landscape by their study of field archaeology in Britain both in the interwar period and in the years after the Second World War. In the fifties and sixties W. G. Hoskins and M. W. Beresford, economic historians with an eye for country, showed how the observation and recording of field evidence greatly illuminate the study of documents. Geographers, too, trained in the tradition of fieldwork, made their contribution, and a generation or more of teachers in schools, colleges and adult education centres has spread the gospel so that the study of field evidence is now regarded in several disciplines as being in every sense as important as the study of other primary documents. Landscapes and documents is a collection of essays based on papers first read at a conference of adult education tutors at Bury St Edmunds in May 1972. The conference aimed to stress the need for those engaged in history to use all types of evidence in their attempts to reconstruct the past. It was felt that archaeologists and local historians should be brought closer together and should aim, with the aid of related disciplines, at “total history”. The conference concentrated on one method of achieving integration : the study of landscape history. A short editorial introduction is followed by a chapter entitled ‘Archaeologists and historians’ by David Dymond who examines the relationships between archaeology and history, suggesting that they might be brought closer
173
Evans may be faulted on few points of detail. The reader may be surprised to find that glaciers from Yorkshire deposited pebble flint along the east coast of Ireland (p. 62). Confusion may also arise from the commentary on the pollen diagram from Barfield Tarn (p. 11I) in which it is stated that, following the elm decline, regeneration of woodland did not occur. The diagram certainly shows various woodland constituents undergoing a partial decline, but the pollen curves for birch and hazel, pioneer regeneration taxa, increase their representation. There is a contradiction over whether Pfuntugo lunceoluta in the pollen record is an indicator of past pastoral (p. I1 1) or arable (p. 13 1) land use; it is in fact commonly associated with both at the present day. In his survey of the environmental history of the North York Moors (pp. 130-4) Evans omits mention of the palynological research of 1. G. Simmons and his associates. The author also appears to be unaware of the work of Pennington and Lishman which casts doubt on palaeoclimatic inferences drawn from the chemical analysis of lake sediments (pp. 77 and 145). The reviewer found the notes and referencing system to be a most frustrating aspect of the book. In order to trace a reference it is necessary to go from the text to a section of notes which then directs the reader to the bibliography. Overall, however, John Evans is to be congratulated on providing such a lucid introduction to a complex interdisciplinary field. The readable style, numerous apt diagrams and extensive bibliography provide a stimulating diet and many jumping-off points for more detailed study. The book should appeal to all who are interested in environmental reconstruction, both within the British Isles and also elsewhere. The Queen’s Unklersity of Belfast
KEVIN J. EDWARDS
E. POLLARD, M. D. HOOPER and N. W. MOORE, Hedges (London : Collins, New Naturalist Series, 1974. Pp. 256. E3.50) This addition to the New Naturalist series examines three aspects of hedgerows within Great Britain: their history, their flora and fauna, and their contemporary place in rural economies. The historical sections of the monograph are essentially by Hooper who considers the evolution of enclosed landscapes in Britain and discusses the origin and development of hedge flora, in particular the shrub element, in relation to techniques of dating hedgerows. The gradual enclosure of many parts of Britain up to the mid-eighteenth century is subjected to an impressively effective and well-exemplified lightning sketch where one and a half millennia pass in twelve pages. Next, enclosures by act and award explain the extension and frequent intensification of the hedged landscape in Georgian Britain. Judicious use of example again adds much to the story. Nineteenth-century controversies over the use of hedgerows as enclosures are then outlined. The various prize essays condemning hedges in the early numbers of the Journul of the Royal Agricultural Society oj England might have been used more fully, in spite of the fact that Grant’s examples from Devon and Grigor’s strictures on overwide Norfolk hedges would have been familiar to many readers. Indeed, many of the Society’s prize essays on county agriculture, from 1841 onwards, discuss the state of hedgerows, a source untapped by Hooper. There is, in fact, a leap from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth, with a bridging passage suggesting that “because of shortage of information it is difficult to give a synoptic view of change in the last century but clearly . . . this was a stable period”. Accepting that it was a time of relative stability of field boundaries, though not of agriculture, one nevertheless queries the supposed shortage of information; data do exist, albeit in a variety of little used forms. The post-war trend towards larger fields, and hence fewer field boundaries, and the shift from living hedge to wood and wire fence, conclude the historical review. 12
174
REVIEWS
Species content and species diversity in hedgerows vary in relation to a number of environmental and management factors. Considering the number of shrub species present, Hooper claims that “72% of the variation between hedges can be accounted for by age”. He has calculated that, generally, age of hedge = (110 x shrub species number) +30. One thus has a colonization rate of approximately one new shrub species per century, an elegantly simple general relationship between age of hedgerow and its shrub content. Two aspects of this formula have worried the reviewer, One is the straight line curve described by the regression equation. A straight line is almost as abhorrent to nature as a vacuum. If a form of succession is taking place (which Hooper elsewhere suggests is possible) a sigmoid curve would be expected, perhaps truncated and modified by the peculiar nature of the hedgerow habitat type. Because the time scale involved is so great, an experiment designed to monitor and explain the processes involved cannot be undertaken, though work is being undertaken at Monks Wood, Birmingham and elsewhere on contemporary ecological processes acting in and on hedges. Secondly, to whom is the hypothesis of value? To the historical ecologist it may indicate a descriptive but unexplained relationship. To the historical geographer and local historian it offers a crude predictive tool whereby, in the absence of documentation, a distinction can nevertheless be made between, say, Saxon, Tudor and Georgian hedges; but, given the confidence limits of the model, changes within a shorter time period cannot be inferred. In spite of these comments, one has no hesitation in recommending this informative and stimulating historical introduction to hedgerow studies. University of Birmingham
P. J. JARVIS
ALAN ROGERSand TREVOR ROWLEY, Landscapes and Documents
(London: Bedford Square Press of the National Council of Social Service for the Standing Conference for Local History, 1974. Pp. 85. El-50)
MICHAEL ASTON and TREVOR ROWLEY, Landscape Archaeology: An Introduction to Fieldwork Techniques on Post-Roman Landscapes (Newton Abbot: David and Charles,
1974. Pp. 217. E5.50) The study of landscape history has gained popularity in recent years partly perhaps as a result of the example and enthusiasm of a number of pioneer workers. Among archaeologists, 0. G. S. Crawford and Sir Cyril Fox made outstanding contributions to the history of the landscape by their study of field archaeology in Britain both in the interwar period and in the years after the Second World War. In the fifties and sixties W. G. Hoskins and M. W. Beresford, economic historians with an eye for country, showed how the observation and recording of field evidence greatly illuminate the study of documents. Geographers, too, trained in the tradition of fieldwork, made their contribution, and a generation or more of teachers in schools, colleges and adult education centres has spread the gospel so that the study of field evidence is now regarded in several disciplines as being in every sense as important as the study of other primary documents. Landscapes and documents is a collection of essays based on papers first read at a conference of adult education tutors at Bury St Edmunds in May 1972. The conference aimed to stress the need for those engaged in history to use all types of evidence in their attempts to reconstruct the past. It was felt that archaeologists and local historians should be brought closer together and should aim, with the aid of related disciplines, at “total history”. The conference concentrated on one method of achieving integration : the study of landscape history. A short editorial introduction is followed by a chapter entitled ‘Archaeologists and historians’ by David Dymond who examines the relationships between archaeology and history, suggesting that they might be brought closer