Oast Houses in Kent

Oast houses are a feature of Eastern and Southeastern England, particularly Kent. So you can imagine on at Hunsford if you wish, although they also crop up in Surrey (around the town of D__________ , and certainly near to Box Hill) and also in Hampshire. Jane Austen would have been very familiar with them, being as how Chawton is near to Alton, and Alton was a major market for hops. Beer again, you see. Most oast houses are round, and originally would have no windows. The two storeys would be used as follows:

The ground floor was a fireplace. The upper level was just open beams, radiating out like the spokes of a wheel, onto which were placed mesh screens. the freshly, harvested hop heads would be dried on the meshes before being taken to the brewery.

The single oast house has no windows- does that mean it's still in use? It has the turret-like roof, but no chimney vent, so maybe it isn't. The triple row of oast houses do have their cute chimneys still, but also windows... which means that they are almost certainly converted into dwellings or other uses. I must admit, it would be fun to live in one. And, just for the record, I think they are a product of the Ag Rev and later- certainly the concept isn't nearly as old as malt houses.

Both these photos are from Geograph, and they are both Kent.

Malthouse in Porlock, Somerset

Time was when every farm would have had its own malthouse-an outbuilding where the barley grains would be put on racks to sprout, and then spread out on the floor below to dry to make malt. As in "This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built". And what was the malt for? Why ale, of course! The Agricultural Revolution didn't change the need for malt houses, but when the traditional areas stopped growing barley, the malthouses were often converted to other uses. With the growth of the railway system in the 1830's, they started building big commercial malting premises near to the railway stations, and farm malthouses gradually fell into disuse. The caption for this particular malthouse, which is from the lovely Geograph site again, says that it's the only one left in Somerset. I'm surprised that it exists at all, quite frankly.

Not all of this building is a malthouse- I'm sure it's just the bit on the far end with no windows and an outside set of steps.

There isn't any particular relevance to Jane Austen about this particular site, although you could imagine Col. Brandon's estate having farms like this, if you like. Or alternatively, you could imagine it belonging to the "Person from Porlock " who so rudely interrrupted Coleridge when he was daydreaming about Kubla Khan, thus depriving the world of a great epic poem....

Laterfarm buildings

The trouble with old farm buildings like these is that unless you can see inside them, and get a good idea of proportions, it's really hard to tell what they were originally built for. I think this is a stable block and machinery barn- if the former were for cows the doors would be wider and a bit lower. Anyway, I thought I'd show it to you as something fairly typical in Southeast England-a group buildings of good age and unclear purpose. Just the kind of thing to baffle Spencer with on one of his walks. ;-)

New-style stables

Plans for the "new " farmsteads liked to emphasize efficiency, and so "new" stables were often in a line as part of that inner-facing quadrangle. Diane might like to correct me, but I think that this is more of a loose-box type of arrangement- certainly the horses get to see a lot more this way! It's not the case here, but often there would be feed storage above these- not so sure that there would be sleeping accommodations, though.

This happens to be an urban stable in Edinburgh, but apart from being made of stone, it could be just about anywhere. Imagine Mr Robert Martin with such a range, but in brick with a tiled roof.

Chawton House Stables

You would be forgiven for thinking that this was a private house, because nowadays it is precisely that. Built in 1590-ish, it is the original stable block for Chawton house, and typical, if rather grand, of stables built before the Ag Rev. The basic design was the same for a house, barn or almost any other farm building. The horses would be walked in through the front door, probably tethered in pairs along the wall, with a wooden partition to stop them kicking each other, wooden or metal mangers on the walls, and a drain in the centre of the floor. One wing was probably a tack room ; the second storey would be for the storage of hay and feed, and probably provided sleeping for the stable staff.

I imagine that the farm horses would share the place with the riding horses; that was the usual arrangement.

Welsh Goats

Goats undoubtedly existed in eighteenth century England. Since they ate anything, provided milk and a very sturdy skin, even the poorest of the rural poor aimed to have one. But perhaps because of their low status, they did not attract much attention from the Improvers. Anyway, there's not much said about goats until the late 1870's, when the possibility of goat hair in textile production was seriously investigated. As far as I know, no goats in Jane Austen, either. (Prove me wrong, somebody!)

Nevertheless, Shiels, in his exhaustive paintings of British livestock, came up with this life-size painting of two Welsh Goats, some time before 1842. It didn't make the fashionable print-books of his works, though. Pity.

My personal experience of English goats is that they are resourceful, rather grumpy around strangers, and give a good product for great cheese. Their coats are wonderfully silky, too.

A Post-enclosure Farmhouse

The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions marked the end of what is known as "vernacular architecture"- the building of structures in local materials, to local traditional styles by local craftsmen. This Hampshire farmhouse is in the "new" style- although made of local materials it is classically Georgian in design and there's nothing about it to tell you it's definitely a farmhouse and not, say, a country rectory, a merchant's town-house, or even the home of a sailor. It's a "house", that's all, and if it wasn't for the surrounding buildings you wouldn't know it was a farm. If it wasn't for the local materials, it might as well be at York, or even on the outskirts of Bath.

The picture is from Geograph again. See here: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/28432

"Hartfield pork is not like any other pork. "

This mezzotint of a Moreland painting was first published in 1802. It's cozy rusticity is probably far from the reality of most pig lives, however it does show a couple of things that make it interesting. Firstly, it seems to be a purpose-made building: newish wood and carefully thatched, with a pig-sized doorway with a half-door to let in light, but not draughts. Lots of nice straw for bedding will keep those piggies warm and they will grow faster because of it. Whether the rosy-cheeked farm girl is giving them leftover scraps or specially provided food isn't clear. What is obvious, to me anyway, is that this is definitely the "new" style of pig farming advocated by the Improvers. The pigs themselves, though, are old-style, with long snouts, prick ears and relatively small bodies. Or maybe they are still piglets?

Almost every small-holder and cottager would have tried to have a pig to keep them in bacon over the winter. What happened with the changes of the Agricultural revolution and population drift was that areas close to the great Metropolis (such as Hartfield, and perhaps even Longbourn) often tended to to specialise in larger-scale pig rearing. So apart from donating the odd leg of pork to the needy of the village, you may like to imagine Mr Woodhouse breeding for the London market.

Pitstone Windmill

This is the windmill that you can see in Spencer's first photo from Ivinghoe Beacon. It's a 'post' mill, so called because the whole tall top can be rotated around a central post, thus taking advantage of any wind from any direction. It was built in 1627, restored by volunteers, and is in the care of the National Trust.
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-pitstonewindmill/

Windmills and watermills are very ancient edifices; they served a whole village and would have been a prominent feature pre- Enclosure. I don't really know what happened to milling arrangements after the Agricultural Revolution, but it's not something that you would expect to find in every farm.

The picture is from Flicr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skinnyde/21475105/
And very pretty it is, too!

Do you remember Adlestrop?

You might remember Adlestrop as being a stop on a railway line in somebody's poem. You might even remember Adlestrop as the location of a big house and rectory belonging to Mrs Austen's family, which was where they were staying when they suddenly got whisked off to Stoneleigh Abbey.

Well, this is neither house, but it is just down the road. A rather fanciful 18th century dovecote, in a nice Cotswold-y stone. You might imagine it as Col. Brandon's dovecote, since he has one.

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/102315

Inside the dovecote at a house "near Westerham"

Dovecotes could be really simple or very fancy. This one, as you can see, is very large. I picked it because it's from a country house near Westerham, Kent. When Mr Collins writes his first letter announcing his visit , his address is "near Westerham", so you can imagine this as an appendage to Rosings Park, or if you wish, to Hunsford parsonage. I personally think it's a bit too grand for that, but never mind...

Estate Cottages

These days it is very fashionable to lambast the eighteenth and nineteenth century improvers for demolishing whole villages and removing their occupants to other houses out of sight of the big house. Personally, don't join in this vituperation; if I was a cottager living in a hovel right at the Lord's front door, and he built me a nice new cottage out of his sight- so I wouldn't have to look at his ancestral pile every morning, I might actually be quite pleased.

The link is a photo of five Hampshire cottages built in East Stratton, Hampshire. Personally I think the local Squire did a good job, in this case. Do you agree?

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/354668

Oh, and if you look at the map below the photo, you can see "New Farm"; a nice square of beige-y brown, that just might be 'new' after enclosure.

( Oh, and the word hovel originally meant a shed to put cows in- it's a synonym of byre. The fact that it was applied to people's homes suggests much; it also makes me realise just how badly -off the cows were- they often had nothing at all....)

A Farm-house Elevated Into a Cottage

This 'cottage' near Alresford in Jane Austen's Hampshire is of the classic three-unit plan: it has one and a half storeys, a chimney at either end, and an off-centre front door. That door indicates that originally, if not now, there was a cross-passage straight through the house and out the back. The cross-passage was so that animals could be taken through the house and out to a pen in the back, or if the weather was bad, kept inside the house itself in the central "hall" room. Of the two end rooms , one would be the parlour, or best room, and the other the pantry/buttery for storage. The half storey under the eaves would be for storage of crops and equipment.

This type of house plan dates back to the fourteenth century; and the basic plan continued to be used right up to the nineteenth, all over England. It is typical of the kind of farmhouse attached to a small-holding that tended to disappear with Enclosure. A newer, smarter farmhouse was probably built on the enclosed acreage , and this one let out, sometimes being divided up into two or more cottages. Or, as in the case of the village of Uppercross, it might be gussied up for the newly-married son of the local squire.

That's the generality anyway. I don't know this particular house (it's from Geograph, again) but it looks like the kind of farm that was built in the prosperous years after the dissolution of the monasteries. That 'half-hipped' roof is a good style for thatch- it helps the rain run off faster than a gable-end would. The bricks are probably Victorian , though; I can't tell from this photo, but they often are. The wall is local stone - it's known to geologists as Upper Greensand, and the locals usually as Bargate.

Great Coxwell, Oxon. Tithe Barn

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-greatcoxwellbarn/w-greatcoxwellbarn-brief_history.htm

Another "Tithe Barn" that's not strictly speaking a tithe barn , this monastic edifice was built of cotswold rubble-stone near Faringdon. No hipped roof here, and only one door. It supplied the far-way Beaulieu Abbey , close to Southampton.

It now belongs tot the National Trust: if you are an architecture geek you could click on that link above to compare the interior of this barn with the Wanborough one. This has a 'Queen-post' roof and stone plinths for the supporting columns.

Manor Farm

Manor Farm is between Portsmouth and Southampton and is run as a public education/tourist attraction. it has the classic "eighteenth century" u-shape of farm buildings with animal pens in the middle, some very old wooden construction buildings where the wall has been bricked in later (a process called "nogging"), hipped and half-hipped roofs that would originally have been thatched, and what looks from here like a fifteenth century house at the back.

It looks like Shire horse in the front of the pic.

The Great Barn, Wanborough, #2

The Great Barn, as I said, was built as big as a church, and in the same way. That's because it need to be as large an open, unrestricted space as possible. The barn has side "aisles" to make it as wide as possible. The columns are whole trees standing on stone blocks, and the roof , which is known as a crown-post roof, is the earliest design of Medieval large-scale roof that exists in England. So this barn really is quite something special,and it surprises me not one jot that it should now be a tourist centre.

The Great Barn, Wanborough #1

Well, it doesn't really look very interesting, does it? A barn is a barn, right? They all look the same, right?

Well, this one is a bit different. First, it's absolutely huge. Perhaps the picture doesn't do it justice, but it's bigger than most country churches. You can see the big door on the side, where the loaded cart went in. The cart did NOT come out that end door; that's a relatively new adaptation for visitors. There was another exit door on the other side which, up until 1974 at least, was functioning.

Notice the roof - in stead of "gable" ends , this barn has a steeply-pitched "hipped" roof with a little air vent at the top. That's because it used to be thatched, but now it's tiled with locally-made "Farnham" pantiles, which came in in the eighteenth century. The barn itself isn't eighteenth century- it was built around 1388, when the whole manor was owned by Waverley Abbey, and it would a have held the Abbey 's corn and hay. There probably never was much of a village here, though, and it probably disappeared well before Henry VIII dissolved Waverley Abbey in 1536. He sold the whole manor to a great Lord (whose name I don't remember) and it remained under and absentee landlord for centuries afterwards. However, when I first found this barn it was till a fully-functioning entity- it had hay in it, and a threshing floor. How it survived for 620+ years without being adapted or destroyed is a minor miracle.

Map of The Hog's Back, Surrey

This scrap of map is courtesy of the Ordnance Survey, the official map-making entity of the British Government. Originally created during the Napoleonic Wars to completely map the whole kingdom for military purposes, it now produces the best-known and best-loved general purpose maps in Britain. This map is on a scale of 1:50,00 ; that means that one blue grid-square represents one square kilometre of land. On this section, a "mile" scale should be visible at the bottom edge.

This particular bit of Britain happened to be part of my undergrad dissertation all those years ago, and I'm putting this up now to show you a couple of things. The first is that big thick green line that goes from east to west across the map . It's the A31 road and it follows the line of a chalk ridge called The Hog's back. To the north of this road is the parish of Wanborough; I hope you can see that there are very few houses in this parish ( houses and other buildings are little beige-y blocks). There's very few buildings because it's all chalk up there- awful for building, and not much use for growing crops- in theory! but as you will see in the next pic, it contains an enormous old barn.

Other interesting things on the map- some prehistoric tumuli, a Roman villa, and that red diamond thingy- an ancient medieval trackway known as the Pilgrim's Way. You can probably find public phone booths, brown wiggly contour lines that show the Hog's Back ridge , a set of parallel dashed lines at Wanborough showing another very old unpaved road, red dashes for footpaths, black crosses and black dots with crosses on them (church with no spire/church with spire) MS (milestone) and PC (public convenience) What else would you need on a map?:-)

Tithe Barn at Basing House

Basing House , an enormous mansion near Basingstoke, Hampshire, was burnt to the ground during the English Civil wars of the seventeenth century. Smaller houses and farm buildings were rebuilt on the site. This brick Building is a Tithe barn- designed to hold the tenth of the crop that was the parson's portion- not just for himself but to provide for the needy if necessary. Many villages have a 'tithe barn', not all genuine.

When the open fields were enclosed, the parson was often granted an allotment of land in lieu of the tithe, which effectively made him a farmer. Such land is often named "Glebe", and glebe fields are commonly found near churches today.

A barn is a barn is a barn, no?

Well, actually, no. Barns are not always alike . But they have a certain function - they are where they store the hay, and the corn to be threshed. So they tend to look more or less the same at first glance, just like a garage is a garage, and is where you put your car. Old barns in today's world are sometimes used as machinery sheds, or converted to animal stalls, and if in the right place and not needed any more, they can even be converted into desirable residences for yuppies .

What you see in this picture, which was taken in Jane Austen's Hampshire, is the kind of farm that was built after enclosure, when the land was divided up and the farmer built something close to his fields rather than continue to house himself and his animals within the village. It's the usual three-sides-of-a-square arrangement, and you can see the barn, all black, at the back. The "front door" of the barn sticks out- it's very large, to acommodate a loaded haycart . The cart would be taken in through the door, unloaded, and then taken out the other door on the other side of the barn. This "out" door would be smaller, because the cart would be empty. Why two doors? Well, if you've ever tried to turn a team of eight oxen- or even two horses- in a confined space with a heavy wagon behind them, you'd know why!

That funny building in front of the barn is a granary. This is where threshed grain would be stored. The mushroom-shaped staddle stones on the "legs" of the granary were to keep the grain dry in wet weather and also to keep out vermin. They'll usually tell you it's to keep out rats, but rabbits squirrels , weasels and other small animals might well be interested, and baffled, by the granary. Human access would be via a removable wooden ramp up to a raised door- which you can't see, of course, in this picture!

Granaries like this are not a sign of an 'enclosure' farm- they date back to an earlier time. Indeed, there's one in the village where I grew up with is seventeenth century or older. With my usual sense of timing I didn't find out about it until I grew up and moved out!

This photo is another one from geograph.org. uk. The farm is in Hannington, Hampshire.

Sheep Folded on a Turnip Field

This photo, which I found on the wonderful Geograph website, is available under the 'fair use agreement'. Details of location, photographer etc, can be found at:
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/322565

It's here to prove that sheep did get turnips to eat-and still do. I don't just make all this stuff up, you know.

Romney Marsh Ewe

This Romney Marsh ewe is , as the others, a print form a Shiels portrait. She's here because she's a cutie; I know very little about this breed except that is ancient , very influential, and that it hasn't much changed since Jane Austen's time.

Mr Bennett's Merino Sheep

Not, unfortunately, Mr Bennet of Longbourn, but Mr Bennett. M.P., of Pyt House, Wiltshire. Print from another life-size portrait by Shiels. Merino wool from Spain, in production since the middle ages, was in great demand throughout Europe. Export of the sheep was banned by the controlling guild, but once the Industrial Revolution got under way, the demand for the finest wool increased rapidly. Merinos reached Germany in 1765 , France in 1768, Britain in 1785-ish, , South Africa in 1789, and from there to Australia and New Zealand. The first to bring them to England was Sir Joseph Banks; then some were acquired by King George III. By 1811, Coke had started a Merino Society, but had to admit that the lambs produced from crossing his Southdown ewes were not thriving. Crosses with English longwools didn't produce either a wool animal or a meat one, either. However, many modern English breeds have some Merino ancestry, even though the pure breed is not common. Merinos and Corriedales (a Merino/Longwool cross) are of commercial importance still in the Southern Hemisphere.

I don't know if the ewes are ever horned; certainly most Merino rams have pretty solid-looking headgear. Apparently they are not very tasty?

Lincoln Longwool

Time was when the long-wool sheep of Lincolnshire was the main source of English woollens, the fleece being 'wondrously heavy, and sends down long unctuous wool in pendulous masses almost to the ground'. However, with the import of cheap merino wool in the 1770's, and remoteness from major markets in the 80's and 90's, the old-style Lincoln began to disappear. Arthur Young, thought the breed had been 'entirely spoiled by breeding for quantity of wool only'. Soon after, however, Lincolns were cross-bred for meat production, and began to look radically different. This 1842 print by Shiels is of 'The Old Lincoln breed ram, bred by Mr Jex. St. Jermains, near Lynne, county of Norfolk' is about as close as we can get to imagining the unimproved breed.

I think he'd have made good carpet wool, if nothing else!

Dishley Leicester

This is Robert Bakewell's contribution to sheep breeding-a solid, fast-fattening, fast-maturing , short-legged, docile carcass that the poor could afford and enjoy. Not everyone approved of the fattiness of them, though those that complained were usually rival breeders. Print from an original life-sized painting by Shiels ,published in Low's book of 1842.

My father's affection for Miss Cuthbert is as lively as ever, and he begs that you will not neglect to send him intelligence of her or her brother, whenever you have any to send. I am likewise to tell you that one of his Leicestershire sheep, sold to the butcher last week, weighed 27 lb. and 1/4 per quarter. Jane to Cassandra, Saturday November 17, 1798

Coke of Holkham and his sheep

That's the great man on the left. Holkham Hall, his great stately home and exhibition centre is in the background there. He started with the Norfolk Horn sheep- black faced, shaggy and skinny, with horns, and mixed them with just about anything and everything in the way of breeds. He also worked to popularise the Southdown, and turn it into a "gentleman's sheep". These are definitely not the white teddy-bearish Southdowns of today, anyway. Apparently one of the problems with the Norfolk Horn was that it didn't like being fenced in!

The shepherds' smocks fascinate me. Other farmers wore smocks too, but shepherd ones seem to be longer than most.

86 Ox-power traction

Written at the bottom of this drawing is the following:

"This mill was drawn on the 28th of March 1797 from
Regency Square to ye Dyke Road Brighton a distance of over two
miles by 86 oxen which belonged to the following gentlemen.." (the rest is
unreadable)

If you click on the picture you'll get a bigger version, and you'll be able to see the white-smocked farmers directing their teams with long sticks. Some sticks have rings at the ends - for what reason I do not know.

Although this picture isn't directly related to farming, it does show what was involved in directing an ox-team. These beasts seem to be of the Sussex breed.

In those days, most farmers expected to work an ox for five or six years before slaughtering it for sale. They were not overworked as it was believed that making the animals exert themselves to their full was detrimental to their fattening abilities. Training an animal started at about two and a half years .They were yoked in sixes or eights, with teams of twelve working very stiff land.

The Weald and Downland Museum in Sussex is training a pair of Sussex cattle to work in the same way. See :http://www.wealddown.co.uk/livestock-traditional-breeds-cattle-sheep-pigs.htm#cattle

Harriet's Little Welsh Cow

"... she had spent two very happy months with them, and now loved to
talk of the pleasures of her visit, and describe the many comforts and wonders
of the place. Emma encouraged her talkativeness -- amused by such a picture of
another set of beings, and enjoying the youthful simplicity which could speak
with so much exultation of Mrs. Martin's having "two parlours, two very good
parlours indeed; one of them quite as large as Mrs. Goddard's drawing-room; and
of her having an upper maid who had lived five-and-twenty years with her; and of their having eight cows, two of them Alderneys, and one a little Welch cow, a
very pretty little Welch cow, indeed; and of Mrs. Martin's saying, as she was so
fond of it, it should be called her cow; "

Cattle born in the Welsh mountains were the stock of the droving trade, being herded down to eh midland pasturelands, fattened for several years, and then sent on to the London market. The Welsh Black wasn't really a developed breed in Jane Austen's time, although the commonest colouring was as in the picture above. These two cows, painted by Daniel Clowes in 1825, were named Bethal and Bran. They were owned by Sir Robert Vaughn , who was interested in developing the milking qualities of this breed. It may not be obvious in the scan, but Bethel and Bran have brass horn finials, presumably to make them a little less dangerous to their milkman!

Since Harriet is so emphatic about her 'little' cow, it just might be that it was of the kind known as an 'Anglesey Runt'. From:, A Topographical Dictionary of Wales (1849), pp. 25-52. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=47797.

"In this county, where the rearing of cattle is in most cases the
farmer's principal object, and the dairy is almost entirely neglected, the
calves are not weaned until they arrive at double the age at which they are
generally weaned in other counties. This partly accounts for the bull-like
appearance of the oxen about the head and dewlap; but it is a received opinion
that they are hardier in consequence, and may be kept on coarser pasture. The
characteristics of the choice Anglesey oxen, commonly called Runts from their
small size and peculiar appearance, are (says the Rev. W. Davies, in his View of
the Agriculture of North Wales) the same in most points with those of the Roman
oxen described by Columella. Their colour is coal-black, with white appendages;
they have remarkably broad ribs, high and wide hips, deep chest, large dewlap,
flat face, and long horns turning upwards: their average weight, when fat, at
three or four years old, is from eight to eleven score lb. per quarter. These
deep-chested and short-legged oxen are much esteemed by the graziers for their
aptness to fatten; but they are not quite so well adapted for
draught."

Unfortunately, I don't know who Davies was, sorry.

Edward Ferrars, Farmer

"Mrs. Jennings's prophecies, though rather jumbled together, were
chiefly fulfilled; for she was able to visit Edward and his wife in their
Parsonage by Michaelmas, and she found in Elinor and her husband, as she really
believed, one of the happiest [couples] in the world. They had in fact nothing
to wish for, but the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne, and rather better
pasturage for their cows. "

One can only speculate as to what Parson Ferrars' cows actually looked like, but this is a possibility. The Sheeted Somerset breed was much mentioned from about 1722 onwards . Low's book of 1842 describes both polled and horned varieties , but also indicates that they were becoming rare. One particular herd was associated with Broadlands House in Hampshire from 1736 but elswhere it seems to have died out. Pity!

One of the worlds most famous bovine products was first created and stored in the limestone caves near the Somerset village of Cheddar, which makes me wonder how much of a cheese-maker Mrs Ferrars was.

Robert Bakewell

Here's the famous farmer as he is not often portrayed- mounted on one of the horses he bred. Painting by Boultbee, some time before 1795.

His horse looks rather like a 'Yorkshire Horse', the general all-purpose riding and light carriage horse that later became known as a Cleveland Bay.

Ware to Cold Christmas.

This walk was really interesting to me as it was not altogether obvious what the story was. The landscape was not obviously "Planned Countryside" created from enclosure of Champion landscape, or "Ancient Countryside" enclosed well before the agricultural revolution. Very large arable fields contrasted with "Severall" features such as sinuous hedgerows and a fair amount of woods - though nothing like the amount to the South of Hertford and Ware. The number of "Ancient Countryside" clues on the map, such as moated houses and lots of rights of way meant I had not expected the huge size of some of the fields.

My guess is that though this countryside was no doubt less wooded than the area south of Hertford around Broxbourne Woods, Wormley Wood, The Great Wood, etc, it was "Severall." The size of these fields may owe more to the subsidised destruction of hedgerows in the seventies and eighties than the Agricultural Revolution. In fact, in places you could see where hedgerows had been.

This is no more than an inexpert guess though and I would like to hear Caroline's opinion on the subject.

Chillingham White Cattle

The White Cattle of Chillingham in Northumberland have been enclosed (or, if you like, emparked) since medieval times, and allowed to be wild. Some were hunted for meat and sport (or just euthenised after injury) as you can see from this engraving by Thomas Bewick. Nowadays they are studied for their gene pool and because they are, literally "wild", apart from the occasional hay feed in winter. Records show that some culling and selection went on (under the supervision of Charles Darwin, no less ) but no culling, castrating or other interference has been done since about the end of World War I .

White "Forest " Cattle

This engraving, from a painting by Shiels, dates from about 1840. The White , or "Forest" cattle of South Wales, were another unimproved breed, almost invariably of the colouring shown on this cow. White cattle had, and have, an almost mythical status as direct descendents of the wild Aurochs, connected to the Roman cult of Mithras, and generally of ancient and mysterious stock. These are not the same as the White Park Cattle of Chillingham and elsewhere, though they could be related.

Hollow Way ?

Looks like a track for feet only, doesn't it?

Downs- Dry Valley

An abrupt break of slope- shows how, even in the winter, the chalk is a really "dry" land- very porous rock, very thin soil above it. "Dry Valleys" are thought to have formed

in glacial and periglacial times when the rock would ahve been frozen, so water flowed on the surface. (NB, much of the Chalk lands in Britain are south of the last major ice sheet, so you cannot really see any particularly glacial features.) Anyway, the trees seem to like it in the bottom there, even if they don't grow on the top.

Soil Types Chilterns to Vale

Again, Spencer can explain...

Nothing New Under The Sun

I'll let Spencer explain this one! ;-)

Close-up pf the Ridge and Furrow

A close-up of that Ridge and Furrow

Downs- Ivinghoe Beacon

This pic shows a sharp change in land use with the break of slope.

Spencer's photo's #1

Spencer took this photo on Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire. In the middleground is a field with what looks like the remains of an ancient Ridge&Furrow field pattern. The foreground field lines are modern, I am sure. Click on the photo for a bigger pic. That Windmill looks abit odd, stuck there in the middle of the field...

There's agood map of this picture at:http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=print&X=495000.044346869&Y=217000.116830443&gride=494853.044346869&gridn=216648.116830443&scale=25000&coordsys=gb&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=&place=&width=600&height=500&db=freegaz&keepicon=true

Unimproved Gloucester Cow

This is Blossom; a lousy copy of a painting that's in not-too-good condition anyway at the Edward Jenner Museum in Berkely, Gloucestershire. Blossom is famous because she gave her milkmaid Sarah the cowpox, and Dr Jenner used the infection to vaccinate a little boy against smallpox. However, Blossom is here because she's an example of a breed that didn't get "improved" in the Agricultural Revolution. She's dark brown, with that "finch back", i.e. she's got a white stripe from nose to tail. She doesn't look like much of a cow, does she? Yet Gloucesters were , amongst other things, responsible for supplying the milk for Double Gloucester cheese.

Shorthorn Cow

This Shorthorn heifer is dated 1811. She's been painted in her stall, probably because she spent her time there, rather than outside. Shorthorns were the pride of the nineteenth century improvers, and commanded high prices. She's obviously lumpy, and it's probably real, not fake. Although "fat beef" was the aim, it was as much so that the fat could be rendered into tallow as it was to provide more calories.

Southwest England

Okay, this one was created the old-fashioned way. It's not in the book, but any discussion of JA would not be complete without Southwest (or South-west) England on some kind of map.

Fig 28map

This is the Map of Northern England- dark spots are moorland 1940. Scribble is JA locations, plus a few extras, just to get you orientated.

The Agricultural Revolution book .

Figure 7-with Austen locations added (and a bit more)