Lmst

OnlineFirst - "The wood storks of Lake Somerset: Multispecies landscapes of the Holocene/Anthropocene boundary event" by Zachary Caple:

#planetarytransition #colonialcapitalistinvasions #nicheconstruction #multispeciesethnography #landscapehistory #Florida

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/25148486251350860

I love looking down into this valley and knowing the layers of history both under and on the surface of the landscape:

On the distant, barely-visible hilltops opposite are Iron Age fortifications, which may very well have seen continuous usage through and after the Roman period, since we're well north of Hadrian's Wall.

The same ridge was where the Scottish army camped before the Battle of Flodden was fought in September 1513, on a moor just over the horizon.

The sloping hill in front is the medieval glebe land, belonging to the living of the church (St Michael and All Angels, just hidden behind the yew tree on the left), with the remains of the (probably) 16th Century Parson's Tower, and earthworks associated with the medieval castle and village.

Where the yew tree is now planted was the site of the old parsonage, likely built as a more comfortable replacement to the Parson's Tower after the end of border warfare in the 17th Century. Demolished in the mid 19th century, the parsonage was said to be a beautiful, atmospheric building, complete with several ghosts.

The castle tower visible here are 19th century; it underwent major rebuilding in the 18th and 19th centuries, but there are medieval foundations to several of the other towers.

I love taking people around this landscape and telling the hidden stories.

#Northumberland #History #LandscapeHistory

The top of a gravel drive that curves away around a square, sandstone castle turret. The broad swathes of mown grass beside the drive are lit green-gold by low, evening sunlight, while a large, dark yew tree looms in the side of the photo. Beyond a fence, rough pasture slopes down and away, with the lumpy, grass-covered base of a ruined stone tower, and a wandering Belted Galloway cow and her calf. In the distance are dark trees, the sun glancing through the tops of them, and beyond that the hazy, grey lines of low hills on the far side of the valley.

Community greens (Ecology 🏞️)

Community Greens, sometimes referred to as backyard commons, urban commons, or pocket neighborhoods, are shared open green spaces on the inside of city blocks, created either when residents merge backyard space or reclaim underutilized urban land such as vacant lots and alleyways. These shared spaces are communally used and managed only by ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_greens

#CommunityGreens #Parks #Ecology #Landscape #CommonLand #LandscapeHistory

@Rachelburch

I love hollow ways
Worn-down tracks going somewhere
Peopled with travellers

#haiku #HollowWays #landscapeHistory #landscapeArchaeology #DeepTime #Travellers

Late afternoon dog walk. I love this view, looking across north Northumberland to the Borders and the three peaks of the Eildon.

On those distant slopes, Thomas the Rhymer met the fairy queen (or 'queen of an unco' land' as she was in the oldest version we have) and went with her into the hills.

There, many years later, Canobie Dick tried and failed to wake the sleeping King Arthur in a torchlit chamber under the same hills.

A landmark visible from virtually every raised point in the whole region and easily identifiable, no wonder it was used as the site of a Bronze and later Iron Age settlement, then the Roman fort of Trimontium, and went down in legend as a place of magic and mystery.

#Northumberland #ScottishBorders #Folklore #Landscape #LandscapePhotography #EildonHills #History #LandscapeHistory @folklore

A muted, sunset landscape. A faintly pinkish sky above a blue and purple horizon, layers of hills fading into the distance. Three distinct peaks of the Eildon Hills stand alone, higher than the rest. In the nearer landscape, the valley is green and shadowed, lined with dark hedges and sprinkled with clusters of trees. An old, stone farm sits in the bottom of the valley, with long, low barns and a solitary Scots pine towering over it. To the right, on the side of a rise and partly hidden by trees, nestles a small village of slate-roofed houses.

Blue skies and Autumn temperatures suddenly arrived.

Large skein of geese flying overhead, arriving with the colder weather. Folklore says they bring the snow to the hills, and we did have frost overnight.

Traces of history hidden in these photos: where I stood at the top of the hill, above the river, used to be a farm called Henlaw, the name probably referring to "waterhens" aka moorhens. The farm is just a few bumps in the ground and the name is long forgotten and appears on no modern maps, but down below you can still see the marks of the plough on what is now pasture prone to flooding and waterlogging.

Down below is Sandyford Farm, marking an old ford across the river, and the point at which the Pallinsburn runs into the river - the burn said in legend to be named after Paulinus, the missionary bishop who baptised King Edwin of Northumbria not far away from here.

Across the river, in unmarked crop fields, is suspected from a wealth of metal finds to be some sort of early medieval site - unconfirmed, but the archaeologists do keep coming back. A medieval road ran there too, down to a bridge said to be where troops crossed for the battle of Flodden a few miles away.

#Northumberland #landscape #history #histodons #medieval #RuralHistory #LandscapeHistory #folklore #DogsOfMastodon #Autumn #October

Green fields under clear blue skies. Lines of dark trees on the horizon and in the foreground a broad, deep river, lined with willow trees, the water blue where it catches the reflection of the sky and rich brown in the shadow of the trees.

Green fields spread out under blue autumn skies, taken from the vantage point of higher ground and looking out over a flat flood plain to a distant farm nestled on the other side of the little valley. Faint lines of old ploughing can be seen on the flat ground, while a large ash tree casts a long shadow on the little hilltop.

Red hips on a spindly wild rose bush, growing in front of a broad oak trunk.

A chocolate labrador in a blue harness standing alert in thick green grass.

I got a free copy of Britain's Landmarks and Legends: The Fascinating Stories Embedded in Our Landscape by Jo Woolf, (National Trust Books)
to review on the #NetGalley platform, in return for an honest review. Here is what I thought of it:
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/adc83b61-ed05-4ac0-8122-df248c2ff39c
#review #books #bookstodon #NetGalley #JoWoolf #BritainsLandmarksAndLegends #Britain #UK #LandscapeHistory

The book cover: green hillside with the white horse at Uffington and grasses in the foreground.

On my way to the BES #Trees4CBP symposium in Canterbury to present ‘Revealing cultural histories of Scottish woodlands: for restoration and engaging communities’ and to listen to the great range of speakers.
Good to see a few other speakers from Scotland in the programme.
#thicktrunktuesday
#dendrochronology
#Mull
#Scotland
#landscapehistory
#landscapearchaeology
#ReforestingScotland

Inspecting a long-felled coppice oak stool at MICT’s Ardura Community Forest on Mull with my Dendrochronicle colleague Peter Quelch last year - disc sample taken for dendrochronology - shows oaks last coppiced in the early 19thC, but most oaks are single stemmed maidens planted at start of 19thC and were never coppiced. Photo: copyright C Mills 2022.

Native tribes living in the NE US burned forest underbrush to open up the space while keeping the tree cover. I ran across this controlled burn that I think represents how this worked.

The goal was to create an open game park-like space in which people lived alongside the animals they hunted and the crops they grew. This approach was different from how English settlers lived in nature, hence a key aspect of the culture clash.

#NativeAmerican @histodons @histodon #landscapehistory #nature

The remnants of a controlled burn in a forest. The lower ground area is charred while the trees remain unscarred. There is a path running through the middle.

I’m flabbergasted and not a little impressed by the #surveyors’ precision evident on this early #NineteenthCentury cast #iron #mile marker. I have seen distances recorded to the nearest 1/4 mile (440yd resolution); distances recorded to the nearest furlong (220yd resolution); but never one recording distance to the nearest #yard!!! I wonder who needed to know it was exactly 1056yds to Stocks? #Roads #LandscapeHistory (I know I’m cheating but it’s too good not to tag with #FingerPostFriday)

Cast iron mile marker painted white. Some rusting showing through. Black lettering reads ‘TO STOCKS 1/2 MILE 176 YARDS’. Gorgeous black manicle at top pointing left. Hedgerow behind.

Tucked away in this dappled, sylvan scene, a crab-apple #tree (Malus sylvestris) is in full #blossom. This is a #new #wood, growing on #RidgeAndFurrow which reveals its #arable #history. #Woodland #Trees #EnvHist #LandscapeHistory #Nottinghamshire

Light and shade dance together as the sun penetrates this woodland. Shades of green from lime to olive. Light catches on leaves. Trunks are shadowed. Glimpses of sky.

Pleased to see this book chapter now out on enchantment narratives in court performance and how they changed European ideas of the natural world #arthistory #landscapehistory #earlymodern https://www.pennpress.org/9781512823585/landscape-and-authority-in-the-early-modern-world/

Screenshot of title and abstract from JSTOR - The Princely Landscape as Stage: Early Modern Courts in Enchanted Gardens by Katrina Grant

The designed landscape, or garden, stands in for the wider landscape: it is a microcosm of nature, intended to embody an ideal of nature held by the individual or group that created it. In the garden, art and nature work together to generate meaning, and in this they shape how the broader landscape is understood. For courts in Europe in the early modern period, the pleasure garden constructed around the villa or suburban palace was a midpoint between the organized but constrained urban world of the city and the disorganized, often threatening world of the wilderness.¹ Gardens, especially the large-scale.

If, like me, you play #UK #ancient #woodland indicator species #bingo, then your card should be quite full at the moment! Here are two of the best: the flamboyant Wood Anemone (Anemone nemorosa) and the less demonstrative but highly poisonous Dog’s Mercury (Mercuralis perennis). #LandscapeHistory #Biodiversity #Spring

The pure white flower of the Wood Anemone. Star-shaped. Six petals. Yellow anthers. Celery-like three-lobed leaves. In background, Dog’s Mercury. Serrated oval-shaped leaves with tiny green flowers.

While adventuring in nature (best done with @mrcourtney), I love the moments when we run into something man made. It’s a good reminder that every landscape has been touched by man. (Even Native tribes altered the landscape.)

This is a partially quarried stone, with the tool used to split the stone still in place.

@histodons @archaeodons #ruins #stone #landscape #landscapehistory

This image of is a granite rock with a row of holes that have been drilled into it to split it into smaller pieces. The top show places were the stone has been split off.

The is the back side of the previous image, where you can see the scars from previous drill work along the ridge to the left. The edge where previous parts the rock were split off is visible at the right.

The stone tool used to split the rock is still in place. There is an iron strap visible on the right and the iron spike that actually did the splitting is at center.

Hollow ways, carved by the soles of thousands of feet and hooves over generations, are not common in the #English #Midlands. So to find and #walk two in a day, each with their own delightfully distinct character, was just a joy. #SlowWays #Byways #Nottinghamshire #Trees #Hedgerows #Spring #LandscapeHistory

Greening banks topped by hawthorn hedges. Hedgerow trees for arch in the distance. Unmade rutted field track.

Ivy-covered banks and richly wooded. Sunlight pools on a mud track as it shines through the trees.

Just preordered me the #Hellebore #zine upcoming Old Ways issue. Looks great. https://helleborezine.bigcartel.com/product/the-old-ways-issue #Folklore #Myth #History #Archaeology #psychogeography #Occult #Landscape #LandscapeHistory #BritishFolklore #Countryside #Zines #FolkHorror

An open #invitation to join me on my #RiverStride #Walk this #summer. If you are passionate about #UK #rivers #past #present and #future and want to share your expertise and perspectives, just get in touch! Details and dates in the images. #EnvHist #Environment #Floods #Floodplains #Nature #LandscapeHistory #ClimateChange #Pollution #Rewilding

Boosts appreciated to spread the word.

Left: 24 June -15 July 2023 An open invitation to join me to walk and talk rivers past, present, and future

Right: Over the course of three weeks this summer I shall be walking 450km from Barton-upon-Humber (Lincolnshire) to Severn Beach (Avon and Somerset): a trail of two bridges.
For nearly 10 years I have been exploring aspects of our rivers’ histories working alongside historians, archaeologists, fluvio-geomorphologists, place-name scholars and others. I want to learn more, share ideas, and frame future research initiatives that respond to the current challenges our rivers and river communities face.
If you are passionate about the state of our rivers and floodplains I’d love you to come and join me on a stage of this walk, or simply meet me along the way, so that we can talk about all aspects of rivers past, present, and future.
I’m particularly keen to meet stakeholders, environmental professionals, activists, writers, and artists, as well as those who live beside the rivers on my path.

Left with map: DATES FOR THE DIARY

Saturday 24 June BARTON-UPON-HUMBER TO ALKBOROUGH
Sunday 25 June ALKBOROUGH TO BELTON
Monday 26 June BELTON TO WEST STOCKWITH
Tuesday 27 June WEST STOCKWITH TO LITTLEBOROUGH
Wednesday 28 June LITTLEBOROUGH TO BESTHORPE
Thursday 29 June BESTHORPE TO AVERHAM
Friday 30 June AVERHAM TO SHELFORD
Saturday 1 July SHELFORD TO HICKLING
Sunday 2 July HICKLING TO THRUSSINGTON
Monday 3 July THRUSSINGTON TO LEICESTER
Tuesday 4 July RIVERRESEARCH@LEICESTER EVENT
Wednesday 5 July LEICESTER TO HIGH CROSS
Thursday 6 July HIGH CROSS TO BUBBENHALL
Friday 7 July BUBBENHALL TO WARWICK
Saturday 8 July WARWICK TO STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
Sunday 9 July STRATFORD-UPON-AVON TO EVESHAM
Monday 10 July EVESHAM TO BIRLINGHAM
Tuesday 11 July BIRLINGHAM TO APPERLEY
Wednesday 12 July APPERLEY TO GLOUCESTER
Thursday 13 July GLOUCESTER TO ARLINGHAM
Friday 14 July ARLINGHAM TO BERKELEY
Saturday 15 July BERKELEY TO SEVERN BEACH

Right: RSVP
If you would like to join me, or would like to hear more about RiverStride, then please drop me an email: rlcj1@le.ac.uk

Please feel free to send this invitation to others who you think might be interested in getting involved and sharing their knowledge, expertise and perspectives.

Richard Jones is Associate Professor of Landscape History in the Centre for Regional and Local History, University of Leicester.
@rlcj@mstdn.social #RiverStride

My #parish #church. Upton Archiepiscopi, #Nottinghamshire. #Medieval #Architecture #Tower #Roof #ThirteenthCentury #FourteenthCentury #EarlyEnglish #Perpendicular #SaintPeter #SaintPaul #Gravestones #DronePhotography #AerialPhotography #LandscapeHistory #Midlands #History

Vertical view down on to a square church tower. Eight pinnacles on crenellations. Central pinnacle. Below the graveyard with rows of headstones, all casting shadows in bright sunlight. The nave roof runs out of view top centre right.

Can’t help myself. Yet more #LandscapeHistory! A view of the last surviving, still working open-field system in #England. Spring-sown crops and furlong boundaries. #Laxton #Nottinghamshire #Agriculture #Medieval #EarlyModern #History #EnvHist

Dominated by green. A grass baulk separates two areas of early growth wheat. Disappearing to a horizon, on which stands centrally a small stand of trees. Other isolated bushes silhouetted against a blue sky with impressive cloud formations.

A bit of #LandscapeHistory for a Monday. The extraordinary #granite #tramway that delivered #stone from #Haytor on #Dartmoor to the coast eight miles away. Weight and friction meant the heavily loaded wagons did not run away on their downhill journey. Ingenious and beautiful #NineteenthCentury #CivilEngineering #IndustrialArchaeology #Local #Materials

#LandscapeHistory

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