Be Your Own Landscape Detective

Landscape history uses clues in the everyday landscape - buildings, roads, fields, hedges - together with maps and documents to find out how the landscape was organised in the past and how it developed into the modern day. Reconstruction of the past is not a difficult task, and with Richard Muir as the expert guide the reader is soon brought face to face with a dazzling array of historical clues quite literally under his feet. Both accessible and informative, this guide from the leading popular writer on the history of the landscape demonstrates that the scenery of countryside and suburb can be read like a book. It also exposes many of the popular myths that have grown up around the landscape such as the Black Death being responsible for the depopulation of the countryside, and old woods being the last relics of the ancient wild wood that once covered all of the country. "Where You Are" is all-embracing in its approach and contains a vast wealth of information. There is no comparable guide to reading the landscape and Richard Muir has created a format that the general reader with an interest in understanding the history that lies all around us will find inspiring.