Stretching from the Peak District to the Welsh border and the Irish Sea, Cheshire has a rich diversity of landscapes, some of which it shares with neighbouring counties. This volume, which marks the 30th anniversary of Chester Society for Landscape History, celebrates that diversity, both in and beyond Cheshire, through a series of papers based on members’ original research. It covers features dating from the twelfth century to the twentieth, all of which can still be seen today. These range in topic from moats, field patterns and way-markers to historic buildings, developing towns and lost airfields. It also includes a discussion of the appeal of landscape history as a subject.
Edited by Sharon M. Varey and Graeme J. White
Introduction: Sharon M. Varey and Graeme J. White
Enclosure and Enclosures in Mid- and East Cheshire: Graeme J. White
Medieval Moated Sites in the Cheshire–North Wales Borderland: Ray Jones
A Gazetteer of Moated Sites in the Cheshire–North Wales Borderland
Ways and Meres: Pre-Turnpike Roads, Tracks, Boundaries and their Markers in the East Cheshire Peak District: Tom Swailes
Keys to the Past: Unlocking the Secrets of the Landscape of Peel: Sharon M. Varey
Tracing the Eighteenth-Century Landscape of Thelwall in Cheshire: Mike Taylor
When was Colwyn Bay?: Mike Headon
Cheshire Airfields: A Legacy in the Landscape: Antony Barratt
Landscape as History – Probing its Public Interface: Julie Elizabeth Smalley
Review
Landscapes Past and Present: Cheshire and Beyond (edited by Sharon M. Varey and Graeme J. White) by Nick Higham, The Local Historian, 2017, July p. 254.
Cheshire was traditionally rather overlooked by landscape historians and it is much to the credit of the Chester Society for Landscape History, whose thirtieth anniversary this volume marks, that the balance is being redressed. The book offers a well-edited and well-illustrated collection of eight papers covering diverse aspects of the historic county and beyond. ... While genuinely interesting at the individual level, these papers share little beyond their geographical focus and their desire of the authors to mark the anniversary.
Bibliographic information
Sharon M. Varey and Graeme J. White, Landscapes Past and Present: Cheshire and Beyond, 2016, ISBN 978-1-908258-28-1, £12.99. The e-book (ISBN 978-1-908258-47-2) is currently available through Google Play, ebrary, EBL, EBSCO, Ebook Central, Gardners and Dawsonera.
Readers of the volume may also be interested in Landscape History Discoveries in the North West, by the same editors.