A01=Brian Short
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Ashdown Forest
Author_Brian Short
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJD1
Category=JBSC
Category=JFSF
Category=NHD
Category=RGL
Category=WQH
conflicts
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
development pressures
environmental consciousness
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eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
history
landscape aesthetic
landscape biography
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€100 and above
PS=Active
softlaunch
Turbulent Foresters
wealthy incomers
Product details
- ISBN 9781783277070
- Weight: 1g
- Dimensions: 170 x 240mm
- Publication Date: 24 May 2022
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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A richly detailed history of Ashdown Forest -- home of Winnie-the-Pooh.
The seeming tranquility of many rural landscapes can hide a combative history. This biography of one such landscape, Ashdown Forest in the Weald of Sussex, exemplifies the evolving conflicts that have taken place over many centuries. Wealth and poverty, power and exclusion, have all characterised this landscape through the ages. When a thirteenth-century boundary was erected to form a hunting park it was imposed upon a landscape which for centuries had provided sustenance for peasant families, for swine herds, for itinerant groups, all of whom had developed grazing and collecting rights and customary ties with the area. Conflict between manorial lords and commoners, "turbulent foresters", was born, and the evolution of this conflict over succeeding centuries is the recurring motif of this book. We move through the exploitation of iron ore and timber during the Tudor period, learn of the real threats of enclosure, of military occupation, to be followed by a landscape aesthetic bringing wealthy incomers, attracted by scenery easily reachable from London by train. All sides felt that the Forest was theirs by right. Victorian law-suits, twentieth-century protective legislation and a growing environmental consciousness have all left their mark. And the struggle for Ashdown continues amid ongoing development pressures. This book demonstrates that multi-layered conflict has been a characteristic feature of what still miraculously remains the largest area of internationally recognised heath in the South-East of England.
Brian Short is an emeritus professor of Historical Geography at the University of Sussex. He has a longstanding interest in the rural landscape history and society of South-East England.
