Tom Williamson

Lost for centuries, the site of the East Anglian royal settlement at Rendlesham is now giving up its secrets. Noted by the Venerable Bede as a place of royal baptism in the seventh century CE, its location has been pin-pointed and its archaeology investigated. The settlement flourished from the early fifth century CE, but was at its peak between the late sixth and early eighth centuries – when it was larger and wealthier than any other of the time yet known in England. Rendlesham was then the centre of a major region of the East Anglian kingdom, a residence of the East Anglian ruling family – the Wuffings. Members of the royal kindred were buried at the princely burial grounds at Snape and Sutton Hoo, which were part of the same landscape of power. Rendlesham cannot be fully understood in isolation. There are other comparable sites in East Anglia that also appear to have been centres of wealth and power, set in their own discrete territories. Were these originally the residences of independent local leaders who were eventually dominated by the rulers of Rendlesham? Or were the latter dominant from the start, perhaps taking over the Roman civitas of the Iceni? Such questions go to the heart of current debates about the forces that shaped early England. This book tells the story of the initial discovery and subsequent archaeological investigations at Rendlesham, and places the site in its broader context as a focus of power in the early East Anglian kingdom. It considers the approaches in archaeology and landscape history that were used – including systematic metal detecting – and highlights the extraordinary results that off er new perspectives on early English society and the origins of the English kingdoms.

Archaeology can transform our knowledge of the history of gardens and designed landscapes. Terraces, viewing mounts, pools and other features of the great gardens laid out around elite residences at various times in the past can leave impressive earthwork traces; long-lost walls and garden buildings may be revealed by aerial photography or remote sensing techniques such as Lidar. Landscape parks, moreover, often contain the fossilised traces of the working countryside that was swept away when they were created, providing important information about the ‘genius of the place’ which was consulted when they were first designed. Hertfordshire is particularly rich in such remains. Proximity to London ensured, from an early date, an active land market and a rapid turn-over of properties: where estates were amalgamated with neighbours and mansions demolished, traces of their gardens were often preserved under grass or woodland. And the county’s moderately undulating terrain provided opportunities for - in  some cases necessitated - large  schemes of earth movement to provide level areas for lawns and parterres, or to create terraces. In this fascinating and innovative study - the outcome of several decades of research - systematic field survey and the analysis of aerial photographs and Lidar images are combined with the evidence of early maps and documents to reconstruct the appearance and history of more than twenty of Hertfordshire’s ‘lost gardens’. An archaeological approach also allows us to see garden history in new ways, revealing aspects of design and patterns of development not readily apparent in the kinds of evidence conventionally employed by garden historians. Clearly and accessibly written, and richly illustrated with a wealth of archaeological plans, aerial photographs, archive maps and early engravings and paintings, this book will be essential reading for all those interested in Hertfordshire’s archaeology and garden history, as well as for students of garden and landscape history more generally.

Commons are an important part of the English landscape. Survivors from a once more extensive network otherwise eroded by the inexorable progress of enclosure, they provide a taste of wildness, crucial habitats for wildlife and valued spaces for recreation. To many people they seem to offer a tangible link with happier, more egalitarian times, when communities controlled the land;or with periods yet more remote, representing fragments of the wilderness of remote prehistory. But commons are shrouded in misunderstanding and myth. They were shaped by local societies that were highly hierarchical in character, and always embedded in inequalities of property and power. Their ecology, moulded by centuries of intensive exploitation – followed in most cases by a long period of dereliction – has only a tangential connection with the truly ‘natural’ habitats of the deep past. And a surprising number of our legally recognised commons are not, in reality, common land at all. This innovative study, which concentrates on the county of Norfolk but ranges widely, is firmly focused on the character of commons as physical environments and places, as landscapes. Using a wide range of documentary, archaeological and ecological evidence, it discusses the development and management of commons from earliest times;explains their morphology, location and distribution;and explores why some examples survived the process of enclosure – and the distinctive traces left by those that did not. Above all, it describes the characteristic physical features of different kinds of common and explains how their ecology has, in innumerable ways, been shaped by history. Highly readable and copiously illustrated, this book will appeal to all with an interest in the English rural landscape, and will be essential reading for those with a particular enthusiasm for common land.