1. Evolution of the rural
landscape of Great Britain
Understanding where we are now,
so we can plan for the future

2. All about meanings
In reverse order:
• Great Britain - why the geographical
restriction?
• Landscape - what does it really mean?
• Rural - what does that mean?
• Evolution - can a landscape evolve?

3. Great Britain: the major island of the
archipelago of the British Isles
• It is home to most of us
• It is an island
• Its landscape has a
recognised “starting
point”
• It has some of the most
varied landscapes in the
world

4. During the last Ice Age
• Britain and Ireland
part of continental
Europe
• Most of the “country”
under kilometres of
ice
• The ice retreated
approximately 10,000
years ago
• The land was scraped
clean rock

5. 10,000 years ago
modern people arrived
• Sea levels rose +100m
• Ireland became an island
first and still has far
fewer native species as a
result
• Great Britain was
populated by Neolithic
hunter-gatherers
• The English Channel cut
off Great Britain around
8,000 years ago

6. • Great Britain
approximately 5,000
years ago
• A forested island with
a very small
population of hunter
gatherers.
• This “wildwood” is
considered the
“natural state” of the
British landscape prior
to the arrival of
agriculture
After Rackham 1997 p 34

7. Wildwood no longer exists in Great Britain
Bialowieza National Park, Poland

8. • Agriculture changed
everything
• European agriculture
grew from its invention in
Iraq around the end of
the Ice Age in northern
Europe
• It arrived in Britain
around 6,000 years
ago, after it became an
island
• Southern Britain became
one of the major grain
and wool producing
provinces of the Roman
Source UCL 2009 Empire
• The basic nature of the

10. The British Landscape
• Naturally forested
• Heavily modified by human activity
– Clearing
– Cropping
– Grazing
– Draining
– Building…

12. What does Landscape mean?
• Some general definitions
– an expanse of scenery that can be seen in a single view
– painting depicting an expanse of natural scenery
– an extensive mental viewpoint; "the political landscape looks
bleak without a change of administration
• Scientific definitions:
– Any combinations of ecological, environmental and geographical
systems which are in equilibrium. Combinations of
plants, animals, climate and geography which are only found in
certain places and not elsewhere
• None of these is what we mean when we talk about
landscape management.

13. Characteristic landscape
• In the context of land
management, landscape can be defined
as:
– A contiguous area of land of any size which
has common characteristics throughout its
extents which distinguish it from other areas
of land.

14. Types of characteristic
landscapes
• A characteristic landscape usually has a
qualifying descriptor, e.g.
– a forest landscape
– an industrial landscape
– a pastoral landscape
– a polluted landscape

15. Defining the landscape
character
• All land is part of one or more landscapes
– An area of cultivated land in Wales might be
seen as part of a farming landscape and of a
mountain landscape
• A land manager is usually predominantly
interested in one character landscape
• You will be primarily interested in the rural
landscape

16. What does Rural mean?
• Countryside?
• Farmland?
• Forests?
• In America: officially areas with less than
250 people per km2
• OED “in or of or suggesting country”

17. Nested landscapes Urban
Global landscape Built landscape
Aquatic
Natural
Rural
Terrestrial landscape
Managed landscape

18. Landscapes are not
simple, nested shapes

19. Rural landscapes
• Managed, non-urbanised landscapes
– Agriculture
– Forestry
– Grasslands
– Moorlands
– Water collection
– Small built areas
– Transport networks

20. Can non-living landscapes
evolve?
• Some definitions of evolution
– A gradual process in which something changes into a
different and usually more complex or better form
– The process of developing
– A movement that is part of a set of ordered
movements
• Systems subject to selective temporal
change
– Some changes are successful and lead to further
change
– Some changes are unsuccessful and lead nowhere

21. Landscapes do evolve
• Landscapes change over time
• Natural selection would result in Great Britain
returning to its primeval forested state
• Human selection, often unwitting, results in the
varied, changing landscapes we see today
• Landscape management is the
intentional, professional attempt to manage that
selection process

22. The evolution and perception of the
rural landscape of Great Britain

23. The evolution and perception of the
rural landscape of Great Britain

24. The evolution and perception of the
rural landscape of Great Britain

25. The evolution and perception of the
rural landscape of Great Britain

26. The evolution and perception of the
rural landscape of Great Britain

27. The evolution and perception of the
rural landscape of Great Britain

28. Further reading
• Rackham, O. (2003)
An Illustrated History
of the Countryside 3rd
ed Orion Publishing Co
• John Piper on line
http://www.johnpiper.org.uk