The English cultural landscape has evolved over centuries, retaining in its multifarious patterning many aspects of the past which provide evidence of a long and gradual development. This book discusses in detail some aspects of life in medieval England still to be seen in the landscape. The perspective of the air photograph conveys a fresh understanding of the physical setting of medieval society, of the interaction between communities and the land upon which they settled and of the varying pattern of the social and economic fabric of the country. Comparison of air photographs with early maps and records is exceptionally informative, permitting analytical studies of town and village plans, or providing clues to the discovery of quite unexpected features. Many villages were established long before the Doomsday survey: some have vanished or are now to be seen only as a roughness in the ground or as marks in soil or crops. Others may remain as an ancient nucleus of a town or city now surrounded by more recent building development.
