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The Shaping of the Sussex Landscape

The Shaping of the Sussex Landscape

The Shaping of the Sussex Landscape

£8.99

Peter Brandon, with introduction by Lord Denis Healey

Description

How did Sussex get to look like what it looks like today? What does its distinctive landscape tell us about how people lived and worked here in the past? What impact have invasion, technology, war and, most importantly, sheep made on it? Find out how today's landscape is the joint and ongoing creation of nature's long, slow relentless shift and humanity's incessant bodging and fidgeting with its environment. To the untrained eye, the rolling Sussex landscape looks like a natural phenomenon that has been in place for millennia. But as this fascinating guide shows, what we see today is the result of centuries of human activity and interference. Did you know, for example, that Sussex was once the heart of the iron industry? The clues are in the hammer ponds, found in what are now idyllic backwater villages and bosky woodland. These were once Sussex's version of Blake's satanic mills. The Shaping of the Sussex Landscape will help train your historic eye to pierce through the layers of time, changing custom and technology, to discover the different ways the land has been used and really appreciate and understand the ingenious ways the landscape has been shaped and continues to be shaped to new needs and attitudes. 

Key Points
  • Written by an author who knows the county in his very bones.
  • Arranged as a chronological progression from the prehistoric era to the 21st century.
  • An indispensible guide to the history, geography and geology of the county.
Specification

ISBN: 978-1-906022-16-7, 187mm x 115mm, 96 pages, 30,000 words, 19 specially commissioned illustrations plus map, hardback, marker ribbon

Peter Brandon

Peter Brandon (1927-2011) was a highly respected historical geographer with an international reputation, who wrote and lectured on Sussex and the South Downs for more than 30 years. The author of too many books about Sussex to list here, he was born in the county and lived there for over 45 years. During this period Peter immersed himself in its affairs as part-time lecturer at the University of Sussex, chairman of the Sussex branch for the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, president of the South Downs Society and vice-president of the Sussex Archaeological Society. An ardent walker and outdoors man, he was always concerned as much with the future of Sussex as with its past.

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