aCknoWledgemenTs
This has not been an easy book to research or write, for it has involved
excursions into fields of knowledge – ecology, biology and ornithology –
which are in part new to me. Producing it would not have been possible
without the help, advice and information provided by a large number of
people. These include, in particular, members of the Landscape Group
within the School of History at the University of East Anglia: academic staff,
Jon Gregory, Robert Liddiard and Sarah Spooner; Research fellows, Gerry
Barnes and Andrew MacNair; and many past and present students, especially
Jane Bevan, Sarah Birtles, Patsy Dallas, John Ebbage, Rory Hart, Sarah
Harrison, Adam Stone and Clive Walker. Thanks also to Hadrian Cook,
Jon Finch, David Hall, Tracey Partida and Anne Rowe, on whose knowledge
I have also extensively drawn. Above all, I would like to thank my wife,
Liz Bellamy, for all the support, advice and encouragement she has provided
over many years.
The photographs, maps and diagrams are my own, with the exception
of 19, by Jon Gregory; 13 and 28, Anne Rowe; 10, D. T. Grewcock/FLPA
images; and 22, Tracey Partida. Figures 8 and 9 are redrawn from maps
produced by Tracey Partida for a project funded by the AHRC. Figures
13 and 28 are reproduced courtesy of Hertfordshire Archives and Local
History; Figure 16, with the permission of Shrewsbury Museum; Figure 7,
courtesy of the Museum of English Rural Life at Reading; Figures 4 and 12,
with the permission of the Norfolk Record Office; and 26, courtesy of the
Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library and Mrs Flowerdew; Figure 27,
courtesy of Country Life.