Land In England Research Articles

Some Aspects of Sugar Beet Production in England, 1945–1985

Sugar beet occupies only a minor proportion of the total area of agricultural land in Britain, but it is of major importance to mixed cropping farms in the Eastern Counties of England, where soil and climate combine to give ideal growing conditions. This region produces more than half the annual United Kingdom output, and forms part of the major beet producing area in the European Community, which stretches from the Ile de France and Champagne-Ardenne in France, through southern Belgium to the western regions of the Netherlands. This paper is based on an extensive series of studies of beet production and reports on farming in the Eastern Counties of England, prepared since the mid-1920s by the Farm Economics Branch, and later by the Agricultural Economics Unit, of the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge. After sketching the historical background, it discusses some of the more significant developments – in crop husbandry, structural change, in the substitution of labour for capital and specialisation, and accession to the European Community – which took place in the four decades of unprecedented progress up to 1985.

Military Land in Britain After the Cold War - Peace Dividend or Peace Penalty?

Military Land in Britain After the Cold War - Peace Dividend or Peace Penalty?

The Land of Britain, 1930-1990: A Comparative Study of Field Mapping and Remote Sensing Techniques

Over fifty years after the Land Utilization Survey, directed by the geographer Dudley Stamp, the first Land Cover Map of Great Britain, derived in digital form from satellite sensor imagery, has been launched. This paper discusses in turn the procedures, logistics and results of the two surveys, and their wider relevance to the recording of landscape changes.

The Decline of the Corncrake Crex crex in Britain and Ireland in Relation to Habitat Change

Censuses of singing male corncrakes Crex crex (L.) in 1978/79 and 1988 on agricultural land in Britain and Ireland indicated that numbers had, on average, declined by 30% during this time period in areas for which the two censuses were comparable. This represents the continuation of a long-term decline. However, population changes differed among areas, ranging from a 72% decline to a 15% increase. Areas in which the greatest declines had taken place tended to be those in which a high proportion of sites which held corncrakes in 1978/79 had ceased to be occupied by l988. Sites were identified that were occupied by corncrakes in 1978/79 and that had ceased or continued to be occupied by singing males in 1988. Vegetation surveys were carried out in 1988 at all such sites that could be located with precision

Presidential Address: English Landed Society in the Twentieth Century III. Self-Help and Outdoor Relief

An ultra-slow motion serial whose episodes appear at intervals of twelve months needs a recapitulation of the story so far, however excellent the retentive capacity of scholars in comparison with soap opera audiences. The characters in question are the landowners, great and not so great, and the landed families who were already wellestablished on their estates and in their country houses in late Victorian Britain: and also the newcomers who have continued, throughout the twentieth century, to purchase landed estates and country houses. The main plot concerns the structure and distribution of landownership, and I have suggested that reports of the virtual disappearance of great estates in the last hundred years have been greatly exaggerated. There have been great changes, but while some individuals or entire families have fallen off the boat others have clambered aboard, so that in the 1990s perhaps one-third or more of the land of Britain is held in sizeable estates of 1,000 acres and upwards, compared with radier over one-half in the 1890s. The changing composition of the cast of landowners, and the wildly fluctuating fortunes of particular members of the cast, have fascinated many observers of the social and political scene, and these features provide the sub-plots. The undoubted decline of landed and aristocratic political and social predominance, leading to the virtual elimination of their influence on public life, and the equally undoubted decline, impoverishment, and extinction of some once great and famous landed families, have tended to become confused as cause and effect in some accounts.

Rates of soil erosion on arable fields in Britain: quantitative data from caesium‐137 measurements

Abstract. Despite a growing awareness that erosion on arable land in Britain is a potential hazard to long‐term productivity, there is still only limited information on the rates involved, particularly long‐term values. Use of the caesium‐137 (137Cs) technique to study soil erosion within arable fields on various soil types at 13 locations in southern Britain has yielded retrospective measurements of the long‐term (c. 30 years) rates of soil loss and the patterns of soil redistribution within the study fields. The range of long‐term rates of net soil loss extends from 0.61 per hectare per year on clay soils in Bedfordshire to 10.5 t per hectare per year on brown sands in Nottinghamshire. The measured rates are compared with other published data for similar soil types and land use, and the implications for long‐term productivity and potential environmental impacts are considered.

House building, profits and social efficiency in Sweden and Britain

Abstract The paper examines why the housing sector in Britain performs so badly in producing housing. Completion rates are decreasing, dwelling quality is getting worse, while both construction costs and consumer costs are increasing. It does this through discussion of alternative routes to profitability in house building, supported by a comparative analysis of two contrasting cases: Britain and Sweden. In Britain land development gains and speculative extra profits are significant profit sources for house‐builders. Making profits through building itself is neglected; the concomitant is a fragmented labour process, loss of scale economies, low capitalisation, inadequate technical innovation and stagnant labour productivity. In Sweden house‐builders do not have easy access to land development gains or extra profits. Moreover, they are faced by a well organised and well paid labour force. They are pushed onto the road of making profit through increasing labour productivity and through product improvement. T...

POST-MEDIEVAL AND RECENT CHANGES IN BRITISH VEGETATION: THE CULMINATION OF HUMAN INFLUENCE.

Although measurable climatic fluctuation in temperature and wetness has occurred between A.D. 1700 and 1984, lack of earlier records and the complicating effects of human influence militate against detection of vegetational response in Britain. Vegetational change during this period is thus regarded as almost entirely the result of anthropogenic factors. Agriculture, now affecting c. 80% of Britain's surface, is overwhelmingly the most important such factor. Original vegetation had been mostly destroyed or heavily modified by a.d. 1700, notably through removal of the former forest cover and draining of lowland wetlands. The last 300 years have seen continuing development of farming and other land uses, to the point where very little natural vegetation now remains, and the main extent of semi-natural types is located in the uplands. Many distinctive semi-natural vegetation types actually created by man over several centuries of low input-low output management have decreased greatly since A.D. 1700, and rate of loss has even accelerated since 1940-1950. Only 5% of permanent lowland grasslands now remain agriculturally unimproved neutral grassland and only an estimated 20% of the extent of pre-1940 calcareous grassland is now assignable to that category floristically. Lowland acidic heath has declined by 78% in area since A.D. 1830, and by 40% of the 1950 level. Lowland rich fens are reduced to scattered remnants, the largest expanse (the East Anglian Fenland) having decreased from 3380 km2 in ad 1630 to 10 km2 in 1984. Forest cover was reduced to 5·4% by 1924, but has increased to 9·4%, largely through planting of alien conifers in upland districts. Since 1930 an overall 46 % of ancient semi-natural broadleaved woodland has been lost, largely by conversion to conifer plantation but also through grubbing out. An estimated 300000 ha of ancient semi-natural woodland remains, representing 14% of existing woodland and 1·3% of Britain's land surface. The total extent of hedges in England and Wales was reduced by an estimated 140000 miles (28%) between 1946-1947 and 1974. Urban-industrial growth, including roads, railways, water-use, mineral extraction and energy generation, has directly obliterated large areas of vegetation and caused chemical pollution. Waste ground associated with these activities often develops semi-natural plant communities through spontaneous succession, and may become floristically rich. Pollution affects especially fresh water through both toxic residues and eutrophication from nutrient enrichment (including run-off of agricultural fertilizers). Atmospheric pollution causes acid deposition especially damaging locally to the lichen flora, and induces biological changes in lakes and rivers in districts of acidic rocks. Recreational pressures have caused increasing disturbance to vegetation locally, and less directly through working of Sphagnum bogs for horticultural moss litter and surface mining of limestone pavements for rockery stone. Collecting of plants as a hobby has also brought some species, notably rare ferns, orchids and'alpines'to dangerously low population levels, or even local extinction. The British flora has been profoundly modified by human influence. Only 19 vascular species are known to have become extinct, but many have declined greatly during the last 300 years and, for species in some habitats, especially semi-natural grasslands, rate of decrease has accelerated since 1940. Of 317 nationally rare species 117 (37%) have declined by at least 33 % since 1930. Human agency has also introduced to Britain at least 239 plant species which now grow wild, and extended the distribution of at least 363 others. Some are still increasing but others, notably weeds of arable land, are decreasing again. Conservation measures include setting up nature reserves to contain adequate representation of all semi-natural and natural vegetation types, and of populations of all native plant species. The aim is to give protected area status to c. 10% of Britain's surface through appropriate control and management designed to maintain or enhance the nature conservation interest. At present c. 1% is managed as nature reserve of one or other category and another 6% has been designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Wild plants are now legally protected against unauthorized picking and uprooting, and 61 rare species are protected by special measures. Wider environmental conservation measures to reduce damaging human impact on vegetation and flora include inputs to and by local authorities and their planning system, persuasion of landowners and resource managers, and pollution control; supported by an educational and publicity programme, and by relevant research and information.

Soil erosion at Albourne, West Sussex, England

Few measurements of the rate of soil erosion from agricultural land in Britain have been published. Loamy soils in England may be particularly vulnerable to erosion. Thus, in a field of strawberries near Albourne at least 181 t ha −1 of fine loamy soil was eroded in a 9-month period; this is almost 100 times greater than a suggested ‘acceptable’ figure. Factors which have induced erosion at Albourne are: the removal of field boundaries; the choice of crop which left the ground bare for a prolonged period ; and the working of the land downslope. Other factors contributing to erosion are the low clay and organic matter content of the soil. The soil slakes and the resultant crust reduces the rate of infiltration of rainfall into the soil and this produces overland flow. Large amounts of rainfall are not necessary to cause erosion. Erosion in the Albourne area is probably a relatively recent phenomenon brought about by changes in land use.

Excavations at Bigberry, near Canterbury 1978–80

SummaryExcavations at the Iron Age hillfort of Bigberry, Kent, in 1978–80 had the object of a fresh appraisal since the excavations of 1933–4 of a site customarily regarded as the first obstacle encountered by Caesar after his second landing in Britain in 54 B.C. The main defences and those of the annexe were sectioned, and a hitherto unrecorded cross-dyke also. Various magnetic anomalies located by a geophysical survey were investigated and gave evidence of internal occupation and structures. It is suggested that there was a settlement preceding the hillfort, with the cross-dyke as a possible second phase; the hillfort may have been built in the second century B.C. by newcomers from Gaul, and after Caesar's passage through Kent the occupants moved down into the valley of the Stour to the site of Canterbury, though the precise point in the second half of the first century B.C. remains uncertain.The opportunity has been taken of a simple but complete republication of the nineteenth-century discoveries of the metalwork from the site now dispersed among museums at Canterbury, Maidstone and Manchester. It is suggested that this material represents the abandoned possessions of the inhabitants and varied aspects of their life, and industrial or ritual explanations are discounted.

Wild plants and the perception of land-use change in Britain: An historical perspective

The paper illustrates how the unprecedented changes in the use and management of land in Britain over the last 150 years have been perceived, recorded and explained. It examines their bearing on the development of nature conservation and vegetation studies more generally. Alarmed at the declining status of many species in the late 19th century, naturalists tried to promote a conscious programme of wild-plant protection. Little came of their efforts, partly on account of the distractions caused by a concurrent shift of emphasis from studies of individual species to those of plant associations, as represented by the rise of ecology. It took time for ecologists to appreciate fully the extent to which human activity had influenced both the incidence and character of these associations, and the role which ecologists might play in conserving the more interesting examples of wildlife for posterity.

The Land Tax Redemption Records, 1798–1963

England's Land Tax was determined annually from i692 to I798; at that ! time the amount voted for the year became a perpetual charge, subject to redemption or purchase. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pages of detailed information from tax records chronicle the history of the i,i00,000 property tax values assigned in I798 as well as the course of their redemptions from I798 to i963. This staggering amount of evidence is contained in twelve main files from the Inland Revenue Office, housed in the archives of the PRO at Kew, Richmond, under the class numbers IR 20 to IR 3I. The information is sufficient to occupy an investigator's research time for many years, if not his lifetime, without his even venturing to examine land tax data in the various county and local record offices throughout England and Wales. It is obvious that the statistical data I presented in a paper which appeared in this journal' are subject to various interpretations, so I welcome the criticisms directed at them by Ginter and Wilson. I hope that I can clarify my own limited research in this subject matter by means of this response.

The Geographer and Society

FIFTY YEARS AGO, in 1930, the Royal Geographical Society last organized a series like this one?on that occasion, to celebrate its hundredth year. For the purpose of a searching review of the state of the geographical art, it was in a sense the best of times and the worst of times. The best, because one great founding aim of the Society had been realized: the habitable globe had been explored, and its resources?so far as they could then be known?mapped and charted. The worst, because geography was at that time on the eve of a series of revolutions: revolutions of a fundamental intellectual nature, that were to reverberate through its academic establishment over the succeeding half century, basically affecting its subject matter, its concepts and tech? niques, and its attitudes towards the world that geographers inhabit and try to comprehend. More than any other aspect of geography, those revolutions have affected the human part of it, the part that seeks to understand how people live and work together in geographical space. So in one sense, my task today is impossible: I could not adequately chart, within the space of one hour, the changes that have occurred. And in another sense, it is superfluous: very distinguished recent books by colleagues, appearing over the past couple of years, have more than adequately analysed the evol? ution of human geography. I refer particularly to Michael Chisholm's Human Geography: Evolution or Revolution (Chisholm, 1975) and Ron Johnston's very recent Geography and Geographers (Johnston, 1979). We know where we stand, and how we have got here. The task as I see it tonight is rather different?and interestingly, Ron Johnston's account does not touch on my theme at all. It is to try to show how, in the last halfcentury and in this country, some human geographers have tried better to understand the geography of society in order to contribute to changing it through planning. One of the outstanding traditions of British geography of the past half-century, I want to argue, has been in applied geography, particularly in the relation of geography to the planning process. In telling that tale, 1930 has almost a legendary appropriateness as a starting date; it is almost as if the Society chose its anniversaries for the purpose. For it was in 1930 that Dudley Stamp, then Ernest Cassel Reader in Geography at the London School of Economies, took the first steps to set up his Land Utilisation Survey of Great Britain. He described it to the Society at an afternoon lecture on 16 February 1931 (Stamp, 1931), and later in more detail in his book The Land of Britain: its Use and Misuse (Stamp, 1962). He started in a way that would seem extraordinary to a latterday geographical generation, reared on research councils and research grants. Following the tradition that Sidney Webb had followed when he set up the London School of Economies and Political Science (LSE) in 1894, he went out and begged for money. He did so with the magical success that followed him all his professional life. In less than a decade the survey was substantially complete, the result of an amazing

The suitability of soils for sequential direct drilling of combine-harvested crops in Britain: a provisional classification

A classification based on experimental results is proposed for the suitability of land in Britain for repeated direct drilling of cereals. Chalk and limestone soils and other well-drained loams are classified as equally suited for direct drilling of spring and winter crops; with good management most clay soils are suited for winter crops and may benefit from timeliness of sowing. But direct drilling in spring on some soils can lead to lower yields than those from conventional cultivations.

The Enclosure of Waste Land in Somerset, 1700-1900

The enclosure and reclamation of the waste land of Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was far more widespread than is commonly supposed. This paper, based on manuscript materials and contemporary accounts, attempts to assess the timing, extent and effects of that enclosure and reclamation in detail, as they apply to one county, Somerset, in the west of England. Some 59 ooo ha of land were affected, or 13-8 per cent of the county, the four major regions of change being the lowland Levels, and the upland areas of the Western Hills, Mendip Hills and Southern Hills. Particular attention is paid to the methods of resource-conversion in the various types of waste land, to the changing land use, and to a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the new fields, fences and farms that were created as a consequence. The success of reclamation in permanently altering the geography of the county is then examined, in terms of changes in rents and changes in land use. THE effort that went into the reorganization of the rural landscape of Britain with the enclosure of the open fields and waste during the late eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries, rivals current programmes of agrarian reform throughout much of western Europe.1 Because of its complexity, the enclosure was probably as great a technical achievement as the contemporary land subdivisions of the Mid-Western United States, of Canada and of parts of Australia,2 although not so extensive. However, because enclosure had no 'grand plan' it is difficult to trace the timing, extent and results of the many thousands of individual actions. This is particularly true of waste-land enclosure, knowledge of which still relies heavily upon the generalized accounts of the County Reports and the writing of people such as E. C. K. Gonner, A. H. Johnson and G. Slater.3 It has been shown that much of this evidence, while generally supporting the idea of widespread enclosure, is often incomplete, inaccurate and misleading.4 The only satisfactory course, therefore, is to look at smaller regions in detail and examine the records of the Commissioners of Enclosure and the various contemporary accounts and estimates. What follows, therefore, is what one may term a 'meso-scale' study of enclosure, falling in scale and depth of treatment between the consideration of broad national trends and the morass of local detail. Somerset is a good sample region to take because of the preservation of all the wasteland enclosure awards and accompanying maps,5 and because it is a county unit with varied and contrasting landscapes of waste land. In addition, some of the problems associated with the absence of overall policy are partially surmounted in Somerset because of the influence of three people who furthered the cause of enclosure and reclamation with practical experiments, many publications and extensive personal activity, which ranged from sitting on enclosure commissions, surveying the waste, to buying up large areas in which a scheme of total improvement could be attempted. There was Richard Locke in the

The Analysis of Farm Organisation: An Approach to the Classification of Agricultural Land in Britain

The assumption that land use data can be used to facilitate the interpretation of spatial changes in land quality in the United Kingdom, and thereby provide the basis for a classification of agricultural land, is not new.1 Indeed, it is implicit in agricultural land classification schemes that land quality is an important factor in determining the selection of systems of production and that this can be meaningfully demonstrated by grouping land uses or farm types with similar characteristics. Attempts have not been made, however, either to make a detailed evaluation of the

The Analysis of Farm Organisation: An Approach to the Classification of Agricultural Land in Britain

The Analysis of Farm Organisation: An Approach to the Classification of Agricultural Land in Britain

Some aspects of the eutrophication of water

Abstract Symptoms of eutrophication, the evaluation of its degree, and problems associated with inorganic enrichment are described. Where remedial measures are being considered, e.g. the removal of nitrogen and phosphorus from sewage effluents, it is necessary to establish the sources of nutrients to the system and also the likelihood that such measures would either prevent the development of nuisance conditions or restore some amenity use of the water that had been lost. The increased use of detergents and the increased amounts of fertilizers applied to land have contributed towards the increased nitrogen and phosphorus contents of river water. Indirect evidence suggests that about 50 per cent of the phosphorus in sewage effluents is derived from detergents. The amounts of nitrogenous fertilizers applied to agricultural land in Britain have doubled in the last ten years and land drainage has been shown to contribute much inorganic nitrogen to rivers. The construction of a nutrient balance sheet for a reach of the Great Ouse is described and it is shown that sewage effluents contribute only a small proportion of the total flow of nitrogen, silicon, chloride, and sulphate in this river whereas the bulk of the phosphorus could be accounted for in terms of that discharged in effluents.

The Irrigation of Grassland

Vegetables and soft fruit provide the best financial return from irrigation. Supplementary watering is today almost essential for successful market gardening. Among farm crops, potatoes give the most profitable response. Irrigation of grass, which is widely practised and accounts for about 30 per cent of the total watered land in Britain, is seen as a late stage in intensification—for profitable use when other factors are fully exploited.

The Changing Use of Land in Britain

The Changing Use of Land in Britain