The Making of the British Landscape: How We Have Transformed the Land, from Prehistory to Today
This is the changing story of Britain as it has been preserved in our fields, roads, buildings, towns and villages, mountains, forests and islands. From our suburban streets that still trace out the boundaries of long vanished farms to the Norfolk Broads, formed when medieval peat pits flooded, from the ceremonial landscapes of Stonehenge to the spread of the railways - evidence of how man's effect on Britain is everywhere.
This is the first book to approach Stonehenge without any theoretical position. It describes what is known and believed about the monument’s construction from c. 3000 BCE onwards. The Middle Ages were content with the story of it having been brought by Merlin from Ireland. The post Reformation antiquaries gave us the conception of Stonehenge as a historical monument. It played a significant role in the imagination of writers and artists. Then the Victorians invented prehistory and Darwin himself came to measure it. In 1918 it passed into public ownership and 1926 saw the first forced entry by Druids.
