Finding the past

A little snippet in the TV archaeology series, 'Digging for Britain', looked at a site in the New Forest that had been, in the early 20th century, a 'Gypsy Rehabilitation Centre' - marked as such on the OS map. A place where the Roma people who were seasonal visitors to the Forest for centuries were constrained to pitch camp, then to settle in pre-fab houses, then to relocate to council houses. When it was all done, the site was raised, the foundations destroyed, a 'natural' grassy clearing created. History erased, cleansed. Only maps and family memories enabled it to be located and some of the story retrieved

What a contrast to this - such a classic tableau of idealised, bucolic England that I couldn't resist the picture - with history headlines written in every shadow. Would you credit that this is the church of Saint George (and the vicar is also George, and happens to be a fellow beekeeper). The high tower - visible from many surrounding angles - also means it is known as the 'Cathedral of the Feldon'. Shakespeare made sure that most people have heard of Arden - that part of Warwickshire north-west of the Avon. The lower lying clay land in the rest of the county is the Feldon

The church was built in the 14th century - the construction held up in the middle by the Black Death. The tower was added in the 15th century. The church was badly beaten up during the Civil War and had to undergo heavy restoration before a clock was installed in the 18th century. Rather unusually, the tower also has not only a peal of bells (they claim it is the second heaviest in the world) but a separate carillon of bells that play hymn tunes

Almost certainly this area retained the classic open-field system through all of this, only undergoing formal enclosure only in the late 18th century, when enforced by parliament - long, straight hawthorn hedges, most likely including the one keeping these sheep in. In places like this, 'enclosure' meant that land used for cropping became grazing land - looking roughly like this for the last 250 years - but with no reason to erase the ridges raised by its former cultivation

A history lesson in a picture, with nothing to hide, and a blue sky