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Ancient Countryside

The lowland area of England can be divided into the ancient and the planned countryside. All of the English countryside has been affected by human management, but there are areas which have remained relatively unchanged since the time of the Anglo Saxon settlements in the sixth century, or even Roman times. Oliver Rackham in The English Landscape describes the ancient countryside as "the England of hamlets and lonely medieval farmsteads, of winding lanes, dark hollow ways and intricate footpaths, of thick mixed hedges and many small woods - a land of surprises and still a land of mystery." The planned countryside is made up of large regular fields, with few and often straight roads, with a large village every two miles or so.

The ancient countryside lies in a belt from east Devon and Somerset to the coastal strip of south-east Wales, the Welsh borders, the West Midlands, Cheshire and most of Lancashire. There is a second belt in east Norfolk, Suffolk, most of Essex, the Home Counties, and the south-east down to the Hampshire-Dorset border. The planned countryside lies between, covering Dorset, most of Wessex, the south and east Midlands, Cambridgeshire, west Suffolk, west and and north Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, east Yorkshire and the Vale of York.

Somerset countryside