This is a book for landscape ‘spotters’ not archaeologists. The author presents the book as a ‘spotters guide’ pointing out details and patterns in the historic landscape. The enthusiastic ‘spotter’ is urged to ‘get out there – stand on moors, stare at tumbled walls and gateposts, gawp at canal bridges... and poke around churches with a torch and camera.’
The book packs a lot into its two hundred and eighty plus pages. The would-be landscape spotter is presented with a series of themes – Lumps and Bumps, Stones, Lines and In the Village – which sub-divide into questions such as ‘What does a hillfort look like?’, ‘Is that ancient rock art?’ or ‘Who can graze animals on this common?’ and more generally ‘Where to look?’ and ‘What to look for?’. The author answers these questions by examining a range of relevant monuments and landscape types and also points out some landscape ‘red herrings’ which could be mistaken for archaeological features (the section on mining, for instance, warns the unwary about mistaking sinkholes and explosion craters for mine shafts). And each section is followed by a selection of the best sites and monuments including the Finest Five: Hillforts, the Finest Five: Crosses and the Finest Five: Deserted and Plague Villages (and I was delighted to see that the M6 Toll road near Birmingham, a wonderful example of contemporary urban landscape, is included in Finest Five: Highways).
A book as far ranging as this is going to have omissions and mistakes. The prehistoric section is probably the least successful, confining itself to a limited range of monument types and failing to provide much in the way of landscape context. Wales seems to have drawn a short straw in terms of selected sites while Devon and North Yorkshire are perhaps over represented. And it seems odd that the field walls of the Aran Islands in Ireland have slipped into a book about Britain. But these are minor quibbles. In most ways this is an excellent book, filling a middle ground between an I-Spy guide to British archaeology and the popular landscape publications of Richard Muir and Oliver Rackham. It is well presented with excellent photographs and illustrations and although it lacks references it does provide the reader with a good range of online resources. This is an ideal introductory book for someone who wants to know more about British landscapes. And for archaeologists the choice of Finest Fives is guaranteed to generate an evening of lively debate down the pub.