Part 1 - Invasion

by Keren Jones PhD, CMLI, Dip LA (Glos)

I am delighted to be asked by Terroir to contribute a guest blog – one that draws on my passion for both landscape and family history.

Over the years, as I collected my many family stories, I increasingly wanted to better understand the context in which they were made.   My own personal journey into the past has also made me think a better understanding of the past can help us have a better understanding about some of the big issues we face today.  Inequalities in access to land and nature is one of those hot topics that has been very much in the spotlight as a result of COVID lockdowns.  To explore this issue further, I have chosen to talk about the story of land and landscape of the Welsh borders, and how, as ownership changed overtime, so did the fortunes of ordinary people depended on the land for their livelihoods.

Through dedicated genealogical sleuthing I have confidently  traced my ancestral line in Shropshire through nine generations, and also found that my family name goes back to the beginning of the  local parish records in the 16th century.  

Where the slopes get steeper pasture turns into woodland, whilst lower down, near the old water courses, there is arable land and hay meadows.  

It sounds idyllic, but the backstory of the Clee Hills is one of contested land ownership, privatisation and the erosion of common ownership. This is Border Country in every sense of the word.  For those who were poor and living on the margin, the loss of their rights to access common land had a big, and irreversible, impact on their ability to make a living and put food on the table. 

As my research became more extensive and involved frequent visits and walks in this beautiful countryside, I began to feel deeply connected to the Clee Hills and surrounding areas.  Terroir explains why.  Although Terrroir’s own origins stem from the word terra, the Latin for land, it doesn’t just mean the physical site or the visual landscape, but all the nuances that go with it.  In South Shropshire I was discovering a terroir that wakens all your senses, especially a sense of being and a sense of place.  Through the lens of family history, I had found a landscape narrative comprised of many rich layers, laid down in a line that stretched back to ancient times. To understand why this landscape is contested, I needed to look beyond the family story itself. 

The first humans to arrive in Border country were ice age refugees, who had hidden in the caves of the Pyrenees.  As it got warmer, the animals they hunted migrated north and, in pursuit, so did their hunters - now nomads in transit.  Encountering the Great Wild Wood that cloaked much of Britain, they gradually carved out regular hunting and trading routes.  Farlow sits on one of these ancient roots, known as the Clun Clee Ridgeway, that eventually terminates on the banks of the River Severn and the wider world.

After these nomads, came the first settlers and the first significant human land grab. These Celtic, Iron Age people, built a swathe of hilltop forts across the upland of South Shropshire, including several in the Clee Hills, of which one is Nordy Bank sitting at a natural vantage point and still intact.  One of the imprints on the landscape that has lasted through time.  It is a large, circular, enclosed area with stunning views, and thousands of years after it was built, was repurposed as a location for the open air gatherings of primitive Methodists.  These were often long, all-day camp meetings of public praying and preaching, activities which my Wesleyan great, great aunts and uncles probably participated in with fervour.

From the Iron Age onwards, invasion after invasion continued to impact on the land.  55BC marked the arrival of the Roman’s in Britain, and though slow to conquer the Welsh Borders, a century later they were well established.  Despite the aggressive land take, there were certain natural resources that the Romans believed couldn’t be privatised: air, sea, rivers, roads, parks, wasteland, cattle pastures, woodland and wild animals.  Despite showing some respect for aspects for the natural world the Roman Empire proved to be unsustainable and eventually crumbled, as well all know.

The way of life of the newcomers, the Anglo-Saxons was very different, including how they farmed.  My history lessons as a child told me that Anglo-Saxon settlement was more organic and less impactful than that of the Roman Empire. Although we now know that the transition from a nomadic to a settled way of life was one of the biggest historical milestones in climate change caused by the human race, there are lessons to be learnt from the Anglo Saxon approach.  Their farming was a collective endeavour, which was localised, rather than centralised.  Boundaries constructed were for protecting animals, not restricting the movement of people. 

It was the Norman invasion of 1066 that marked one of the most dramatic changes on the relationship between people and the land in our country.    William the Conqueror was adamant that all land, including all natural resources, belonged to the Crown.  Much of South Shropshire became designated as Royal Forest, which overtime transitioned into Deer Parks with ditches, pales and stone walls to keep the landless out. 

As the climate deteriorated in late Medieval times, however, these higher marginal areas were abandoned, or turned to pasture – a process accelerated by the Black Death and resultant dramatic reduction in the overall population.  

For many, the transition to pastoral farming did not result in better living and working conditions.  During my research I found an academic paper studying the records made in 1524 about the people in Farlow and Stottesdon, and whether they made enough money to pay a lay subsidy to the King.  Only a handful in Farlow, were able to do so: “nearly all the people of the area were in a state of wretched poverty, and the rest very close to that state”.

 The roots of inequality in access to the land and to natural resources were now firmly established.

Part 2 - Enclosure next week