RGS Discovery Walk in a medieval landscape at Burwash
A commission from the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and published on the Royal Geographical Society's website.
A 36-page publication downloadable free as a pdf or as audio files (a recorded interview with me) from www.discoveringbritain.org/walks/region/south-east-england/burwash.html. It is also sold as a booklet.
The Discovery Walks website is a series of geographically themed walks that explore in detail particular aspects of the British landscape.
This route from Burwash in East Sussex looks at a part of the High Weald that has changed remarkably little since medieval times, and retains numerous features dating back 700 years.
It was an area I thought I knew well beforehand, but with assistance from Gerry Sherwin from the High Weald AONB Unit, it opened my eyes to all sorts of aspects of the medieval landscape.
These include:
- Small irregular fields hacked out of the Wealden forest by pioneer farmers
- Vernacular architectural details, including tile-hanging, timber frames, hipped gables, catslide roofs and weatherboarding
- Ancient woodland indicators and gills
- Unimproved wildlflower-rich meadows
- Buildings such as oast houses, watermills
- Shaws and coppice
- Woodland boundary banks
- Sussex cattle
- Oak trees: the 'Sussex weed'
- Relics of the Wealden iron industry
- Tracks used to drive pigs to winter grazing in the forest from prehistoric times to the medieval period
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