Agricultural History Review, Volume 66 Part 2 (2018), pp. 171–198

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the heathlands of the Surrey, Berkshire and Hampshire borders covered at least 100,000 acres. They were generally condemned as inhospitable, barren and unproductive waste and were vilified by agricultural improvers at the end of the century. But already in the 1720s their gradual disappearance was foreshadowed by the turnpiking of roads across the heaths and the development of country estates for the nouveaux riches within easy reach of London. Over the ensuing 250 years the parliamentary enclosures of 1780–1830, the building of railways, the founding of land-hungry institutions, the annexation of great swathes for military use, and the inexorable progress of large-scale urbanization meant that by the Second World War only small areas of open heathland remained. Designation as ‘green belt’ after 1947 saved most of this residue, but, today, pressure for commercial, residential and transport development remains a significant and growing threat. 

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