Agricultural History Review, Volume 55 Part 1 (2007), p. 132

Pointers to the past forms part of the YAS Occasional Papers series and, as such, does not disappoint in terms of depth of research and detailed analysis. The paper examines the development of the man-made landscape in the small township of Hebden in the north Yorkshire Pennine dales. The monograph is one of a growing number of studies undertaken by local groups that look beyond their immediate locality in order to place their findings in a wider context.

The general and specific introductions establish with clarity the rationale for the study and the methodology adopted. The survey area is divided naturally into four divisions by a north/south beck which is conveniently bisected by a west/east roadway. The stated aim of the study is to record landscape details and, in particular, different types of stone wall design in order to identify earlier patterns of landscape development especially those which predate the limited written evidence. The resultant identification of five types of field divisions (largely stone walls) has enabled the group to establish a rough chronology of the development of the township’s field system. With one exception, each type is associated with a different period, albeit with some overlap, in the development of the local landscape: medieval (boulder walls, relic hedgerows and trees); sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (external boundary walls); 1690 to 1770s (irregular walls); and the period culminating in the enclosure act of 1857 which enabled the enclosure of 2660 acres of moorland (parliamentary enclosure walls). The remaining group is the ‘regular wall’ type of which there were relatively few and which may have been constructed before or after the 1857 enclosure act. As part of their methodology, the study group also established chronology by wall to wall abutments. From their findings the researchers were able to identify a four-field system of primary enclosure from the medieval period with one field in each of the four divisions of the study area.

Once all the field-division remains had been identified and plotted, the study group examined other features and events that influenced the development of the agricultural system such as throughways and other routes, the establishment of a manor with a toft compartment, the role of the outlying hamlet in the northern divisions, and the very limited more recent industrial development. The monograph details the relationship of throughways with the primary enclosures and highlights the importance to the township of protecting its agricultural assets from the transit of animal traffic through the area particularly during the twice-annual transhumance activity.

Heather Beaumont emphasizes that due to the paucity of written evidence, interpretation of the landscape has required the time-honoured approach of historical imagination and conjecture based on the fieldwork findings. She cites other authorities in legitimizing this but notes that such assumptions can only provide pointers to the past. This approach is used in an interesting discussion of the dating and role of the peripheral settlement. Following findings in other northern studies, it is suggested that this type of settlement may have predated the manorial system. However, although the influence of the manor was undoubtedly strong within the township during the medieval period, it is possible that the outlying hamlet was not totally under manorial constraint. Rather it had a symbiotic relationship as it managed the two northern primary enclosures for the benefit of the whole township community.

The researchers have made good use of such written evidence as is available, marrying it with the field evidence to provide valuable clues to the development of land management in the township, particularly as it moved from manorial to freeholder ownership. Place-name evidence is also used. For example, it is suggested that in one of the southern divisions called Sedber, a name of Norse derivation, a surviving earthwork may be the site of a pre-manorial settlement. This conclusion is further supported by indications that the manorial primary enclosures could have been a development of earlier enclosures.

The essay is presented in A4 format with the support of numerous maps, diagrams and photographs. It is well furnished with footnotes, bibliography and an index. Inevitably, the detailed discussion of stonewall types and their locations means that the text in part is dense and requires much page jumping between the figures and the relevant text.

Overall, while the findings tend to mirror the experience elsewhere, this detailed analysis of Hebden township provides another case study to add to the growing body of evidence drawn from the interpretation of the landscape and as such is of benefit for professional historian and the interested amateur alike.