A study in landscape history by M. W. Barley
Department of Extra-Mural Studies,
University of Nottingham
The history of the English landscape and the disappearance of old English villages are topics that have received a good deal of attention recently from economic historians and others. Mr. Barley's study of two Nottinghamshire parishes relates both topics: Rufford and Wellow are remarkable, he says, ' because in them four villages have vanished and a fifth has taken their place; one lake has gone and another appeared; and a main road has been shifted a quarter of a mile or more-and this in a rural area, long before industry began to take a hand.'