The Landscapes Podcast
Landscape knowledge, fascinating conversations with guests and takeaway tips
The Landscapes Podcast
Understanding Place: place names and why they matter
FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY - PLEASE DO NOT SHARE EXTERNALLY
We hope that with a better understanding of place names we can reveal the past and support the decision making that we make around landscape recovery projects.
In this episode - hosted by Susan Fryer, Senior Landscapes Officer in the Cumbria Area Team - we chat with:
- Professor Jayne Carroll - Professor of Early English and Name Studies at the University of Nottingham
- Dr Richard Jones - Associate Professor of Landscape History from the University of Leicester
We are also joined by two colleagues from Natural England’s Historic Environmental Operations, Farm and Conservation Service – Ian Marshman and Sarah Cattell.
Supplementary information
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NOTES:
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Text in italics are clickable links
Landscapes Podcast – supplementary information
Through our partnership working at Natural England – internally and externally – we want England’s landscapes to deliver more for nature, climate, people and place.
Looking back in time and pulling together information around place names can help build up a picture of how a particular landscape has functioned in the past and gives clues to inform Nature Recovery in the present and future.
As Ian Marshman points out in this podcast, place names can function as a fantastic engagement tool with the farming community and landowners. Heritage helps us to connect to places, and there’s a story behind every place name. Investing some time to decode their meaning presents opportunities to engage those who live, work and visit a place and will ultimately enrich the evidence base and decision-making of any place-based Nature Recovery project.
In this episode we draw upon a recent two-year research project and an Environmental Land Management Test and Trial project to explore some of these ideas further.
The Flood and Flow Project, funded by The Leverhulme Trust, explored an understanding of how people and places have responded to climatic events between 700 AD and 1100 AD. These types of projects can inform current work, ensuring that we can contribute to supporting climate resilience within Nature Recovery alongside our partners.
Building up an understanding of a landscape from place names that are embedded into the ecological and cultural diversity of our landscapes creates a strong sense of place and reflects the cultural identity within the landscapes. This can be a great engagement tool for supporting the resilience of ‘place’.
Further information sources mentioned in the podcast:
SUSAN FRYER
Gambles, Robert. Lake District Place Names - A Cumbria Guide (Hayloft Publishing, 2013)
Hoskins, W.G., Fieldwork in Local History (Faber & Faber, 1982)
Hoskins, W.G. The Making of the English Landscape (Hodder & Stoughton,1992)
The Making of the English Landscape was first published in 1954 and runs to 35 editions. Although some people think it is a little dated, it is still regarded as the seminal work that put landscape history and landscape archaeology on the map. It is still listed on reading lists for trainee landscape architects.
IAN MARSHMAN
The Shropshire project mentioned began as one of the Defra-funded ELM Test & Trials led by Historic England and National Trust, with other partners as part of the Stepping Stones Project in 2022. It researched how the historic environment could be integrated into whole farm plans in future agri-environment schemes.
Field names was just one of the things they discussed with the farmers, alongside other historic information like old maps and heritage features from the Historic Environment Record. They quickly realised it was the field names (and the maps) that was by far the most interesting to farmers, and triggered real enthusiasm amongst the farming group. This encouraged the National Trust to explore further work on the role of field names in discussions around land management and encouraging nature recovery with the Institute for Name Studies, which was funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council.
Key to English Place names has authoritative listings for every city, town and village in England.
Survey of English Place names is a much more detailed resource which also includes information on the names of smaller hamlets and some farms, as well as prominent natural features such as woodland, hills, etc. This is a work in progress.
PROFESSOR JAYNE CARROLL
Upper Onny Field Names project – Professor Jayne Carroll, Institute of Place Name Studies
The mapping of the field names, modern and 19th-century, with commentaries by the farmers, is available here. The polygons are the modern fields; the square points are the mid-19th-century field names from the tithe award.
Flood and Flow Project - funded by The Leverhulme Trust.
Flood and Flow | Place-Names and the Changing Hydrology of English and Welsh Rivers
OTHER PROJECTS THAT MAY BE ABLE TO HELP YOU IN YOUR WORK
ArchAI - a company that uses GIS, historical mapping and AI to map the past in order to inform nature recovery projects. Defra are looking into an organisational licence. https://www.archai.io/
Please contact susan.fryer@naturalengland.org.uk for further information