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Ground forces LANDSCAPES CAN BE a joy to the eye but they’re also a living and vivid illustration of the history of an area. Dr Mandy Richardson – a senior lecturer in mediaeval and early modern history at the University – is a specialist in landscapes, in particular in forests and deer parks. “What makes them interesting is that once you scratch the surface, there’s so much more there,” she said. “They’re another dimension of historical evidence. “In the mediaeval period, we’re still trying to read the ideals and mores of a particular society into the landscape. We know a lot more about country parks in the 18th century, when people built big, high-status landscapes that embedded their political values and ideas. Sometimes, landowners moved whole villages, or parts of villages, so they could get a nice view. “It’s the 18th century version of Leylandii hedges. In the early part of the century, country houses were clearly visible from the roadway. All of a sudden in the late 18th century, these physical and symbolic barriers were put up between one class and another.” Mandy presented a paper on mediaeval deer parks at a recent Arts and Humanities Research Council conference at the University, which she helped to organise. Deer parks are all about status, she says. “People always seem to have been attracted by the aesthetic qualities of fallow deer, the species normally kept in these parks. We know there were fallow deer in Roman times but they disappeared until the Normans brought them back. They were the lords of Sicily and it’s believed they came from there.” Part of the reason landscape is becoming a hot history topic is the level of current concerns about the environment. “It’s natural we’d want to look at how the environment was considered in history. Did they really conserve things? Did they really worry about the environment?” Famous gardens by people like Capability Brown help to illustrate political and social trends. “After very formal gardens at the turn of the 17th and early 18th century, manicured gardens like Versailles get swept away within decades as people wanted things to look more natural. “Everything became controlled and artificial in gardens at the time when the New World was discovered. Suddenly, wilderness and natural things were seen as threatening. The opposite might be going on with the studied Englishness of Capability Brown’s style – making your land look like a little part of England that no-one has ever touched.”
IN THE LANDSCAPE… Dr Richardson, a specialist in forests and deer parks, at Clarendon Palace, the subject of her PhD
A recent Arts and Humanities Research Council conference aimed to increase the dialogue between the history academics and the non-academics – and attracted more than 120 people. “It’s what we try to do here at Chichester – fostering links with the local community,” says Mandy. “As well as the research papers, we also had sessions on the meaning of house names in West Sussex – and Neanderthals.”