Nature Contested: Environmental History in Scotland and Northern England

225 Pages·2000·13.733 MB·English

by  Professor T. C. Smout

NATURE CONTESTED

NATURE CONTESTED
Environmental History in Scotland
and
Northern England since 1600
T.C.SMOUT
EDINBURGH
University Press

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), Inversnaid
© T. C. Smout, 2000
Transferred to Digital Print 2009
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Typeset in Bulmer
by Pioneer Associates, Perthshire, and
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
A CIP Record for this book is available from the
British Library
ISBN 0 7486 1410 9 (hardback)
ISBN 0 7486 1411 7 (paperback)
The right of T. C. Smout
to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
List of Illustrations xi
List of Figures xiii
Introduction 1
1 Use and Delight: Attitudes to Nature since 1600 7
2 Woods of Imagination and Reality 37
3 Making and Using the Soil 64
4 Commanding the Waters 90
5 The Fragile Hill 116
6 The Quarrel over the Countryside 142
Notes 173
Select Bibliography 191
Index 201
Thi t t d l d d f
Thi t t d l d d f
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My first thanks must be to the Ford's electors of the University of Oxford
who invited me to give the lectures on which this book is based, and to St
Catharine's College who elected me to a visiting Christensen Fellowship
for the duration of my stay in the city. The University of York honoured me
with a Visiting Professorship in 1998-9 which enabled me to improve my
knowledge of the environmental history of the north of England, assisted
by their friendly historians and economic historians. My own University of
St Andrews was patient in my endless search for library materials. To my
wife Anne-Marie I owe boundless support, and to Margaret Richards
equally boundless patience in fielding one draft after another. David
Jenkins was a kind and severe critic of the first draft: I hope he finds it
improved, but I cannot promise to please him. Different parts were read
and commented upon by Donald Davidson, Jeff Maxwell, John Sheail,
Robert Lambert and Roger Crofts. I owe many debts of conversation and
information to other friends and colleagues in Scottish Natural Heritage -
Magnus Magnusson, Michael Usher, Des Thompson, John Mackay, John
Thomson, Alan Macdonald, Chris Badenoch and Dick Balharry. To Chris
Lowell I owe endless stimulation as we drove round Scotland preparing
broadcasts for the Radio Scotland 'Battle for the Land' series. I am afraid
he may recognise some of his ideas and observations unattributed. One
person we contacted at that time was Catherine Benton of West of Scotland
Water, and I owe a debt to her and to the company for the opportunity to
use papers in their offices at Milngavie. The archivist at the National Trust
for Scotland was similarly helpful: I would like to spend more time in
that fine archive. John and Philippa Grant allowed me into their attics at
Rothiemurchus and plied me with much kind hospitality whenever I
emerged. The Duke of Buccleuch generously allowed access to the
Drumlanrig game books. Roland Paxton and Michael Chrimes gave me
advice on where to look for water engineers. Richard Smout found a ref-
erence to sparrows I could not resist using, even if it does relate to the Isle
of Wight. Dr Bill Bourne shared his expertise on medieval herons. Derek
Langslow of English Nature and Jeremy Greenwood of the British Trust
for Ornithology provided me with material for two of the figures in
Chapter 3. There are many other friends and scholars to whom I owe
ix