Book description
The English West Country is a land of exceptional landscapes: many
miles of wild, unspoilt coastline and vast expanses of wild moorland;
great cities such as Exeter, Plymouth, Bath and Bristol; and market
towns, villages and hamlets. Farming, mining, quarrying, fishing and
trade are the traditional industries of the counties of Wiltshire,
Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. On one level, the West Country is
the most English of all English regions, home of clotted cream, thatch,
church spires, folksong, hobby horses and Cecil Sharp. Yet the area was
trading with Mediterranean Europe before the Romans. For many years
Bristol was the centre of the slave trade, and many of its great
mansions were built on the proceeds of slavery. Great swathes of land in
Dorset, Wiltshire and Devon are still used by the military and are
off-bounds to visitors. And within the West Country is the special case
of Celtic Cornwall, and the even more remote Isles of Scilly. People
lived in the West Country long before Britain, or England, were
invented. From the great stone circles of Avebury and Stonehenge in
Wiltshire to the menhirs of Cornwall, and the wealth of prehistoric
remains on the Isles of Scilly, this has always been an inhabited
landscape, crafted by men and women working closely with nature and
natural forces. John Payne explores this culturally rich and varied
region, revealing many facets of its distinctive and much-loved
identity. The English West Country is a land of exceptional
landscapes: many miles of wild, unspoilt coastline and vast expanses of
wild moorland; great cities such as Exeter, Plymouth, Bath and Bristol;
and market towns, villages and hamlets. Farming, mining, quarrying,
fishing and trade are the traditional industries of the counties of
Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. On one level, the West
Country is the most English of all English regions, home of clotted
cream, thatch, church spires, folksong, hobby horses and Cecil Sharp.
Yet the area was trading with Mediterranean Europe before the Romans.
For many years Bristol was the centre of the slave trade, and many of
its great mansions were built on the proceeds of slavery. Great swathes
of land in Dorset, Wiltshire and Devon are still used by the military
and are off-bounds to visitors. And within the West Country is the
special case of Celtic Cornwall, and the even more remote Isles of
Scilly. People lived in the West Country long before Britain, or
England, were invented. From the great stone circles of Avebury and
Stonehenge in Wiltshire to the menhirs of Cornwall, and the wealth of
prehistoric remains on the Isles of Scilly, this has always been an
inhabited landscape, crafted by men and women working closely with
nature and natural forces. John Payne explores this culturally rich and
varied region, revealing many facets of its distinctive and much-loved
identity.
