The UK countryside is under pressure. The needs of food production compete with those of the environment, heritage and leisure, and this pressure is increasing as ever more space is allocated to development and for carbon capture and conservation projects. The history of how rural space has been managed has been tackled by both environmental and agricultural historians. For the first time, this book brings together these two subdisciplines to build a detailed portrait of the symbiotic relationship between land managers and the British farmed landscape from the end of the First World War to the twenty-first century.
Taking the idyllic Yorkshire landscape of Lower Wharfedale as the main character, this is a story of farming through a century of change. Based on detailed oral history interviews with local farmers who began their careers in the early part of study period, and their grandchildren and counterparts who are linked to the same farms in the twenty-first century, this book explores the impact of the farming community on the farmed environment while also highlighting the agency of the environment in forming farming identities. This study not only illuminates the way in which the land has been managed in the past, but also draws out the stories of farmers’ relationships with their land over generations. Understanding how these relationships function, in the context of their agricultural and environmental histories, will be crucial for the successful implementation of the landscape level change in practices and approaches that will be essential to mitigate climate change.