The W G Hoskins Lecture 1997
‘The Remaking of the English Landscape: An Essay’ presented by Professor John Sheail.
The eighth Hoskins lecture
The eighth W.G. Hoskins lecture, ‘The Remaking of the EnglishLandscape: An Essay’, was delivered by Professor John Sheail who has written on many aspects of the history of landscape and habitats, and who is currently Deputy Head of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology’s research station at Monks Wood in Huntingdon. Dr. Sheail acknowledged his debt to Hoskins, from his first reading as a sixth former, of The Making of the English Landscape, to a particularly memorable conversation with him and other scholars over dinner in 1967, although three years earlier Hoskins had attempted to dissuade him from tackling the 1524-5 lay subsidy as a Ph.D. thesis.
Dr. Sheail’s lecture outlined the skills which ecologists have developed since the war in managing the natural environment. In part these are the product of a deeper understanding of past uses of the landscape, which has led to a simulation of historical management techniques.
Although H.G. Tansley and other naturalists pleaded for organised nature conservation during the 1940s, they recognised that past husbandry practices had contributed to contemporary species-rich grasslands and that if such habitats were allowed to return to their ‘natural’ state rare plants would be eliminated. The relatively rapid process of succession from cropped sward, to scrub, to woodland, following the virtual extinction of the rabbit population in 1954, made an understanding of the influence of past management practices a priority. It was, of course, impossible to restore grassland or wetland sites exactly to their previous state, but in the 1960s sheep and cattle were used as a conservation tool on a number of reserves.
By the early 1980s agricultural intensification had destroyed most lowland wet grassland, markedly reducing the diversity of wildlife species through grant-aided ploughing, fertilisation and drainage. Wetter conditions were restored to some sites by the cessation of pumping, but the opportunity was also taken to plant wild seed mixtures in community areas and on motorway verges. The agricultural industry also began to balance its concern for efficiency with the need for conservation. Much promotional literature, however, encouraged the unquestioning, and intensive, reintroduction of “traditional’ management practices which had themselves only failed to eliminate species through being ineffectively applied.
Professor Sheail argued that the 1990s offer wider opportunities for creative conservation, especially since environmental protection has become a more integral part of farming practice. He suggested that the aspirations of the 1940s, to balance conservation with other nature uses, might at last be realised. This optimistic note was questioned by Mike Thompson who pointed to the prairies of oil seed rape and the disappearance of lapwings. In essence, Professor Sheail replied that it is better to be hopeful than despairing, and that in an historical context there are now wider opportunities to implement practices which have been pioneered in recent decades. Following a vote of thanks, proposed by Vernon Davis (for the fourth year in succession) the assembled Friends repaired to Marc Fitch House for the now famous book sale, organised with commendable efficiency by the family firm of Jayne Alderson and Co. Ltd, and a sumptuous tea which, according to Harold Fox, was ‘the best north of Wimbledon’.
From an original report by William Bates