A Book of Britain: The Lore, Landscape and Heritage of a Treasured Countryside. Johnny Scott
could have occurred many times as the fertility of farmland became exhausted and food production fell. In the 2,000 years since the first farmers arrived, large tracts of the wild wood had been cleared and agriculture was transforming the landscape.
For much of the Bronze Age the climate was considerably warmer than today – probably by as much as 2 degrees Centigrade. This warmth had a significant effect on agricultural land use and farming was able to extend into the moors and uplands of Britain. Wheat and barley were the main crops, grown for flour, straw, animal feed and, for the first time, malt for alcoholic drinks. Oats, rye, peas and beans and some hay for animal feed were grown, while straw was used for bedding, thatching and winter fodder. Cattle had always been important to prehistoric farmers, but there was an increase in the importance of sheep through the Bronze Age as people had learnt the art of weaving and basic woollen clothing was becoming commonplace. Large livestock farms developed in the lowlands and appear to have contributed to economic growth and inspired increasing forest clearances. Goats and pigs both had an important place in Bronze Age communities, because they were foragers and easy to keep. Evidence shows that large areas of the countryside were laid out in unenclosed square fields, reflecting ploughing in two directions, whilst in other parts of Britain fields were enclosed by earthen banks. Traces of Bronze Age field systems and their ‘reeves’, or earth banks, and raised parallel boundary banks are particularly visible on Dartmoor or the Lizard and Land’s End in Cornwall. Tracks and ways across the countryside allowed localised trade and some exchange of animals to prevent in-breeding. The Ridgeway, Britain’s oldest road, which can be followed from Overton Hill, near Avebury, and Ivinghoe Beacon, in Buckinghamshire, is a surviving example and was almost certainly used to traverse the entire chalk escarpment that runs from Dorset to Lincolnshire.
Many famous henges that date from this period show society was well structured and able to call upon a significant population resource to build the many public monuments, where religion or ritual was an inseparable part of everyday life. Pottery was now decorated and noticeably finer and the arrival of metallurgy and the production of bronze led to new tools as well as ornaments and symbols of status. Late in the Bronze Age, around 1000 BC, the climate cooled and became wetter and many of the farming settlements of the upland areas were abandoned, not to be resettled for some 2,500 years. The Bronze Age was a peaceful and very prosperous period. Society was well structured and able to call upon a significant population resource for building projects such as enlarging Stonehenge and the erection of many other monuments: Seahenge, just off the coast of Norfolk at Holme-next-the-Sea; Achavanich, near Loch Stemster in Caithness; Beckhampton Avenue, in Witshire; Birkrigg, in Cumbria; Doll Tor and the Nine Ladies, in the Derbyshire Peak District; Rollright Stones, on the borders of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire; Tregeseal East and Men-an-Tol, in Cornwall; Gors Fawr, Meini Gwyr, Cerrig Duon, Maen Mawr, Nant Tarw Group and Grayhill in Wales. There are hundreds and hundreds of Bronze Age megaliths across Britain, and Northern Ireland has over sixty, all indicating a cosy and settled population.
HOW FARMING ALTERED THE LANDSCAPE
The Celts started to migrate to Britain in the eighth century BC, bringing with them advanced agricultural techniques in both grain and livestock farming, and within a hundred years many parts of the country were already owned, managed and planned in much the same way that they are now. Little wildwood remained in southern Britain and the land resource was well planned with field systems in rotation, pasture and coppiced woodland. Hill forts became common and acted as local centres of administration, power and refuge.
The range of crops grown had widened considerably since the early Bronze Age and although the most important were emmer, einkorn and spelt, varieties of wheat, barley, oats, tic beans, vetch, peas, rye, flax, wode and fat hen were regularly grown. The earliest written information about Britain records that the Celts of southern and eastern Britain were skilled arable farmers. Archaeological evidence indicates that a mixture of pastoral and arable farming was practised throughout the country. Nevertheless, the balance between these farming methods in any given area would have been dependent, to some extent, upon the geographical location and trading relationships of the different tribes. As grain farmers theyin among the Bronze Age reaves were surprisingly advanced; according to the Roman reporter, Pliny the Elder, British farmers invented the practice of manuring the soil with various kinds of mast, loam and chalk. He described how chalk was dug out from ‘pits several hundred feet in depth, narrow at the mouth, but widening towards the bottom’. In 70 AD he wrote: ‘The chalk is sought from a deep place, wells being frequently sunk to IOO foot, narrowed at the mouth, the vein spreading out within as in mines. This is the kind most used in Britain. It lasts for eighty years and there is no instance of anyone putting it on twice in his lifetime.’ There are hundreds if not thousands of the remains of ‘Deneholes’ in the chalk uplands of Kent, where chalk had been extracted to spread on local fields as top dressing.
Until destroyed by modern agriculture, small, irregular, squarish, Celtic fields covered thousands of square kilometres of chalk downland and other terrain which had escaped medieval and later cultivations. Although often less than half a hectare, they were surrounded by great earth banks, the product of countless man hours. The square shape expresses the custom of ploughing in two directions at right angles. On slopes, the action of the plough tended to move earth downhill, forming terraces called lynchets. Very good examples of these can be seen near Bishop stone and Great Wishford in Wiltshire; the Chess Valley near Rickmansworth; in among the Bronze Age reaves systems on Dartmoor, and anywhere in the vicinity of Iron Age hill forts, of which the remains of any number are still visible: Bindon Hill near Lulworth Cove, in Dorset; Tre’r Ceiri and Castell Henllys, in Wales; Castle an Dinas and Chun castle, in Cornwall; Danebury, in Hampshire; Wincobank, near Sheffield; Sutton Bank, in Yorkshire; Yeavering Bell, Traprain Law in East Lothian; and, of course, the one on my farm. Storage of crops was either in pits or in raised stores and harvest was over several months: weeds, some hay, grain and then straw.
THERE WERE CONSIDERABLE FLOCKS OF PRIMITIVE DUAL-PURPOSE SHEEP KEPT FOR MILK AND WOOL. WOOLLEN GARMENTS SUCH THE BRITISH HOODED CLOAK-THE BIRRUS – WERE A MAJOR EXPORT IN THE IRON AGE. SHEEP WERE SIMILAR TO THE SOAY, MANX, HEBRIDEAN AND SHETLAND BREEDS OF TODAY, KEPT FOR MILK AND WOOL.
Cattle were king in the Celtic world and a man’s wealth was measured by the number of his herd. The Celts introduced the now extinct Celtic Shorthorn cattle to Britain, from whom the Dexter and Kerry are descended. There were considerable flocks of primitive dual-purpose sheep kept for milk and wool. Woollen garments such the British hooded cloak – the birrus — were a major export in the Iron Age. Sheep were similar to the Soay, Manx, Hebridean and Shetland breeds of today, kept for milk and wool; unlike modern breeds of sheep their wool can be pulled – ‘plucked’ – from their backs without shearing. Goats and pigs were important to settlements for their ease of keeping, and poultry, geese and ducks were introduced for the first time. Horses were a new arrival in the wealthier farmsteads but they were not used for work (oxen were the beasts of burden) so much as symbols of status and for driving in the Celtic war chariots.
Farming typically revolved around small hamlets and farmsteads with enclosed rectilinear fields, each having areas of pasture, arable and wood. Ploughing became more efficient with the arrival of the iron ‘share’ plough point and a ‘mould board’ which turned the sod, making the cultivation of heavy, clay soils possible, and a two-field rotation was introduced: cropping one year followed by a fallow that was grazed by livestock. This led to surprisingly high yields and fuelled a growth in the population, believed to have exceeded three million.
The clearance of woodlands and opening up of areas with heavy clay soils, moreover, spread bread-wheat farming throughout much of lowland Britain – one of the reasons for the attraction of Britain to the later Roman invaders. Indeed, when Pytheas of Massilia (modern-day Marseilles) circumnavigated Britain around 330 BC, he described the people he encountered on his voyage as skilled wheat farmers.