Seven Deserted Village Sites in Leicestershire

Writing English Landscape History

“…Such research formed part of an interest in medieval economy and society,inatype of site beyond the "magnificent monuments" of church and state, "all the more fascinating because of its everyday ordinariness" (Rowley &W ood 1982, 38). Interest had been signalled by Hoskins'swork on Leicestershire DMVs, first published in the Transactions of the LeicestershireArchaeological Society,which identified fifty examples in the county (Hoskins 1946). 3 AJune 1948 meeting in Cambridge on the topic was followed by at our of Leicestershire sites, the party including Hoskins and Beresford.…”

“…Asense of speaking on behalf of the dispossessed as well as the lost comes as Beresford notes subsequent possible transformations of sites into country houses and parkland:"Many alost village stands in the shadow of the Great House" (Beresford 1954, 29). An image of the DMV as a socially levelled vernacular space comes also in aquotation from Hoskins's Leicestershire studies, deployed by Beresford at the head of his "Final Journey" chapter:"The winter wind flows like asea over the upland pastures, flows indifferently through the broken casements of the squire's house, and over the bleached grass that covers the lost villages" (Hoskins 1950, 101, quoted in Beresford 1954 The poetics of DMV work are also evident in the 1954 dust jacket of The Lost Villages of England. Colour copies of a1 586 survey map of Whatborough, Leicestershire, including the phrase "[t]he place where the towne of whate-boroughe", are reproduced above and below apictorial image by Alan Sorrell, well known for his pictures reconstructing archaeological sites as they might have looked for their inhabitants.…”

“…While employed at the University of Leicester,where he established the first academic department of local history in the UK, Hoskins produced a number of popular accounts of "Midland England", notably of Rutland and Leicestershire;h ew ould go on to write the Shell Guides to both counties (Hoskins 1949a(Hoskins , 1963b(Hoskins , 1970. Rutland was the subject of Hoskins's1949 booklet produced for the City of Leicester Publicity Department, and illustrated with photographs by his frequent collaborator F.L.…”

Paesaggi urbani e rurali in trasformazione. Contesti e dinamiche dell’insediamento letti alla luce della fonte archeologica

“…La nostra storia inizia quindi con lo storico George William Hoskins e il suo The making of the English Landscape (1955). Hoskins negli anni Quaranta aveva condotto con un altro storico, Maurice Beresford, le ricerche sui villaggi medievali abbandonati inglesi (Hoskins, 1944-45, Beresford, 1954 che sono all'origine della fondazione del Deserted Medieval Village Research Group, fondato dallo stesso Beresford e dall'archeologo John Hurst nel 1952. Il gruppo organizzò lo scavo del villaggio abbandonato di Wharram Percy (Yorkshire) diretto da John Hurst (Beresford, 1954;Beresford & Hurst, 1971;Hurst, 1973), una pietra miliare del successo e del consolidamento dell'archeologia medievale anglosassone.…”