Publisher's Synopsis
The second title in the National Trust's new series Living Landscapes. Hunting forests and deer parks are enduring symbols of medieval times, and the aristocracy's desire to enclose land and maintain it for sporting pleasure has had a lasting impact on our landscape. Yet behind the park walls lay a complex world of huntsmen, woodsmen, charcoal-burners and, of course, gamekeepers and poachers. This book reveals the people who occupied and shaped this artificial environment and the effect their presence had on the animals and birds that shared the hunting parks and forests. Parks have remained important symbols of power throughout history, no more so than in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when no self-respecting, country house would be without one. A move from the functional to the aesthetic saw the advent of extravagant landscaping and introduced exotic wildlife, the consequences of which we live with today. Parks remain important reservoirs of wildlife, but are complex habitats requiring sensitive and intelligent management.
