Shropshire Routes to Roots

www.shropshireroots.org.uk

Routes | Changes in people and landscape | Farming changes

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Farming changes

1. Landscape detectives

Has the Shropshire landscape always looked like it does now?

Introduction

The landscape we see around us in Shropshire is an industrial landscape, the result of many hundreds of years of activity by the industry of farming. It is very good to look at but it is still an industrial landscape, a landscape that is always changing as the industry that creates it changes.

Five farming facts:

82% of Shropshire's land area is devoted to agriculture;
there are about 6,000 farms in Shropshire;
agriculture accounts for around one quarter of Shropshire's workforce;
Shropshire has 5% of the national dairy herd;
Shropshire grows 5% of England's potatoes.

[Source: Shropshire Farming Study 2002. Shropshire County Council.]

Colour aerial photograph of Wroxeter [Opens in new window: image size 37kb]

Roman Wroxeter surrounded by the changing Shropshire landscape
Larger image, in a new window [37kb]
[Reproduced with kind permission of Shropshire Archaeological Service]

The theme of Farming changes will look at some of the changes to the landscape of Shropshire that have taken place since the end of World War two and try to investigate the causes and influences that brought about these changes. We hope that you will go out into your part of the world and become your own Landscape detectives.

Black and white photograph [Opens in new window: image size 50kb]

Watling Street, Church Stretton around 1900
Larger image, in a new window [50kb]
[Shropshire Archive reference: PH/C/19/7]

The two images here of the same area illustrate changes that have taken place over the last 100 years or so.
Ask yourself these questions:

what has changed?
who changed it?
what caused it to change?
do you think the changes have had positive or negative effects on anything or anybody?

Colour photograph [Opens in new window: image size 34kb]

Watling Street area, Church Stretton 2004
Larger image, in a new window [34kb]
[Reproduced with kind permission of Chris Hurrell]

The next page looks at the sort of evidence we can find and where we need to look for it.

Continue

Find out about gathering evidence: Next

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Page created 2003 and last updated 30 July 2007

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