Rural settlement and population in England between 1676 and 1851: an experiment in historical geography

Abstract

Any observant traveller will see within Britain contrasts in rural settlement, with some landscapes dominated by villages and others by single farmsteads. Such contrasts were observed by topographers as early as the Elizabethan period and are deep rooted. This study examines on a very broad scale, in part national, in part local regional, the linkages between settlement and population. To complicate matters, population is examined at three dates, 1676, 1801 and 1851. This demands that the analyses consider correlations between the real levels of population, the spatial patterns within these distributions, the dynamics of change and the evolving landscape of settlement. Both synthesis and analysis are involved: the synthesis of work by other scholars to generate a national view in the first part of the study, and in the second part, the analysis of several local regional contexts. The conclusions are summarised in a model, highlighting the broad through time links between settlement and population.