.jpg)
Between 2002 - 2003 the Rockingham Forest Project was conducted on behalf of the Trust and Northamptonshire County Council, with funding from the HLF, by Glenn Foard, David Hall and Tracey Partida. For the whole area they created digital mapping of the medieval open fields and of the post medieval enclosed landscape, which replaced it between the 15th and the 19th centuries. It focussed on the end point of each of the three key phases of landscape development: the height of medieval expansion, circa 1300; the time of change between enclosure for pastoral farming and the shift to enclosure for mixed farming, around the beginning of the 18th century; and thirdly the completion of this enclosure for agricultural improvement in the mid 19th century.
The Project mapped the historic landscape of 221 square miles, including most of the medieval royal forest of Rockingham and encompassing almost all the ancient woodland that remains today. The data was mapped from archaeological features recorded from fieldwork in addition to aerial photographs and historic maps.
Between 2006-2008, again with HLF support, the full results of the mapping exercise, together with some supporting information, have been prepared for publication in these web pages and ofor publication of an Atlas by the Northamptonshire Record Society. The content includes images of a few of the historic maps that were used together with images of all the digital mapping that was prepared in the project. It is hoped that the people of the forest area will continue to contribute material for the further development of the website when the current project is completed.
This work was undertaken not simply because it would reveal an interesting story. The information is vital for the effective management of that landscape, for in order to conserve local distinctiveness one must first understand the forces which created that unique character.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A wide range of people have provided advice and assistance during the project. We would like to than in particular the staff of the Northamptonshire Record Office and The National Archives; various owners who provided access to their collections of historic maps including Boughton Estates, Burghley Estates, Mr M. Hipwell, Mr D. T. Pain, Major J. V. A. Watts Russell. Also Gill Johnston for providing transcripts of the Southwick maps and Paul Martin for use of his archaeological site data. Finally we would like to thank the many landowners and occupiers who have given permission for field survey on their land.
In compiling the Atlas maps we have complemented our own primary research with information drawn from the work of a wide range of archaeologists and historians too numerous to mention. Of particular importance have been the earthwork surveys published by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments for England, and the digital mapping of aerial photographic evidence produced for Northamptonshire as part of English Heritage's National Mapping Programme. In illustrating the web pages we have been assisted by Northamptonshire County Council who through the Northamptonshire Record Office and the Sites and Monuments Record have made availabe a range of historic maps and archaeological aerial photographs from their collections, many of which have never previously been published. If we have inadvertently failed to acknowledge the work of others then we would be grateful for this to be pointed out so that due acknowledgement can be made.
Main Menu 
