Researching Rutland
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Book Review
Exploring a Productive Landscape -
From a long history to a sustainable future in the Eye Brook catchment
By Chris Stoate
The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, Fordingbridge, Hampshire - 2010 - ISBN: 978 1 901369 12 0
This attractive and informative book was produced to little local fanfare (in Rutland at least)
and deserves to be better known. It is the culmination of the work of the Eye Brook
Community Project carried out over four years and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
It is an environmental study of the borderlands between Leicestershire and Rutland from
Tilton to Caldecott. It combines both an historical and an ecological perspective to its
analysis of how the landscape and rural culture has developed over the years. It is
particularly good on twentieth century life in an agricultural community, drawing on the
memories of local residents. Anyone remotely interested in environmental and agricultural
issues, should read the well edited chapters at the end of the book, outlining the issues the
Eye Brook environment faces. As such, it is a model environmental survey and history which
could be adapted to any local area with similar characteristics.
Chris Stoate and his team deserve congratulation for producing such a readable and concise
volume. One quibble, which comes to mind every time I pick this attractively produced slim
hardback up, is that the many wonderful photographs and illustrations are not large enough
in the text. I would gladly have paid a few extra pounds to see the photographs, maps and
pictures more clearly. This is not a conventional history book, but has content for anyone
interested in rural life in the past present or future.
Hilary J Crowden