Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Landscape. Chapter 2: The First People in the Landscape. Chapter 3: The Iceni and the Romans. Chapter 4: Anglo-Saxons, Danes and Normans. Chapter 5: Churches, Hermits and Landowners. Chapter 6: Gentry to a Master of the Revels. Chapter 7: Timber Importing to Tree Planiting. Chapter 8: The Modern Estate. Appendix 1: Burnt Flint Experiments. Appendix 2: Family Trees. Appendix 3: Rentals of Estates in 1824.

About the Author

The author read Greats at Oxford and excavated on the Welsh Borders. He was the Education Officer for Museums in Suffolk and lectured for University Continuing Education Departments. He is Assistant General Secretary of the Suffolk Institute Archaeology and History Society. Mike Hardy an experienced field archaeologist, conducted extensive fieldwork in the Fenland Survey. He has lectured for the Continuing Department of UEA and for the WEA. He is Field Group Secretary for the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History Society.

Reviews

Norfolk Roots No. 7 - September/October 2005. This is the book I mentioned in the last issue when I pointed out that county boundaries are artificial barriers when its comes to families, even when they have been established in an area for generations. After all its has been known for boundaries to move even when towns and villages remain in the same place, finding themselves with a completely postal address. Althopugh it is a serious study nased on archaeological fieldwork and documentary research the authors have still produced a very readable social history of one of these borderline areas - the Waveney valley in general, the Thornham estate in particular. Living as I do in Diss I am aware how close so many of my Norfolk neigbours are to being in Suffolk, and how many Suffolk people could as easily be my Norfolk neigbours, which makes this book relevant to those living in my part of Norfolk. In the introductory pages the authors introduce readers to the landscape and then take a high speed journey through time to bring us to the present day, showing how development took place from the time when this area was sea to now when it is a modern estate, managed with 21st century methods. Then, chapter by chapter, we see that change from sea to land, wich then drew in early people who fashioned tools and weapons from the local flint in a period we now refer to as the Stone Age (experts call it Palaeolithic and divide it into three periods). As new methods and material cam to light and the metal took over from stone we see the emergence of the Iceni and the arrival of the Romans, Anglo-Saxon, Danes and Normans until the population became more stable about 1000 years ago as we became the invaders instead of the invaded. From there the book shows how village and estate life shaped the families live today. The book offers an insight to our past, right to the finial decade of the last century. It is a clear example of how a book which on the surface seem primarily an academic tome can actually offer much to a wide tange of readers.