Six essays that consider the practical and political purposes for which maps were used through the history of South-Western England and the ways in which map evidence can be employed to recover facts about the past including the interpretation of enclosure maps and tithe surveys.

A handbook interpreting the history and evolution of England's rural landscape explores how landscape features are human ideas made manifest - boundary walls and hedges reflect territoriality, churches and henges reflect belief, and castles and hillforts reflect status and the need for defence.