• • Home
  • About
  • Contact Us
• • Undergraduate
  • Postgraduate
• • Staff
  • Research & Publications
• • News & Events
  • Current Student Resources

Staff Menu

• Staff A-Z
• By Role
• By Keywords
• Keywords Search

See also

• New Staff

SEARCH using keywords/tags or full text search.

Dr Angus Winchester

Senior Lecturer

Degree: BA, PhD (Durham)

Current Teaching

HIST226, 324, 415, 423

Research Interests

My research falls under two headings: landscape and environmental history, particularly of upland areas; and the local and regional identity in northern England, especially Cumbria. The focus of my work lies at the interface between past human societies and their environments at local and regional level, using Cumbria and elsewhere in northern England as the laboratory in which to explore questions and test hypotheses. My particular interests are the appropriation and exploitation of land in the medieval and early-modern periods and I am keen to offer a distinctive upland and northern perspective to balance the predominantly lowland, southern models of rural landscape history.

Much of my recent work has been on the history of resource management on common land and, in particular, the role of manor courts. My study of manor court byelaws and the management of common land, published as The Harvest of the Hills (2000),led on to further work on the records of manorial administration, including the Cumbrian Manorial Records Project. It has also been developed further in the 'Contested Common Land' project, a major project in collaboration with Newcastle Law School, which formed part of the AHRC Landscape & Environment Programme. I am now embarking on a project on Village Byelaws, building a corpus of byelaws from medieval and early modern northern England in order to analyse environmental management strategies by local communities, and to enable comparisons with byelaws from elsewhere in Britain and continental Europe.

Another strand of my research focuses on the history of Cumbria. In particular, I have prepared scholarly editions of key archival sources for the history of the region. My edition of Thomas Denton's Perambulation of Cumberland, 1687-8 (published in 2003) has made accessible one of the most detailed 17th-century topographical descriptions of an English county, while my edition of John Denton's History of Cumberland (published in 2010) provides a modern scholarly edition of the earliest attempt at a history of the county, compiledc.1600. I am also taking the lead in the Victoria County History of Cumbria project, which aims to embark on researching and writing the history of every community in the county.

Professional Activities

• Member of the Review Panel of the European Science Foundation EuroCORECODE programme
• Member of Victoria County History National Advisory Board, Institute of Historical Research, London University
• Past President of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society.
• Vice-President, Surtees Society.
• Chair of Academic Advisory Committee of the Centre for North West Regional Studies.
• Member of Editorial Board of Quaker Studies and of Advisory Panel, Centre for Postgraduate Quaker Studies, University of Birmingham

Potential Doctoral Proposals

I welcome enquiries from students interested in writing dissertations and theses on topics that would fall under the following headings:

• Landscape and Agrarian History
• Common Land
• History of Cumbria

Publications

Major Publications

• Landscape and Society in Medieval Cumbria (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1987)
• Discovering Parish Boundaries (Princes Risborough: Shire Publications, 1990; 2nd edn, 2000)
• The Diary of Isaac Fletcher of Underwood, Cumberland, 1756-1781 (Kendal: Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 1994)
• The Harvest of the Hills: Rural Life in Northern England and the Scottish Borders 1400-1700 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000)
• With Mary Wane, Thomas Denton: a Perambulation of Cumberland 1687-1688, including Westmorland, the Isle of Man and Ireland (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer for the Surtees Society and the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2003)
• with Alan Crosby, England's Landscape 8: The North West (London: HarperCollins for English Heritage, 2006)
• John Denton's History of Cumberland (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer for the Surtees Society and the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2010)

Other Recent Publications

• (editor) with Ian D. Whyte, Society, Landscape and Environment in Upland Britain (Society for Landscape Studies, Supplementary series 2), Birmingham: Society for Landscape Studies, 2005
• 'The Moorland Forests of Medieval England', in I.D. Whyte and A.J.L. Winchester (eds.), Society, Landscape and Environment in Upland Britain (2005), 21-34.
• 'Regional Identity in the Lake Counties: Land Tenure and the Cumbrian Landscape', Northern History, XLII (1) (2005), 29-48.
• 'Common land in upland Britain: tragic unsustainability or utopian community resource?', in Franz Bosbach, Jens Ivo Engels and Fiona Watson (eds) Umwelt und Geschichte in Deutchland und Grossbritannien - Environment and History in Britain and Germany (Prinz-Albert-Studien Band 24, Munich, 2006)
• 'Village byelaws and the management of a contested common resource: bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) in highland Britain, 1500-1800', Digital Library of the Commons (2006)
• 'Baronial and manorial deer parks in medieval Cumbria' in Robert Liddiard (ed.), The Medieval Deer Park: new perspectives (Windgather Press, 2007)
• 'Early estate structures in Cumbria and Lancashire', Medieval Settlement Research23 (2008), 14-21.
• (with Eleanor A Straughton) 'Stints and sustainability: managing stock levels on common land in England, c.1600-2006', Agricultural History Review 58 (1) (2010), 29-47.

'Contested Common Land' Project Working Papers

• Eskdale Case Study: historical briefing paper
• Ingleton Case Study: historicalbriefing paper
• Ingleton Commons
• Elan Valley Case Study: historical briefing paper
• Brancaster and Thornham Case Study: historical briefing paper
• 'Statute and Local Custom: village byelaws and the governance of common land in medieval and early-modern England'. Paper for IASC Global Conference, Cheltenham, July 2008
• 'Beyond pasture rights: the management of turbary, estovers and other lesser rights on common land in England and Wales since 1600' - presented at the Common Land Symposium, Newcastle University, 7-8 September 2009

Works Forthcoming

• (with C. P. Rodgers, E. A. Straughton and M. Pieraccini) Contested Common Land: environmental governance, past and present (London: Earthscan Ltd) (expected to be published late 2010)
• 'Property rights, "good neighbourhood" and sustainability: the management of common land in England and Wales, 1235-1965', in B. van Bavel and E. Thoen (eds.), Property Rights to Land, Social Structures and Fragile Environments (Brepols)
• 'Vaccaries and agistment: upland medieval forests as grazing grounds', in J. Langton and G. Jones (eds), Forests and Chases of England and Wales to c. 1500 (Oxford: St John's College) [in press]
• 'Seasonal settlement in northern England: shieling place-names revisited' in S. Turner and R. Silvester (eds), Life in Medieval Landscapes: people and places in medieval Englandi (Oxford: Oxbow)

Associated Keywords: Agriculture, Archives, Common land, Cumberland, Cumbria, Environment, History, Identity, Lake District, Landscape, Law, Locality, Regions, Religion

View all research activities, ePrints, news and events associated with Angus Winchester.

«Back

Save this page: Del.icio.us Digg It Reddit Facebook Stumble It!