Dr Jeremy Burchardt

As a rural historian, I have become increasingly fascinated in the last few years by the different ways we experience landscape – how it can subtly interfuse itself with sometimes quite profound aspects of our being, and the changes and continuities in this across time and space.  Researching this elusive subject is challenging, especially in a historical context, but that makes it all the more intriguing and rewarding. I hope something of this comes across in my recent book, Lifescapes: The Experience of Landscape in England, 1870-1960 (CUP, 2023).  I’ve also worked recently on children’s experiences of landscape (especially children’s place-naming practices), representations of the rural in children’s literature, the English rural community movement, village halls, and the history of allotments.  All my research is concerned with the significance of rural land and landscapes in people’s lives, the relationship between experiences and representations of the countryside and the cultural history of ruralist ideologies such as that underpinning the rural community movement.