The Yorkshire landscape is home to some of the most dramatic scenery in Britain.

With its lime stone walls separating the farmers' fields into oddly shaped portions, dotted with laithes for sheltering animals and storing hay.

It is breathtaking in its beauty and in all weathers the narrative of Yorkshire and the Dales has inspired artists such as the painter J.M.W.Turner and the poet William Wordsworth to?

The area is steeped in history, both natural and man made.

During the ice age over several millenia,the movement of the ice carved huge swathes through the landscape.

The Neolithic peoples left their mark on the landscape in the form of settlements and limestone walls to fence off their sheep and cattle.

In areas like Malham visitors can still touch a wall built two-three thousand years ago.

The Romans left forts, villas and roads hidden below the ground just waiting for some eagled-eyed archaeolgist to stumble across.

With the coming of the Saxons they called the Dales {Tal} and later with the Vikings, they changed this to the Scandinavian{Dalarna}.

When the Normans arrived in the eleventh century they too added their own piece too the Yorkshire landscape jigsaw.

Firstly with wooden Motte and Bailey castles they not only dominated the landscape but also the people who lived there.

Within a few years these wooden strongholds were replaced by the more permanent stone castles that we see today.

With the coming of the railway the Industrial Revolution and the increase in coal production these were the next decisive changes in the landsacape.

With those dark satanic mills being built in the towns that before only supported a cottage industry soon changed the appearance of urban life and the people who lived there, railways carved their way through the landscape and across the Dales to lay down tracks so that industry and eventualy people could travel in speed,ease and comfort.

The lansdcape has changed and within a short period of time.

Some of the mills have disappeared that once dominated the landscape or have been turned into offices and small busines parks or even museums. Gone are the coal and the pit heads that helped power the Industrial revolution.

In place of these are the out of town shopping malls or supermarkets which have come to influence the twenty first century landscape.##

Welsh LandscapeThe legacy the Romans left in Wales were roads, forts and straight roads?

When the German tribes arrived they pushed the Celts further west into Wales and north into the area we know today as Cumbria.

In The Welsh countryside abounds with fortifications - prehistoric hill-forts, Roman castra, and Norman castles.

1066 William the Conqueror arrived in Britain with his army and started to build motte and bailey castles in the countryside.

They arrived in Wales in about 1070 and proceeded to changs the landscape, in some parts forever.

Not only did they build castles but also Monastries, Abbeys and churches which dotted the countryside.




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