The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Lands<strong>ca</strong>pe and towns<strong>ca</strong>pe <strong>from</strong> AD 1500<br />
• 277 •<br />
Rose <strong>The</strong>atre and part <strong>of</strong> Shakespeare’s Globe has added a major new dimension to our<br />
understanding <strong>of</strong> Elizabethan theatre. <strong>The</strong> debate over the preservation <strong>of</strong> the remains <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Rose <strong>The</strong>atre generated a lot <strong>of</strong> media attention and helped to give urban archaeology, especially<br />
post medieval archaeology, a higher public pr<strong>of</strong>ile (Orrell and Gurr 1989). At a later date, coaching<br />
inns, with their high arches and courtyards, were another addition to the urban scene.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ‘Great Rebuilding’ in the English countryside had its urban counterpart. <strong>The</strong> evolution<br />
<strong>of</strong> urban housing styles closely paralleled those in the countryside, with modifi<strong>ca</strong>tions to allow<br />
for more cramped sites. In many English county and market towns, the later sixteenth and<br />
seventeenth centuries saw a move <strong>from</strong> timber frame with wattle and daub towards the use <strong>of</strong><br />
brick and stone. This reflected growing prosperity but also in some <strong>ca</strong>ses rebuilding in more<br />
firepro<strong>of</strong> materials after major conflagrations. In Scotland, population pressure and shortage <strong>of</strong><br />
space on a physi<strong>ca</strong>lly cramped site led to the replacement <strong>of</strong> timber-frame houses by stone<br />
tenements in Edinburgh during the early seventeenth century. Tenement housing was found in<br />
Glasgow and Dundee too at this period, while flatted housing was also a feature <strong>of</strong> St <strong>An</strong>drews<br />
and other small Fife burghs where pressure on space was much less. It may reflect a different<br />
housing tradition with an acceptance, in a generally poorer country, <strong>of</strong> lower housing standards.<br />
As with the post medieval countryside, far more is known about the housing conditions <strong>of</strong><br />
wealthier urban dwellers than those in the poorest social groups. In the sixteenth and seventeenth<br />
centuries, towns had distinctive social areas, with wealthier residents living in central lo<strong>ca</strong>tions<br />
and much <strong>of</strong> the poorer population living in peripheral areas. At a smaller s<strong>ca</strong>le, occupational<br />
groups were <strong>of</strong>ten lo<strong>ca</strong>ted in distinct clusters. Urban housing continued in an essentially vernacular<br />
style well into the seventeenth century, with buildings designed individually rather than as part <strong>of</strong><br />
larger schemes (Crossley 1990). Influences in urban planning began to reach England in the early<br />
seventeenth century. Inigo Jones’ Covent Garden, a square with houses on three sides designed<br />
with uniform fa<strong>ca</strong>des, the first true urban residential square in <strong>Britain</strong>, was built <strong>from</strong> 1630, the<br />
first <strong>of</strong> many such developments in London. New residential developments in the <strong>ca</strong>pital began<br />
to spread westwards in the later seventeenth century: the Earl <strong>of</strong> Southampton laid out Bloomsbury<br />
Square in 1661 and many others followed. Most <strong>of</strong> the late seventeenth- and early eighteenthcentury<br />
squares in London were built piecemeal, although general building guidelines were imposed.<br />
Progress continued through the eighteenth century, with Bedford Square, c.1775, being the best<br />
preserved <strong>of</strong> London’s Georgian squares. Under the patronage <strong>of</strong> George IV, as regent and king,<br />
John Nash designed or refashioned parks, palaces, squares and streets into a brilliant sequence<br />
<strong>from</strong> Regent’s Park to Buckingham Palace. Regent’s Park itself was laid out as a garden suburb,<br />
dotted with isolated villas.<br />
Similar developments spread to provincial towns as landowners began to appreciate the<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>itability <strong>of</strong> releasing land for speculative building. If work transformed much <strong>of</strong> the British<br />
lands<strong>ca</strong>pe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, leisure also made its contribution. Spa<br />
centres such as Bath and Tunbridge Wells began to develop <strong>from</strong> the later seventeenth century<br />
when continental ideas concerning the effi<strong>ca</strong>cy <strong>of</strong> taking spring water as a cure be<strong>ca</strong>me popular,<br />
creating new centres and adding a new function to existing ones. In the early eighteenth century,<br />
Bath in particular be<strong>ca</strong>me fashionable. <strong>The</strong> work <strong>of</strong> John Wood, father and son, <strong>from</strong> 1727<br />
turned it into one <strong>of</strong> the finest towns in Europe. In Queen Square, started in 1729, the houses<br />
were treated on a monumental s<strong>ca</strong>le, with whole sides designed with palace fa<strong>ca</strong>des. Royal Circus,<br />
begun in 1754, was the first circular space in British town planning. Royal Crescent, <strong>from</strong> c.1770,<br />
made striking use <strong>of</strong> a hillside site (Figure 15.8). In the later eighteenth and early nineteenth<br />
centuries, dozens <strong>of</strong> squares and crescents were built in other British towns, though rarely on the<br />
s<strong>ca</strong>le <strong>of</strong> Bath. <strong>The</strong> New Town <strong>of</strong> Edinburgh, begun in the 1750s, was an exception. <strong>The</strong> fragmented<br />
pattern <strong>of</strong> freeholds around many towns sometimes defeated grandiose schemes. <strong>The</strong> crescent at