This major study represents the first details history of the Chilterns region as a whole, explaining how its unique character and 'ancient countryside' have evolved. Based on the authors' own explorations of the landscape and original research, this book also draws together a wealth of existing scholarship. The Chiltern story is told with enthusiasm and clarity in a highly readable narrative enhanced by a wealth of carefully chosen or specially photographed illustrations.

The first edition, published in 1992, was so well received that it sold out in a year. However, rather than simply reprint the book, the authors have made amendments and corrections and incorporated such a wide range of improvements as to constitute a new, revised edition.

CONTENTS : Discovering the Chilterns; Early Landscapes; The Roman Chilterns; The Anglo-Saxon Chilterns; The Medieval Chilterns; The Late Medieval Chilterns; The Medieval Woodlands; Rural Change, 1550-1800; Turnpike, Canals & Railways; The Chiltern Beechwoods; The Nineteenth Century Chilterns; Metro-land; The Changing Countryside; The Chilterns Today.

"It is a wonderful book, quite the best of its kind since W.G. Hoskins. I am not sure that I ought to make that qualification, for even Hoskins hardly attained to the authors' breadth of vision and capacity for finding and marshalling the detail." - Dr. OLIVER RACKHAM, author of The History of the Countryside.

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