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Using the data presented in their companion volume, An Atlas of Rural Settlement in England (2000), the authors offer preliminary explorations of some of the patterns revealed by comparing their new maps with the distribution of other types of landscape elements, archaeological sites and building styles. These two studies represent the culmination of a decade of research for English Heritage's Monuments Protection programme. The Atlas defines the varied regional character of England's rural settlement and the former distribution of cleared land, wooded land and open pastures, a quilt with origins daing from one or two thousand years ago or more. This volume explores some of the complext interactions and negotiations between the physical and cultural factors that underlie both national patterns and local and regional contrasts.