Contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction

1. Weather Report

2. The Lie of the Land: The Geology of England

3. England’s Feet of Clay: Our National Soil Collection

4. A River Runs through It: Why You Live Where You Live

5. Why English Towns Look English

6. Georgian Hedge Funds: How Greedy Landowners Enclosed Our Fields and Drove John Clare Mad

7. A Love of the Picturesque

8. A Nation of Gardeners

9. The Rolling English Road

10. North and South: The Great Divide

11. How Railways Made the English Suburban

12. Why England Doesn’t Look Like England

Conclusion: Town Mice and Country Mice

Illustrations

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements