The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

[32aa]

Apparently posting on Lit while in the passport line is frowned upon. Who knew?

Some folks have no sense of humor. Maybe if you had shared it would lighten their day. But then government employees have no sense of humor.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Some folks have no sense of humor. Maybe if you had shared it would lighten their day. But then government employees have no sense of humor.

And they don’t appreciate you flirting with them in an attempt to avoid a reprimand. How odd!

Em

 

[HordHolm]

And they say AH is not educational.

I thought it was for sheep farming, that’s what more than one Brit friend has told me.

Em

It's both, which is inevitable, I suppose. There were some clearances under the Cistercians and some secular landlords in the middle ages, mostly for the wool trade and concentrated on the eastern side of the country. The heavy clearances began in the late 16th century for the increasingly important Elizabethan navy/merchant marine. This was then compounded by clearances after the Enclosure Acts started in earnest - landowners wanted to maximise the agricultural potential of their land (sheep, but also arable). There's also been quite a lot of forest clearance surprisingly recently (late 19th century until WW2) to make way for the growth of the suburbs, made possible by the development of the railway system.