Ian Rotherham – författare

For thousands of years peat was the main fuel that warmed houses all over the British Isles, and the mark of the peat cutter is written deep in the landscape. This book is a celebration of a cultural history that extended from the Iron Age to the twentieth century. It tells the story of the use of peat for fuel in the British Isles, and the people who cut it. It also examines the methods of cutting, the tools that were used, and the organization of cutting. It chronicles the beginning of commercial extraction and the exhaustion of this precious resource.

Though most of us will have enjoyed strolling through beautiful British woodlands, we might not be aware of the ancient – and often complex – origins of our surroundings.From medieval times, woodlands were carefully managed commodities with hotly contested resources: conflicting demands from landowners, the Crown, the peasantry and local and national wood-based industries have all left their marks on today's woodland.Ian D. Rotherham here explains the various uses of British woods and their industries, such as coppicing, charcoal-burning, basket-making and bodging, and helps the reader to seek out the clues to their woodland's past.