Welcome to the new website of the Society for Landscape Studies. We hope you like it.  Here you will find all the information you need about the Society and its activities, as well as links to useful sources of information that will help you in your own landscape study.  If you are new to the study of the landscape then have a look at our collection of landscapes, which will give you some idea of the diversity of landscapes and the different ways in which they can be interpreted.  We will add to these over the coming months.

The photograph above usefully sums up what landscape study is about; to understand a landscape’s big picture you need to look closely at the smaller details. The photograph shows part of the wall of a farm building in Ceredigion in west Wales.  The prominent pale coloured stone is from Dundry near Bristol – but what is it doing in a wall in Wales? The answer is that quarries at Dundry were a major source of freestone, which can easily be cut and carved, for use in medieval buildings. This particular piece once formed part of the Cistercian abbey at Strata Florida, and following the abbey’s dissolution in 1539 the stone was recycled and incorporated into a nearby farm building.  This one piece of stone, therefore, has played a part in the landscape history of both Dundry and of Strata Florida; it also is evidence for medieval trade between the two.

Strata Florida was the venue for the most recent of the Society’s events. A full report of the visit will appear in the next issue of the Society’s newsletter, which will be sent to all members in January 2022.