Windgather Press

Windgather Press specialises in publishing accessible and attractive books on landscape history, landscape archaeology, trees, and the history of the British countryside including garden history. Their authors include some of the most accomplished landscape archaeologists and historians writing today. The books are designed not only for those professionally engaged in the subject, but also anyone else with a serious interest in landscape research.
Windgather Press’s name originates from Windgather Rocks, a prominent gritstone edge on the Cheshire/Derbyshire border, close to where the press was originally founded in Bollington, UK.

New Forest Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 232
ISBN: 9781911188193
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2017
Imprint: Windgather Press
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
Hadrian Cook’s new account of the New Forest in southern England provides an historical narrative of the occupation and use of a vast area that was, for centuries, important as a Royal Hunting Forest and subject to many contentious laws and regulations, but which includes much economically marginal land. Four critical themes are explored through time: the shaping of the natural environment into human prehistory; human intervention through natural resource management; governance and management of the forest over time, stressing pressures on resources and attempts at exclusion of certain social groups; and policies and designations to conserve the New Forest. Cook aims to reflect a complicated narrative around the evolution caused by changing management and economic objectives reflecting governance arrangements at different times.
The Anglo-Saxon Fenland Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781911188087
Pub Date: 30 Jun 2017
Imprint: Windgather Press
Illustrations: colour and b/w
Description:
Archaeologies and histories of the fens of eastern England, continue to suggest, explicitly or by implication, that the early medieval fenland was dominated by the activities of north-west European colonists in a largely empty landscape. Using existing and new evidence and arguments, this new interdisciplinary history of the Anglo-Saxon fenland offers another interpretation. The fen islands and the silt fens show a degree of occupation unexpected a few decades ago.
Street Trees in Britain Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9781911188230
Pub Date: 23 Jun 2017
Imprint: Windgather Press
Illustrations: 98
Description:
The trees which line many of the streets in our towns and cities can often be regarded as part of a heritage landscape. Despite the difficult conditions of an urban environment, these trees may live for 100 years or more and represent ‘living history’ in the midst of our modern streetscapes. This is the first book on the history of Britain’s street trees and it gives a highly readable, authoritative and often amusing account of their story, from the tree-lined promenades of the seventeenth century to the majestic boulevards that grace some of our modern city centres.
RRP: £39.95
Yorkshire Landscapes Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 112
ISBN: 9781909686977
Pub Date: 19 May 2017
Imprint: Windgather Press
Description:
Yorkshire is by far the largest county in England, taking up most of the land area from Sheffield in the south to Cleveland in the north. Covering such a large area between the North Sea and the Pennine watershed, the variety of landscapes is astonishing, and in this book you will get a taste of much of it. Our tour starts in the rolling, highly urbanised south, then climbs into the Pennines where high heather-clad moorland is bisected by valleys full of industrial heritage.
Historic Gardens and Parks of Derbyshire Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9781911188049
Pub Date: 30 Apr 2017
Imprint: Windgather Press
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
The open hilly terrain of much of Derbyshire has long been a challenge to gardeners and landscapers, but has produced some spectacular walled and terraced gardens. Wealthy aristocrats created important and unusual pleasure gardens including the famous Bess of Hardwick, the Earl of Newcastle and his Venus garden at Bolsover, the Whig Dukes of Devonshire at Chatsworth and their Tory rivals Lords Scarsdale of Kedleston and the Earl of Harrington with his extravagant and secret Elysium garden at Elvaston Castle. Mineral wealth, including ore and coal, produced wealthy manufacturers and businessmen who created their own fashionable and expensive gardens to compete with established county wealth.
RRP: £25.00
An Upland Biography Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 200
ISBN: 9781911188155
Pub Date: 28 Feb 2017
Imprint: Windgather Press
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
Gardom's Edge is an area of gritstone upland situated on the Eastern Moors of the Derbyshire Peak District. Like other parts of the Eastern Moors, Gardom's Edge has long been renowned for the wealth of prehistoric field systems, cairns and other structures which can still be traced across the surface. Drawing on the results of original survey and excavation, An Upland Biography documents prehistoric activity across this area, exploring the changing character of occupation from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age.
The Ancient Yew Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9781785700781
Pub Date: 30 Nov 2016
Imprint: Windgather Press
Description:
The gnarled, immutable yew tree is one of the most evocative sights in the British and Irish language, an evergreen impression of immortality, the tree that provides a living botanical link between our own landscapes and those of the distant past. This book tells the extraordinary story of the yew’s role in the landscape through the millennia, and makes a convincing case for the origins of many of the oldest trees, as markers of the holy places founded by Celtic saints in the early medieval ‘Dark Ages’.With wonderful photographic portraits of ancient yews and a gazetteer (with locations) of the oldest yew trees in Britain, the book brings together for the first time all the evidence about the dating, history, archaeology and cultural connections of the yew.
Shades of Green Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 375
ISBN: 9781909686779
Pub Date: 30 Sep 2016
Imprint: Windgather Press
Description:
Sitka spruce has contributed to the Pacific Coast landscapes of North America for over ten millennia. For the Tlingit First Nationit is the most important tree in terms of spiritual relationships, art, and products in daily use such as canoes, containers, fish-traps and sweet cakes. Since the late nineteenth century it has also been the most important tree to the timber industry of west coast North America.
Local Places, Global Processes Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9781909686939
Pub Date: 29 Feb 2016
Imprint: Windgather Press
Description:
We live in an age of unprecedented environmental change: global, interconnected and universal. Yet though our lives are inextricably connected to global processes, and increasingly mobile, we still live in particular places. Our perceptions of change, and what kind of change might be for good or ill, are shaped by the interaction of localised experience and the wider forces of transformation.
RRP: £29.95
Dury and Andrews’ Map of Hertfordshire Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9781909686731
Pub Date: 30 Nov 2015
Imprint: Windgather Press
Description:
This book is about the map of an English county – Hertfordshire – which was published in 1766 by two London map-makers, Andrew Dury and John Andrews.For well over two centuries, from the time of Elizabeth I to the late 18th century, the county was the basic unit for mapping in Britain and the period witnessed several espisodes of comprehensive map making. The map which forms the subject of this book followed on from a large number of previous maps of the county but was greatly superior to them in terms of quality and detail.
RRP: £35.00
Norfolk Landscapes Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 112
ISBN: 9781909686816
Pub Date: 30 Nov 2015
Imprint: Windgather Press
Description:
Norfolk is a very distinctive county, the most easterly in the British Isles. With the North Sea and The Wash to the east and north it is relatively close to the Netherlands, but Norwich is only a couple of hours by train from London. It has been a centre of great political power, but is on no major transport routes, so has no motorways and has been largely bypassed by the Industrial Revolution.
Arcadian Visions Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9781909686663
Pub Date: 30 Jun 2015
Imprint: Windgather Press
Illustrations: b/w and colour illustrations
Description:
This book is about Arcadia and the pastoral tradition; what it has meant for successive generations and their vision of the landscape, as well as the implications this has had for its design and management. Today the concept of Arcadia, and way it has shaped our landscape, is dimly perceived and little understood by landscape architects and those responsible for the management of land. This is in marked contrast to previous centuries when the vision of Arcadia and the pastoral was implanted by education among the more privileged in society.
Trees in Towns and Cities Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781909686625
Pub Date: 31 May 2015
Imprint: Windgather Press
Illustrations: b/w and colour illustrations
Description:
This is the first book on the history of trees in Britain’s towns and cities and the people who have planted and cared for them. It is a highly readable and authoritative account of the trees in our urban landscapes from the Romans to the present day, including public parks, private gardens, streets, cemeteries and many other open spaces. It charts how our appreciation of urban trees and woodland has evolved into our modern understanding of the many environmental, economic and social benefits of our urban forests.
RRP: £39.95
North Downs Landscapes Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 104
ISBN: 9781909686588
Pub Date: 07 May 2015
Imprint: Windgather Press
Description:
The North Downs are a range of hills that run east-west from the south-east tip of England, at Dover in Kent, to Farnham in Surrey. They skirt the southern edge of London, so for a long time have offered Londoners beautiful countryside to escape to, or for a home to commute to work from. A hundred years ago, they were still quite remote, but London has grown, spreading onto Downland, and rail and road links have ensured that the many towns across the hills have also grown substantially in size.
Between the Wind and the Water Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 178
ISBN: 9781909686502
Pub Date: 08 Jan 2015
Imprint: Windgather Press
Illustrations: b/w and col illus
Description:
The Archaeological sites of Orkney give us an unparalleled glimpse into prehistory. Inscribed as the 'Heart of Neolithic Orkney' World Heritage Site in 1999, four great monuments - the village of Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness and the burial mound of Maeshowe - are also at the centre of the archipelago's story. This book looks at what makes these monuments so special.
Deer and People Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 248
ISBN: 9781909686540
Pub Date: 19 Nov 2014
Imprint: Windgather Press
Illustrations: b/w and col. illustrations
Description:
Deer have been central to human cultures throughout time and space: whether as staples to hunter-gatherers, icons of Empire, or the focus of sport. Their social and economic importance has seen some species transported across continents, transforming landscape as they went with the establishment of menageries and park. The fortunes of other species have been less auspicious, some becoming extirpated, or being in threat of extinction, due to pressures of over-hunting and/or human-instigated environmental change.
RRP: £45.00