New Books

The Blean – the Woodlands of a Cathedral City – Edited by William Holmes and Alexander Wheaton on behalf of the Blean Research Group, Canterbury. £12.00

For a thousand years Blean has been the second biggest concentration of woodland in Kent after the Weald. It has ample evidence of prehistoric and Roman settlement and field systems but differs from many other big concentrations in that medieval woodland is not associated with deer. Blean's speciality is that it was the woodland attached to a holy city, with landowners that included the Archbishop, the Cathedral, the abbeys and lesser monasteries, hospitals and charities, institutional ownership which resulted in centuries of well-organized management and conservation. Drawing on the unique resource of Cathedral archives, chapters include Woodlands: Myth & Reality, Evidence of Human Activity, Archaeology & Surviving Features, Timber-Framed Buildings and Natural History. Illustrated throughout in colour and b&w.

Available from the Albion Bookshop, 15 Mercery Lane, Canterbury CT1 2JJ (p&p £1.60 extra) tel: 01227 768631 e-mail: Albionbookshop@compuserve.com

New CD

The History of Sevenoaks to 1650 Jean Fox FBGS, CEEng 0-9543-1970-7-X Price £14.99 inc post & VAT