Acknowledgements
Allan Howard, Author of “the Harley Story” – BSC Estate Management, Chartered Surveyor & Landscape Architect.
Allan Howard was Principal Landscape Architect for the Telford Development Corporation from 1982 to 1988 and was a Landscape Architect from 1968 to 1996 in British New Towns and private practice.
He also worked as an architectural designer and undertook many jobs in Harley including the renovation and extension of the Village Hall and School house, Tower Cottage, disabled access for Harley Church, renovation and build of Glebe Cottage – the latter being the family home.
He has lived in Harley since 1973 and is now one of the longest living residents, along with his wife Marlene.
As an Artist he exhibited regularly at The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists along with Galleries in the North West and the West Midlands.
He continues to paint and hosts an Open Studio during the bi-annual Harley Open Gardens in the Summer.
Authors & Studies useful for this history were; Geology, English land law back to medieval times, Landscape history. Below is a summary of those whose excellent work have contributed to “The Harley Story”.
Margaret Gelling OBE b. 1924 d. 2009
Margaret Gelling was one of Britain’s leading experts in the study of place names. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal British Academy in 1998. It was a great achievement for a scholar who bestrode her discipline, but never held an academic post in any university.
Margaret broke new ground by presenting a strong geological and archaeological background to place names.
In her several books, the volume that ensured her an elevated position among English toponymists was her ‘Sign posts to the Past: Place Names and the History of England’ 1978. It showed how we might understand and interpret the names of our own home areas. It became a fundamental handbook for geographers, archaeologists and historians. It was still in print in 2009.
In her Place Names in the Landscape 1984 she showed how the Anglo Saxons gave precise descriptions of the land form they saw which we can still detect. She was particularly informed of the period prior to the Christianization of the Anglo Saxons.
Margaret was married to Peter Gelling an Archaeologist who was a lecturer at Birmingham University. They lived in Harborne from 1952, giving her a central location and access to a first class library.
Trevor Rowley b. 1942 BA Lond, MA. MLitt Oxf. FSA. MIFA.
Trevor Rowley was Deputy Director of the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University. He is a Geographer by training, an Archaeologist and an acknowledged national authority on landscape studies and village studies. He is now (2021) Emeritus Fellow of Kellogg College. Oxford University.
He was a post graduate student under WG Hoskins of Oxford University who wrote the seminal book ‘The Making of the English Landscape’.
He has extensive knowledge of the survey and excavation of deserted villages.
Two of his several books are entitled, ‘The Shropshire Landscape’ 1972, and ‘Villages in the Landscape’ 1978.
WG Hoskins CBE, FBA, b.1908 d.1992
WG Hoskins was an English historian who founded the first University Department of English Local History. His great contribution to the study of history was in the field of landscape history.
Hoskins demonstrated the profound impact of human activity of the English landscape in a pioneering book, ‘The Making of the English Landscape’. This work has had a lasting impact on local and landscape history and historical and environmental conservation.
Richard Bradley b.1946 FSA, FSA. Scot. FBA
Richard Bradley was Professor of Archaeology at Reading University from 1987 to 2013.
He is now Emeritus Professor.
He is an expert in stone circles and henges in the late Neolithic period (3000 -2000 BC) and the early Bronze Age. A time when ‘special places ought to be circular’
He says:
Henges were not always found in the immediate vicinity of a settlement. People travelled to them. There, eating was ‘a big thing’ especially feasting on pork, as the evidence shows.
Henges in villages were primarily community gathering places, although they did have other functions. Henges often had astronomical alignments in order to record the seasons and the equinoxes. In this respect perhaps they were thought to exert some control over the mystical heavens above.
The need for a community to have a gathering place is a basic function and is very evident today. This need persists over any length of time from centuries to millennia.