Territoriality and the Early Medieval Landscape. The countryside of the early Saxon Kingdom

farming practices, trade, and buildings, and extensive religious histories of each of the parishes. The book contains many attractive colour photographs of the local buildings, as well as historical photographs and maps. The book contains detailed descriptions of the extent and character of the parishes, and draws attention to the different landscape types and the contrasting landscapes within parishes. In the parish of Kirby, the contrast between the coastline and marshy islands and the inland clay plateau is highlighted, and the use of the inland plateau for agriculture and brickearth. The parish of Thorpe is largely agricultural, with deposits of London clay used for dairying and winter cereals in the twentieth century, and glacial deposits with overlying soils used for cereals, sugar beet, potatoes, and some fruit. There has also been some aggregate and clay extraction in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Walton is characterised by eroding cliff face, saltings and reclaimed marshland with a plateau to the centre and west of parish. The agricultural land was largely enclosed by the early modern period, although there is evidence of some openor common-field arrangements before this. There are interesting features of the parishes which are a result of their landscape, for example the parish of Kirby-Le-Soken varied in size in the records due to the inclusion or exclusion of marshland and saltings, erosion and reclamation as well as boundary changes. The impact of weather on the London clays in also mentioned, with its propensity to crack in dry weather and absorb water in wet weather making it prone to landslips, exacerbating coastal erosion, and meaning that much of the original parish of Walton has been lost to the sea. Alongside the usual use of archaeological, standard documentary and building evidence, the book makes extensive use of interesting source material, such as the early nineteenth-century diaries of Richard Stone, which provide evidence for the social life in the area as well as the repair of sea walls and draining of salt marsh. The book touches upon the wider relevance of these parishes, particularly the scientific significance of coastline at Walton as a source of fossils. As usual for a VCH Red Book, the book has a useful glossary, and extensive index. This book is a slim volume, particularly compared to Part 1 of the same volume, at only 256 total pages (compared to over 400 for Part 1). While the area covered by this book is able to stand alone, as a distinct area, and the editors’ choice to publish the material in this way is justifiable, nevertheless this book is unlikely to appeal to anyone who does not already have Part I of the Victoria County History of Essex XII.