Although a great deal has been published on the economic, social and engineering history of nineteenth-century railways, the work of historical geographers has been much less conspicuous. This overview by David Turnock goes a long way towards restoring the balance. It details every important aspect of the railway’s influence on spatial distribution of economic and social change, providing a full account of the nineteenth-century geography of the British Isles seen in the context of the railway. The book reviews and explains the shape of the developing railway network, beginning with the pre-steam railways and connections between existing road and water communications and the new rail lines. The author also discusses the impact of the railways on the patterns of industrial, urban and rural change throughout the century. Throughout, the historical geography of Ireland is treated in equal detail to that of Great Britain.

This is a comparative study of the effects of local, regional and national changes of nine parishes in the Upper Eden Valley in north Westmorland during the Victorian years. The analysis of 65,000 records from these sources has given a rare, if not unique, insight into a series of rural parishes.

The relationship between landscape and identity is explored to reveal how Englishness encompasses the urban and rural, and the north and south.

For centuries, the English Lake District has been renowned as an important cultural, sacred and literary landscape. It is therefore surprising that there has so far been no in-depth critical examination of the Lake District from a tourism and heritage perspective. Bringing together leading writers from a wide range of disciplines, this book explores the tourism history and heritage of the Lake District and its construction as a cultural landscape from the mid eighteenth century to the present day. It critically analyses the relationships between history, heritage, landscape, culture and policy that underlie the activities of the National Park, Cumbria Tourism and the proposals to recognise the Lake District as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It examines all aspects of the Lake District's history and identity, brings the story up to date and looks at current issues in conservation, policy and tourism marketing. In doing so, it not only provides a unique and valuable analysis of this region, but offers insights into the history of cultural and heritage tourism in Britain and beyond.

As regionalism assumes new importance in Britain and throughout the EU, this work brings together historians and geographers to offer regional perspectives on Britain that avoid both the traditional parochialism of local history and the generalizations of a national approach.