The author uses his evidence to discuss the nature of an `Honour' and the degree to which the local aristocracy identified with this regional division. He considers how the landscape reflects the existence and nature of an aristocracy, asking `How real and...extensive was seigneurial influence in the honour of Dudley?'

In this detailed study, Liddiard examines the processes and factors which determined the number, distribution and location of castles and considers how a castle's construction altered its environment. Using structures such as Castle Acre, Castle Rising, Middleton and Horsford as examples, Liddiard suggests that the location of most of Norfolk's castles was shaped by social factors and not military considerations. Castles were primarily intended to act as residences even though they were designed to dramatically dominate the landscape.

The varied character of Britain's countryside and towns provides communities with a strong sense of local identity. One of the most significant features of the southern British landscape is the way that its character differs from region to region, with compact villages in the Midlands contrasting with the sprawling hamlets of East Anglia and isolated farmsteads of Devon. Even more remarkable is the very 'English' feel of the landscape in southern Pembrokeshire, in the far south west of Wales. Hoskins described the English landscape as 'the richest historical record we possess', and in this book Stephen Rippon explores the origins of regional variations in landscape character, arguing that while some landscapes date back to the centuries either side of the Norman Conquest, other areas across southern Britain underwent a profound change around the 8th century AD.