This book is a synthesis of recent scholarship on the idea that the (elite) medieval mind conceived of the land – territory – as having aesthetic and symbolic aspects which were, in one way or another, enhanced by ‘design’. The scope is Anglocentric but with examples drawn, wherever possible, from Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and with some reference to continental parallels. It is a well-written account and is well illustrated, particularly with regard to the clear line drawings. It also contains an extensive bibliography. Unfortunately, the publisher has imposed the incredibly irritating system of banishing text references to ‘notes’ at the end of each chapter, forcing the reader to double-handle to find any reference. Most descriptions, discussions and illustrations of individual sites are referenced to primary sources; an exception is Ravensworth Castle (North Yorkshire), new understanding of which has been divorced from its origination in surveys of the standing masonry by Peter Ryder (Reference Ryder1979) and the earthworks by Colin Lofthouse (Reference Lofthouse1997).

Individual chapters cover the history of the new approach, the ‘inner core’ of house, gardens and immediate setting, fauna, hunting, parks and their effect on communities, understanding design, including gendered gardens, the construction of views, privacy and control of access and the legacy of medieval elite landscapes into the early post-medieval period. A short concluding chapter draws the threads together and considers the degree to which ‘design’ is an appropriate term in a medieval context. Creighton is rightly insistent that ‘we should be careful not to crudely back-project ideas and concepts of the modern age on to much earlier landscapes’ (p 2) and this he avoids, as far as it is possible.

Creighton raises many points worthy of further discussion, both general and particular. Only a few can be covered here. To take some examples of the particular first, in discussing the inception of the new approach to medieval elite landscapes Creighton gives primacy to Bodiam (p 5); the bishops’ palaces at Somersham (Cambridgeshire) or Stowe (Lincolnshire) must have almost equal claims (not that it matters – the same group of scholars take much of the credit). I was puzzled as to why Paris should not have fields immediately outside its walls (p 10); most medieval towns and cities did, until suburbs entirely engulfed them. The Roman fort near the castle at Restormel (pp 16–18) would repay further study. It is still a visible earthwork; what meaning might it have had in the medieval context of that particularly symbol-enhanced park?

Full weight is given to pictorial, literary and poetic evidence and to place-names. Creighton notes the two-way relationship between literature and life – ‘medieval literary sources inevitably drew on real-life examples, but so too did gardens make conscious literary references within their designs’ (p 41). There is clearly room for further research in these areas. While Creighton considers the significance of ‘beau’ names, there are others of Norman-French origin – such as Montacute, Richmond and Richmont – that would repay further consideration.

Creighton touches on the invention of tradition in the later medieval period (p 42) and it would also be good to see this argument developed further; the archaic late thirteenth- to early fourteenth-century great tower of Hopton Castle (Shropshire), furnished with the antique objects that its upwardly mobile builder purloined from Wem Castle, would make an interesting case study. Another observation, that ‘curving [park] pales … cut across the grain of the landscape’ (p 129), is touched on again later in the book (pp 154ff) but needs developing further.

Our understanding of the medieval elite has been transformed in the last two decades in what has been a triumph for archaeological and historical scholarship; Cathcart King’s sneering description of the great tower at Peveril (Reference Cathcart King1988, 3) could not be more different from current understanding of that structure, mediated through consideration of its landscape context (pp 150, 171). There have already been synthetic works on the new understandings of castle architecture, not least by Creighton himself; now he has provided us with a very timely first book-length synthesis of this new approach to medieval landscape design and aesthetics.