One of the first attempts at reconstructing the landscape of pre-Conquest England in minute detail, this book is now available in paperback for the first time. Here the evidence is examined for the West Midlands - the counties of Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire, much of which formed the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the Hwicce. The administrative framework of England was established in the pre-Conquest period, within a geographical setting which influenced the basic resources available in different regions. Della Hooke reveals the intimate local landscape through the medium of place names, contemporary documents and archaeological evidence. Her detailed picture brings the Anglo-Saxon countryside very much to life. The patterns which emerge in this period go far to explain the nature of later medieval patterns of settlement and field systems, and provide the key to understanding territorial organisation in the region.