An Archaeology of Town Commons in England By M Bowden, G Brown, and N Smith

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Despite being an English Heritage monograph this is an engaging read, it includes plenty of incident and anecdotes which give colour to the formal archaeological descriptions. That Tewkesbury and Southampton feature heavily added additional interest for me knowing both these places pretty well.

That the Commons were the setting for the kinds of activities that have generally been overlooked by “historians” means the study of them adds important breath to the understanding of “urban” life, indeed the agricultural use of these Town Commons points to the fact that the idea of “urban” has only really had a force in the last century or century and a half.