Although its valleys, fells and lakes are the foundation of its appeal, the Lake District as we know it is very much a lived-in landscape shaped as much by the hand of man as nature. The patterns of settlement and the use of the fells and valley-bottom lands have changed comparatively little over the last 2000 years. Much of the region is now an historic landscape of considerable importance. The author sets out to show how this landscape can be read and interpreted to throw light on the way in which the Lake District's inhabitants lived and worked over the last three centuries. The book combines the results of building and landscape surveys with information culled from local records. It describes how the layout and disposition of houses and farm buildings and their furniture and fittings, together with human stories both tragic and humorous, illuminate the realities of everyday life; how homes were heated and lit; where and how people slept; what food was prepared and eaten; how animals were housed and how crops were grown.