'Co-operation and conflict in the development of the south-west Lancashire Landscape': a comment

This article comments on Virgoe's 2011 study of the Croston drainage scheme in early nineteenth-century Lancashire. It argues that although the underpinning research is sound, the long-term national and regional context are under-developed, leading to a number of potentially misleading conclusions. This article, then, develops the immediate regional context of social and economic development, and highlights local comparators not referred to by Virgoe. In doing so the notion of a 'typical' drainage landscape and the primary role ascribed to landlords in drainage and landscape history is questioned.