Given the large human population and its global spread, we must accept that the landscapes that most of us grew up in and which we might regard as ‘normal’ – at least those that contribute to our strong sense of place – are largely created by human hands. George Seddon writes:

Landscapes are not static entities and require constant effort to maintain. It is a sobering thought to realise that many iconic places have been created by people through cultural practices, village and urban development, agriculture and industry. There are few pristine places remaining on this planet. There are a set of semiotics of place – varying with landscape, culture and memory – which condition our language, norms and management actions. The entire English landscape is a created entity, maintained by agriculture: by arable and pastoral farming. There is an underlying set of established metaphors in the English rural and domestic landscape concerning style, design and history and the way these relate the topography to the house and the garden. Don Wayne has called these historical semiotics.