Adam Henson Author & TV presenter

One of the stories the landscape tells us is that we’ve been here for thousands of years and walking through a field or across the moors is following in the footprints of our forebears.

That was brought home to me a few years ago when I discovered a Roman coin right outside the farmhouse. I’d opened the back door and spotted something by the bootscraper. When I bent down to retrieve it, I realised it wasn’t a 1p as I’d thought. This little remnant of everyday life had been in the soil for nearly 2,000 years and, by chance, today was the day it got stuck to my welly. It’s not legally treasure but it is incredibly precious to me. Of course, you don’t have to stumble across an ancient object to see the past in the countryside. Here are some of the marks on the landscape that you can find any time – but ones I think look especially beautiful on a gold-tinged autumn day. Extracted from Two for Joy, Adam Henson, £20.

The aristocracy and wealthy landowners in the 1700s didn’t want their beautiful views ruined by walls and fences.

So a new way was needed to keep roaming livestock away from the manicured lawns and out of the formal gardens.

Instead of putting a barrier up, they dug a deep ditch down to create a large step supported by a brick or stone wall.

It looked a bit like a one-sided moat, but from the windows of the grand house it created the illusion of a flat, open vista.

The mowers to cut these huge lawns were pulled by horses wearing large leather boots to avoid them leaving unsightly hoofprints in the grass.

You can see ha-has at Berrington Hall in Herefordshire, Petworth House in West Sussex and the Royal Crescent in Bath, Somerset, among many others.