As a geographical term, the Weald is a particular area in the South of England that is situated between the chalk hills of the North Downs and South Downs, and that extends across the counties of Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex and Surrey. It has also been known as the Forest of Andred or Andredswald because in the early Middle Ages it was known to stretch from Andred or Anderida in East Sussex to Dorset, seventy miles long and thirty miles wide. Lower parts of the Weald form a gentler rolling countryside which is especially popular with ramblers. The Weald has kept its wooded character to this very day, the forest still covering 23% of the area, one of the highest levels in England. Despite the population pressure in the South of England, it has not resulted in any major urban environment. Small towns such as Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge, Crawley, Sevenoaks, etc., are local centres which have attracted a certain number of commuters into London without having lost their character of old. Wooded areas other than those which are situated between the Downs and which have the name Weald are North Weald Bassett in Essex, and Harrow Weald in northwest London.
Wold, which is from the same root as weald, and which originally meant "forest" or "wildlands." It now most often means open countryside or moorlands and especially the rolling uplands in the North of England, the Yorkshire Wolds and Lincolnshire Wolds.
The Yorkshire Wolds are an area of low hills and valleys in the East Riding of Yorkshire in North-Eastern England. They are formed from chalk, and make an arc from the Humber estuary west of Kingston-upon-Hull up to the North Sea coast between Bridlington and Scarborough. Here they rise up to form cliffs, most notably at Flamborough, Bempton Cliffs and Filey; Flamborough Headland is designated a Heritage Coast. On the other side of the Humber, the chalk formations continue as the Lincolnshire Wolds; in fact, one can view the Humber as cutting through a single formation. On the western edge the Wolds rise to an escarpment which then drops sharply to the Vale of York. It is bounded by the North York Moors and Yorkshire Wolds to the east and the Pennines to the west. To the north, on the other side of the Vale of Pickering lie the North York Moors, and to the east the hills flatten into the plain of Holderness. The largest town in the Wolds is Driffield, with other places including Pocklington and Thixendale. Treaty of York
The Lincolnshire Wolds are a range of hills in the county of Lincolnshire, UK. They are a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), and the highest area of land in eastern England between Yorkshire and Kent. They run, roughly parallel with the North Sea coast, from the Humber in the north west to the town of Spilsby in the south east. The Wolds comprise a series of low hills and steep valleys underlain by calcareous (chalk and limestone) and sandstone rock, laid down in the Cretaceous period. The characteristic open valleys of the Wolds were created during the last ice age through the action of glaciation and meltwater. Geographically, the Lincolnshire Wolds are a continuation of the Yorkshire Wolds which run up through the East Riding of Yorkshire, the Wolds as a whole having been bisected by the tremendous erosive power of the waters of the Humber. The Lincolnshire Wolds can be divided into four distinct areas: the main area of chalk hills in the north, the north west scarp, an area of ridges and valleys in the south west, and the claylands in the south east. The Red Hill nature reserve near the village of Goulceby is notable for the unusual red colour of its soil and underlying chalk.
The Wolds are sparsely populated and have a deeply rural character. The area has a fascinating history, with a strong Viking influence evident in many of the placenames. There are also an abundance of mediaeval 'lost villages': settlements abandoned due to changes in land use, soil exhaustion and disease. The King's Highway. An abandoned village is a village which has for some reason been deserted, in many countries many thousands of villages were deserted at several periods in history, for a variety of causes. Often related to plague, famine, war, climate change and environmental destruction or deliberate clearances. However from around 1200 onwards the climate began to become harsher (see little ice age) and villages situated upon exposed uplands or upon clay vales where the soil became waterlogged, bore the brunt of the changes. Eventually crop failures forced many such villages to be abandoned. In 1348 the Black Death arrived, and in the years which followed between 30-50% of the British population was killed. Many villages were deliberately cleared throughout history. In the 12th and 13th centuries, many villages were removed to make way for monasteries. In modern times, a few villages have been abandoned due to reservoirs being built and the location being flooded, or the village lands being converted to military training areas. Villages in Northumberland have been demolished to make way for open cast mines.