The concept of solastalgia is recent (Glenn Albrecht, 2005), and we may wonder if it is not pointless to look for expressions of this feeling in past periods, when the word did not exist. This is a complex area, similar to the problem of retrospective diagnosis in medicine. However, the second half of the eighteenth century might be enlightening in that sense, since it was also the moment when a related concept, that of nostalgia, became more current. The starting-point of the paper will be whether we can clearly delineate the key differences between the two concepts. Evidence of nostalgia in the second half of the eighteenth century can be found, and expressions of feelings of nostalgia certainly played a part in the later development of Romantic poetry. How we might relate this literary expression to social and economic changes will form the major part of the paper. The changes carried out in the rural landscape under the pressure of the enclosure movement were topics for poetry, and, possibly, as urbanisation was growing, there was some unease about the disappearance of the original landscape around large cities. And yet, can we isolate moments of solastalgia, in the same way it is defined today? Contemporary writers noticed and commented upon changes in their surroundings, especially in the rural areas, but did they see these changes as a source of anxiety? If unease was expressed, did it go beyond a feeling of nostalgia for the past, which is after all frequent throughout history? One concrete example, that of the changes surrounding Nuneham Courtney in Oxfordshire, will be developed through the poems it gave rise to at the time.