Historic Landscape Assessment

A full summary of our recent Historic Landscape Project was given in Archaeology Review 1993-94. The main technical results of the project were published during 1995 and other work reported last year has also been published (Views from the past, the Countryside Commission policy statement on historic landscape character) or reached a wider audience in other ways, notably through seminars and conferences.

As well as county-level assessment, we have also made further progress on the assessment of historic elements of the landscape at national level. The preparation as part of the Monuments Protection Programme of a national map of historic settlement zones, reflecting the regional and local diversity of village and farmstead patterns, is described elsewhere in this volume. At the same time, and in furtherance of our belief that archaeology in the landscape can best be understood and protected or conserved as part of an integrated and holistic approach to landscape conservation, we have commissioned the preparation of a number of national maps as part of the Countryside Commission's national Countryside Character Programme. These will comprise:

• settlements in relation to topography and parish organisation (Oxford Archaeology Unit)

• the form and density of surviving field patterns (Lancaster University Archaeological Unit)

• the impact of historic industrial activity in the landscape (Lancaster University Archaeological Unit)

• early prehistoric archaeology in the present-day landscape (Bournemouth University)

• the contribution to landscape character of visible, easily-appreciated archaeological sites (using the National Archaeological Record)

Some of these maps will prove to be valuable research tools in their own right, and will undoubtedly suggest many avenues for future work, but their primary purpose is to inform the preparation of a general map dividing the country into `regional character areas' on the basis of an amalgam of their historical, natural, and visual and scenic attributes. Each region can then be characterised in more detail, and formal assessment of this and all the associated landscape components will form the basis of conservation, management, and planning strategies for the future. This work will initially be carried out on a national and regional basis, but, like English Nature's Natural Areas, these maps will provide a framework for further more detailed work at both county and more local levels. They will have a relevance to the strategy adopted by MAFF's developing agri-environmental programme (which for 1996 will include the Stewardship schemes), and to development plans. The results will also give a helpful backdrop for archaeological conservation, designation, and research strategies, as well as for English Heritage's policies more generally.