St Keverne, Cornwall: survey and conservation in the historic landscape

Countryside Stewardship has become a key mechanism for conservation of the historic environment. An innovative scheme initiated by the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) has resulted in the targeting for Stewardship of some 800 ha of St Keverne parish, on the Lizard Peninsula, an integrated initiative to preserve and enhance historic, wildlife, and landscape values. A concentration of farms within the project area identified by the place-name element tre ('farm, hamlet, or estate') is presumed to be of early medieval origin (ie pre-Norman Conquest). Associated field patterns, and trackways linking the settlements, are likely to be equally ancient, with pre-Norman Conquest origins. This in itself is not unusual in Cornwall, but the quality of survival is, with little hedge removed over the last 150 years. The Cornwall Archaeological Unit (Cornwall County Council) was commissioned by EH and MAFF to survey the area in order to study the fabric of this historic landscape and provide guidelines for the management of the historic resource.

Following a desk-based study using map sources and air photographs, rapid field assessment identified sites and reviewed management needs. More detailed field survey in 2 areas at 1:2500 scale looked more closely at the character of the historic landscape. Two types of field patterns emerged. Over much of the area, the present pattern preserves the furlongs and other boundaries of enclosed medieval strip fields. In the south, however, around Trebarveth, an extensive co-axial field system is probably of prehistoric origin; on coastal heathland at Lowland Point the early field patterns survive in relict form with stony banks and lynchets, the lines of which are continued in the present field pattern. Results from the survey are being fed back into existing Stewardship agreements by the FWAG Officer; the project report includes an inventory of archaeological and historical sites, general management recommendations such as presentation initiatives, and methods of hedge repair, and detailed farm by farm recommendations. Initiatives such as the Countryside Stewardship and Environmentally Sensitive Areas have a major role to play in conservation of the historic character of the landscape.