Formerly in private ownership, Lundy was acquired by the National Trust in 1969, when it was placed on a long lease to the Landmark Trust. Three miles long and half a mile wide, this towering lump of granite, with cliffs almost sheer in places, and a plateau top, lies in the Bristol Channel shipping lanes, mid-way between the coasts of North Devon and South Wales. As a quiet island retreat, Lundy attracts numbers of visitors, on whom it largely depends for its survival, but it also enjoys special protection, both for its natural and historical worth, through legal designations. The ecologically rich waters surrounding the island have been designated a nationally important marine nature reserve and the island plateau (excluding the village) is an SSSI. Its archaeological importance arises from the quality and extent of its physical remains, ranging from evidence of prehistoric and medieval occupation to the industrial remains and other historical survivals of the more recent past. Currently, Lundy contains thirteen Scheduled Ancient Monuments or areas, and fourteen Listed Buildings. There is also a small island farm which requires a certain amount of grazing for cattle and sheep and the attendant watering, feeding, and stalling requirements. To cater for all these special provisions, successful management of the island must be very carefully balanced. Although the island's archaeological survival may not be perceived to be under any obvious threat, it does suffer pressure from a number of potentially conflicting demands. Whilst existing scheduling gives legal protection to some of these sites, the results of a preliminary archaeological assessment by the National Trust in 1989 showed a much greater survival than had been previously recorded, and the need for a re-evaluation of Lundy's archaeology, which would underpin a sustained management strategy.
Detailed field survey was initiated to enable more informed management of the archaeological survival and to devise a long-term programme for its best preservation and interpretation. The resulting information would allow an accurate record, assessment, and evaluation of the archaeological sites and areas, identifying them on the basis of their relative archaeological merits with a view to developing a sense of their national importance. The processes of drawing together the records, their assessment, and the identification of a hierarchy of archaeological value would also provide an essential basis for a re-evaluation of the island's scheduling provision under the MPP. Existing records were incorporated where appropriate, but the majority of the survey was the product of new measurement by EDM theodolite survey, and large scale, detailed drawings. All sites were described and photographed. Further contour information, aerial photographic, and other existing mapped detail will ultimately be combined with the 1:1000 metrical survey to produce a final plan for the island as a whole.
This historic landscape survey was undertaken by National Trust staff and volunteers in two week periods during late April/May over five years, and the data generated is currently being written up; A1 size annotated plots of the island's archaeology have been produced, and details of every site are being entered onto the National Trust's computerised database. Interpretation is ongoing, but it is clear that almost the entire island-plateau shows evidence of previous farming and settlement, with field systems continuing below Halfway and Quarter Walls, and into and below the village. It is only the emergence of these patterns in plan form that enables informed analysis and interpretation of these remains and their relationships to each other. An especially high degree of detail has been recorded at the Beacon Hill early Christian cemetery, with both a contour survey and a feature survey of its interior. Detailed drawings of central features, the inscribed stones, excavated graves, and thirteenth-century chapel foundations were made, and context sheets and photographs completed. The short lived (1863-68), but extensive nineteenth-century quarries on the East Sidings were also treated in great detail, and it is hoped that the resulting plan will give a better understanding of the operations there as all the records of the Lundy Granite Company were lost at the time of its liquidation in 1868. Part of the work of the survey was to record the architectural detail of those ruined buildings which have so far survived in more substantial form, and some fine plans, elevations, and suggested reconstructions have been drawn for Belle Vue Cottages and the Quarry Hospital, the Battery Cottages and associated buildings; similar detailed recording has been given to the recording of John O'Groats House, Widow's Tenement long house and enclosure, Bull's Paradise, and some of the more structural earlier ruins.
It is intended that this research will be published, both at an academic level, and to provide the interested visitor to the island with an updated archaeological field guide and, if appropriate, a discreet exhibition display. It will also, through its reinforced statement of the overall archaeological importance of the island, lead to a revision of existing schedules and a likely increase in their number under the MPP.
Valuable archaeological research has been carried out in recent years with the support of the Lundy Field Society running concurrently with the National Trust survey. This has concentrated principally on the fields within and around the village, using geophysical prospection and test pit excavation. Existing collections of flint artefacts have been examined and comparisons made with recent flint finds and those arising from test pits, particularly in Brickfield, Tillage Field, and St Helen's. Artefact concentrations south of Quarter Wall in the Airfield and Lighthouse Field have also been examined, and the evidence reinforces the impression that this area was fairly intensively used in the Mesolithic and post-medieval periods. A geophysical survey of Bull's Paradise supports previous interpretations and also indicates new features. It will be interesting to compare the geophysical findings with the National Trust survey plan of the area.
Now that the National Trust survey is substantially complete, the resulting SMR record for Lundy and the supplementary geophysical research may be studied together, along with the extant documentary record, and current historical research. It is also hoped that the opportunity will arise for a programme of environmental analysis, including a reassessment of pollen analysis results from earlier investigations during the 1960s. A large but scattered and mainly anonymous archive exists for the island arising from past archaeological work, and from chance finds or personal interest. Collaborative work between the Lundy Field Society and the National Trust is already well advanced in locating, cataloguing, and indexing this archive.
Although the major part of this project has been funded largely by the National Trust itself, with a substantial grant each year from Devon County Council, and small donations from the Landmark Trust, the final season of work in 1996 was made possible by a major grant from EH. The express purpose of this was to enable the satisfactory completion of the National Trust survey, and to make available the resulting survey material to EH, for the preparation of revised scheduling provision under the MPP. This provided the opportunity for a final season of fieldwork mostly at the south end of the island. Detail was added to the survey of a tenement at Halfway Wall, the recording of the village was completed, and a survey made of the steep East Sidelands, revealing a succession of terraces, small fields, and ruined structures concentrated in the deep combes. Further coastal battery sites were discovered, and plan and elevation drawings made of the medieval Marisco Castle. It also helped provide up to date aerial photographic cover by RCHME, a photographic record of most of the ruined buildings, and analysis of the survey plots. A field officer from the MPP accompanied the 1996 team on Lundy, and the field data is currently being used to compile the new scheduling provision. During the course of the survey, the number of recorded sites has been increased from approximately 200 in 1989, to approximately 1,200 in 1996. The more detailed record gives much greater scope for re-interpretation of the island's archaeological remains, and will make wider and more informed scheduling protection possible, which in turn will aid management of the island's historic landscape.
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