4.1 Historic landscapes (1 of 3)
The direction of English Heritage policy on historic landscapes was summarised in Archaeology Review 1993-94. Our approach centred on the concept of historic landscape character, and the role of characterisation (or assessment) in helping to understand and to manage the wider historic landscape. This approach is consistent with PPG-15 which states that:
Appraisals based on assessment of the historic character of the whole countryside will be more flexible, and more likely to be effectively integrated with the aims of the planning process, than an attempt to define selected areas for additional control. It is unlikely therefore to be feasible to prepare a definitive register at a national level of England's wider historic landscape.
At that time, a full county-wide assessment of historic landscape characterisation had only been completed for Cornwall, although others had commenced or were being planned. The experience of Cornwall was highly encouraging, and confirmed that a practical, robust, and cost-effective method of assessment had been developed in line with English Heritage policy but which was also appropriate to local authority needs. This methodology has now been extended successfully to several other counties, and during 1997-98 this initial phase of work was almost completed.
By the end of 1997-98, Historic Landscape Character projects were complete or underway in seven separate areas. These comprised the whole of five counties, most of one National Park, and one Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that included most of a sixth county and parts of four others (the Cotswolds, described in Archaeology Review 1996-97). All the projects have been carried out by local authorities, with financial contributions, generally around two thirds of the cost, from English Heritage.
 |
Each county has adapted the procedure piloted in Cornwall to their own local and regional circumstances, in the process contributing to the evolution of an increasingly effective methodology. In every case, this centred on the broad characterisation of the landscape's historic dimension against a simple typology of historically determined, rather than environmentally determined, land use. This procedure enables general patterns of historic landscape to be discerned, while providing a framework for more detailed small-scale local work if necessary and a point of comparison with scenic and ecological landscape assessment.
The first project, which pioneered many of the detailed techniques used in later work, took place in Cornwall, initially tested as part of a landscape assessment of the Bodmin Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and thereafter in 1994-95 throughout the whole of Cornwall as part of a county-wide assessment. Both elements of the project were carried out for the Countryside Commission by the Cornwall Archaeological Unit in association with Land Use Consultants (for Bodmin) and with Landscape Design Associates (for Cornwall). Both projects included help and advice, and in the case of the county project, financial support from English Heritage, and from district councils in Cornwall.
The origins of the Cornwall projects lay in several years of work and experience by the Cornwall Archaeology Unit in developing landscape-scale approaches to the historic environment. This laid much of the necessary groundwork for this type of broad-brush approach to historic and archaeological landscape characterisation and could be coupled with the ideas that had emerged from the English Heritage 1993-94 research project (including the two regional studies in County Durham as well as general theoretical points). In addition, the two projects were seen as a testing ground for the ideas about historic landscape character and process that were formulated in Views from the past (Countryside Commission 1994).
Since completion, the Cornwall map has proved invaluable in variety of spheres. It now routinely provides an interpretative backdrop for the Sites and Monuments Record data and its use in development control. It provides a hitherto missing framework for further larger-scale and more local work on the landscape. Such detailed work has in turn both refined and confirmed the broad conclusions reached by the county-wide characterisation project. One of the main benefits of the county map has been to enable research to move from the general to the particular, from a position of understanding, and is one of the clearest demonstrations of the effectiveness of broad-brush characterisation.
The map has also started to give a basis for defining agri-environmental and other conservation priorities for the historic landscape, facilitating dialogue between archaeologists, ecologists, and planners, and strengthening public understanding of the landscape's historic character. This latter point is particularly important when compared with the devaluing effect in public consciousness of selective designation. Concentration on the character of the whole landscape rather than on special parts gives due recognition for all its components and attributes, and makes the everyday and the 'everywhere' move to centre stage.
 |