English Heritage and its predecessor bodies have been closely involved in urban archaeological matters since the first days of rescue archaeology. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, a large proportion of the total rescue archaeology budget for England was devoted to urban sites, with major campaigns of excavation taking place in historic towns and cities throughout the country.
The publication of PPG-16 in 1990 resulted directly from the controversy which surrounded the discovery of the Rose Theatre in Southwark in 1989. Since then, urban archaeology has continued to be a major focus of professional and public archaeological concern. This is now especially so because of government's commitment to urban regeneration and the re-use of 'brownfield' sites, in preference to new building in the countryside. This is the context within which English Heritage's 'urban archaeological strategy programme' is taking place.
England's historic towns contain some of our most complex and valuable archaeological remains. Not only are the buried deposits, buildings, structures, and plan-form components important for the study of the past, but together they provide a link to the past which is reflected in townscapes today. Much is known about the origins and development of our larger historic towns. Many of them have captured the attention of social and economic historians and geographers as well as archaeologists, often working together to provide an integrated view of urban life as well of the process of urban development. Much of this work has taken place over the last fifty years, increasing our knowledge and providing the evidence necessary for the development of strategies for future management. The smaller towns, however, tend to be less well known.
Historic towns are centres of modern activity, and the main threat to the urban archaeological resource is development. However, economic vitality is essential if historic towns are to thrive, since without it the many listed buildings and conservation areas in those towns face an uncertain future. In 1992, as part of our response to PPG-16 (which emphasises the need to balance archaeological and other factors when considering development proposals), English Heritage published a policy statement, Managing the Urban Archaeological Resource. This noted greater difficulty in identifying which parts of the urban archaeological resource should be selected for protection and, given present and likely future land-use, the most appropriate forms of designation. English Heritage's role, in partnership with local authorities, is to help guide the choices between preserving archaeological remains and the need to allow our towns to thrive and develop, by providing sufficient information to minimise any uncertainties over the presence and absence of archaeological remains, and by exploring the question of relative importance.
English Heritage is supporting a major programme to produce urban archaeological strategies for England's historic towns and cities. The programme has two strands. The intensive strand covers around thirty major historic urban centres. Each town or city is the subject of an individual project, for which grant-aid is being provided to the city or district council in question. The extensive strand covers the remaining, smaller, towns on a county-by-county basis. These projects are led by the county archaeological services, working in conjunction with the district councils for each county.
Each project has three stages: database, assessment and strategy. Preparation of a database involves the compilation of information from archaeological records and other sources (such as historic maps, topographical drawings, and museum collections). An important feature of the databases is the use of digital mapping or Geographical Information System technology. The database provides the foundation for the assessment, which entails producing an authoritative statement of our current knowledge and understanding, and an assessment of archaeological importance and potential. This will then allow the development of the archaeological strategy, in which planning authorities will outline how they intend to manage the archaeological resource.
Intensive urban archaeological strategies
The 'intensive' component of the programme covers around thirty major historic towns and cities which have chronological depth, good survival, and obvious development pressure. Following the completion of three pilot projects (Cirencester, Durham, and York) the programme was adopted as one of twenty key objectives in English Heritage's Forward Strategy, announced in November 1992. The projects are partnerships with English Heritage providing grant-aid directly to the relevant local authority for the work to be carried out in-house or sub-contracted to the local archaeological unit. The majority of the projects are now in progress and those for Bath, Bristol, Lincoln, Newcastle, Plymouth, St Albans, Shrewsbury, and Winchester are all well advanced. Work is also well under way in Colchester, Exeter, Gloucester, and Norwich.
For the first time, the results of the very intensive campaigns of archaeological investigation which have taken place in almost every historic city since the 1960s have been brought together in a consistent format. This process is resulting in new insights, and in information which had been forgotten or overlooked, coming to light. In addition to data from excavations, information from documents, historic maps and illustrations, and from boreholes (to provide deposit information) is being included in the databases. The intention is that the databases will be integrated into the local authorities' GIS and planning information systems, and thus be readily available to inform planning decisions.
The assessments will provide new syntheses of what has been learnt from urban archaeology in recent decades. It is intended that these will be published by English Heritage as monographs in a compatible format. These volumes will represent a major contribution to knowledge and should be of considerable academic value.
The strategies, based on the assessments, will provide a sound framework for the future management and use of the urban archaeological resource. Planning and development control matters will form an important part of the strategies but it is hoped that they will also cover the positive management, presentation, and interpretation of the archaeological heritage. This will underline the value of archaeological remains as an asset to local communities (for education, leisure, tourism, and as a contributor to the quality of urban environments) rather than as simply a constraint on development.
It is intended that the strategies should be formally adopted by the local authorities, probably as Supplementary Planning Guidance. The close involvement of the local authority in each project serves to heighten interest in, and an appreciation of, archaeological matters among both officers and elected members in many of our most important historic towns and cities.
Extensive urban archaeological strategies
The 'extensive' components of the urban archaeological strategies programme covers all the smaller towns of England, on a county-by-county basis. The work is being carried out by the county archaeological services, working in collaboration with the district councils in each county. Following a pilot project in the early 1990s covering Shropshire and Hereford & Worcester (the Central Marches Historic Towns Survey), work is now (March 1999) in progress in some fifteen counties across England. Projects for Avon, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and Somerset are completed or close to completion; work is under way in Cheshire, Derbyshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, and Surrey.
The projects follow the same tri-partite approach as the intensive ones. The database phase involves the consolidation, updating and manipulation of information held in the County Sites and Monuments Record (SMR), which will result in greatly improved SMR coverage for towns. Digital mapping and the use of GIS greatly facilitates this work. The assessment and strategy phases will result in reports describing the form and development of each town, and presenting an appropriate management strategy. The assessment reports have a summary of major sources, a brief history of the town, comments on its archaeology, and a statement on potential which addresses research interests. Lists of sources and a series of maps complete each report. The main section, from which the strategy derives, is the archaeology section. This covers the full extent of the urban area and includes sub-sections on all periods, from prehistoric to post-medieval. The assessment of each period, and especially of the historic periods, is based on currently available information and the analysis of historic maps. A 'plan-form analysis' (a method much used by historical geographers) is an important part of each assessment, and will help greatly in assessing the archaeological potential of the smaller towns (many of which have been subject to very little archaeological investigation).
The strategy reports take as their starting point the relevant Structure and Local Plan policies for archaeology, and then seek to define zones of archaeological importance or sensitivity within each town, in order to give more precise guidance on the application of the policies. These zones may help to define monuments for scheduling through the Monuments Protection Programme, as well as guiding strategic planning and development control in relation to archaeological matters. As the aim is to have the strategy documents adopted as Supplementary Planning Guidance, it is important that they have credibility and are realistic. In order to ensure this planners in the relevant local authorities, at both county and district level, as well as English Heritage and planners in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, are being consulted about the strategies.
English Heritage has now had discussions about the programme with archaeological staff in most English counties, and proposals to undertake extensive urban archaeological strategy projects are now awaited. These projects are intended primarily to support conservation, but there is also much popular interest in knowing about the historical development and archaeology of towns. To satisfy this demand, we will consider publication of the extensive urban survey reports at a later stage. Dissemination via the Internet may be one cost-effective means of achieving this. Another aspect of the work must be to address issues of urbanism generally, to provide a context for individual towns and to present an overview against which topics such as the definition of national importance can be explored. It is hoped that a series of regional essays will achieve this.
Conclusions
The English Heritage urban archaeological strategies programme is a major and ambitious undertaking. It will result in a greatly improved database for urban archaeology in England; new syntheses and assessments of the archaeology of English towns; and coherent strategies, agreed with local planning authorities, for the future management of the English urban archaeological resource. The programme will allow us to consolidate and review the results of thirty or more years of often ad hoc 'rescue' archaeology in English towns, and to draw on what has been learnt in formulating policies for the future. The programme is thus an excellent example of how English Heritage funding is now being directed to creating the strategic framework within which PPG-16 can operate effectively, and of how English Heritage grant-aid for archaeology projects can help to support the frontline conservation work of local authorities. The programme will do much to enable the value of archaeological remains in our many historic towns to be appreciated by residents and visitors alike, now and in the future.
