Summary
The first part of the Historic Landscape Characterisation in
East Anglia Project was carried out in 1998-1999 and focused on
Suffolk. The work was undertaken by the Archaeology Service of
Suffolk County Council and funded by English Heritage.
The project characterised the Historic Landscape of Suffolk
though the identification and mapping of a range of defined
Historic Landscape Types. This provides both a historical context
to descriptions of the Suffolk landscape, and a means to enhance
understanding and management of historic landscapes, especially
with regard to other environmental issues through both structure
and local plans, and development control. It will provide data for
English Heritage’s Monuments Protection Programme and assist work
on both settlement regions, and historic field systems . The
project will be available for consultation as a part of the
planning process and contribute valuable information, developing
Suffolk County Council’s commitment to sustainable development.
Further, it will provide both a backdrop to the County Sites and
Monuments Record (SMR, now Historic Environment Record), and a
useful analytical tool to investigate and enhance SMR data.
Downloadable version of the Historic Landscape Characterisation Map with key
(PDF, 139Kb).
Background
In recent years English Heritage, with the Environment Agency
(formerly the Countryside Commission), has explored methods of
mapping and interpreting the historical complexity of the landscape
in a systematic way, so that it can be better understood,
appreciated, protected and even enhanced .
In the autumn of 1998 the Archaeology Service of Suffolk County
Council was commissioned by English Heritage to undertake an
Historic Landscape Characterisation of the county, as the first
part of a wider East Anglian project. The series of county-based
studies ? Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk ? will
together combine to provide a regional overview of the historic
landscape of East Anglia.
The East Anglian study is a continuation of English Heritage’s
national programme of helping local authorities to produce Historic
Landscape Characterisations. These characterisations have taken
place under the policy umbrella of the Monuments Protection
Programme (MPP). The projects are part of a wider initiative,
(which also involves work on settlement diversity and field systems
) that are extending our understanding of the archaeological
resource beyond the site-specific, towards wider landscape patterns
and features (e.g. fields, hedges and woodland).
The Historic Landscape Characterisation projects aim to
ascertain and present the historic character of the present-day
landscape, in a form which both accurately represents the
complexity of the evidence, and is accessible to non-archaeologists
involved in landscape conservation. In order to achieve these
objectives in Suffolk, the dissemination and presentation of the
assessment is twofold. Firstly, a ‘soft’ G.I.S. digital map, held
on Suffolk County Council’s corporate network, is designed to be
accessible to all working within, or in conjunction with, the
county’s Environment and Transport Department. Secondly a ‘hard’
text report, which explains the project methodology, typology and
provides a preliminary analysis of the results
There has been no previous detailed county landscape assessment
in Suffolk, and it is intended that this study will provide a
historical benchmark for future study (most immediately on field
systems), and will also provide information for the development of
countryside and heritage management policies and strategies.
Principles
Historic Landscape
Characterisation is a proactive response to rapid landscape
change brought about through urban and rural development, and
the intensification and industrialisation of agriculture.
Historic Landscape Characterisation is not about halting or
denying change. The project recognises the essential dynamic
quality of the landscape, which exists as a ‘by-product’ of
the interaction between humanity and nature. Rather, Historic
Landscape Characterisation is about creating a better
understanding of the context within which change takes place,
in order to help decision-makers find more sustainable
management solutions.
Without this additional new information, land-use change is in
danger of continuing to compromise, sometimes fatally, fragile
landscape features that have taken hundreds, if not thousands of
years to develop. The East Anglian landscape has been severely
affected by field amalgamation since the 1950s. Many areas have
lost 50% of their landscape features since the 1840s and in some
places the loss is over 70% . This loss is serious on three
principal counts:
- the pattern of fields is one of the principal elements that
determines the character of the countryside;
- the field boundaries contain important historical evidence in
the form of plant species, earthwork morphology and buried
environmental deposits that is lost when they are flattened and
destroyed;
- hedgerows are important reservoirs of plant, animal, bird and
insect life in arable environments (though important, this aspect
is outside the scope of this proposed project).
It is however not only field boundaries which preserve important
archaeological information and ecological communities. Almost the
entirety of the contemporary landscape of Suffolk is a product of
some human action. The need for a wide variety of agricultural
resources, the desire to maximise profits, and the growing demands
of both rural and urban populations, have ensured that most areas
of Suffolk were historically exploited in some way, and very few
areas remain truly ‘natural’. The many individual land-management
decisions made by historical populations, such as where and how to
farm, where to forest and deforest, which marshes to drain and
which wetlands to manage, have all combined to produce the
diversity present in the modern landscape.
The intricate historical ‘character’ created by these processes,
is therefore valuable not only as a unique historic document to be
‘read’, but as a living ecological community, and these two
qualities are fundamentally interlinked. The historical management,
and creative processes, which have shaped the modern landscape, are
directly responsible for the maintenance and evolution of the
fragile symbiotic ecosystems which populate it today. In turn,
these ecological communities depend on the continuation of
traditional agricultural husbandry. The action of both historical
and ecological factors combine to produce the visual patterns of
field boundaries, woodland, waste and settlements treasured by
contemporary tourists and local communities.
The Historic Landscape Characterisation project has been an
investigation of the formative historical processes within the
landscape. It has produced a guide to ‘de-code’ the modern county
landscape in terms of its historical origins. Firstly, this will
provide a historical context to future ecological landscape
management and assessment. Secondly, it will provide important
archaeological information to help county archaeological officers
and others within the planning process fulfil their commitment to
protecting the archaeological resource. To this end, the principal
product of the project is a digital map containing imbedded
historic character data which will be available on the SCC network.
This will allow the rapid dissemination and migration of the
project results wherever they are needed.
Project objectives
Historic Landscape Characterisation projects have already been
undertaken in a number of counties (Cornwall, Hampshire, Avon etc)
and the Suffolk project is the first of a linked series of projects
in East Anglia. This multi-county study is intended to contribute
directly to regional plans and other strategy documents
Previously in Suffolk there has been a ‘Phase One Habitat
Survey’, and some detailed mapping of aspects of the historic
landscape, particularly in the Historical Atlas of Suffolk edited
by David Dymond and Edward Martin. However this project represents
the first detailed survey of the character of the entire landscape
of Suffolk from a historical perspective.
The objective of this project was to characterise the Historic
Landscape of Suffolk, both rural and urban, through the
identification and mapping of a series of Historic Landscape Types.
These Historic Landscape Types were defined through two separate
criteria. Firstly, the historical period of origin, or time depth
of a particular Landscape Type, and secondly, the historic land use
which has created a distinct Landscape Type. This provides a
spatial historical context to descriptions of the landscape, and
facilitates a more comprehensive understanding of historic
landscapes. This project provides a basis for future research (most
immediately on field systems), and provides a vital database to
correlate with other environmental surveys in the construction of
strategic countryside and heritage management policies.
The Study Area
The study area of this project is the modern administrative
county of Suffolk, although both the methodologies, and the
Historic Landscape Types, have been developed to allow future
application to subsequent county studies in East Anglia.
Project Programme
The project programme
involves the characterisation of the historic landscape, based
on the methodologies pioneered in Cornwall, and locally
developed in other studies, particularly in Avon, the Peak
Park, the Cotswolds and Hampshire . The Suffolk project
involved the customised development of a series of local
Historic Landscape Types, which were also broadly comparable
with typologies developed in other studies. The underlying
objective is to reflect the specific, diverse and
heterogeneous character of the local landscape, within the
context of a developing pan-national programme of Historic
Landscape Characterisation.
The project drew on the results of various published and
unpublished academic sources, and the research of local experts.
Where possible, the project also utilised the results of
multidisciplinary local landscape surveys, such as the countywide
‘Phase One Habitat Survey’ and, where appropriate or available,
previous landscape mapping. It was however felt that, in order to
preserve consistency, no specific areas were mapped in greater
detail because of detailed local studies, rather, all areas were
treated to a similar level of analysis. Detailed local studies were
used both to provide a guide to the development of a range of
Historic Landscape Types, and to provide examples to hone
interpretative skills and challenge assumptions.
In other county studies, the results of Historic Landscape
Characterisation have been presented on ‘hard’ paper maps supported
by descriptive text. This project will help pioneer, along with
Hampshire, a more versatile and flexible ‘soft’ vector format,
based on digital Ordnance Survey (O.S.) data, held within Mapinfo
Geographical Information System (G.I.S.) software, and supported by
a full descriptive text.
Further, it was intended that the project would directly
contribute to both micro and macro level analysis within the study
area, through its association and inter-relationship with the
Historic Field Systems in East Anglia Project (HFSEA). The
Historic Landscape Characterisation project assisted in the
selection of HFSEA study areas, and the HFSEA project provides a
more detailed appreciation of the Historic Landscape Character
Types. It is intended that the two studies will be of mutual
benefit.
The Historic Landscape Characterisation results also contributed to
the
Suffolk Landscape
Character Assessment.
Contact details:
Edward Martin
Archaeological Officer
Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service
Shire Hall
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk
IP33 2AR
Telephone: 01284 352442
Email:
edward.martin@et.suffolkcc.gov.uk