Using Historic Landscape Characterisation

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Using Historic Landscape Characterisation European Pathways to the Cultural Landscape In Lancashire, the county HLC was the basis for the Historic Landscape of the Forest of Bowland and the Lune Valley project. This was one of twelve projects that are united in a common initiative called European Pathways to the Cultural Landscape, which was funded by the EU Culture 2000 programme (Clark et al 2003). The Bowland project was testing, refining and extending the HLC dataset by looking at the historic development of the modern landscape in detail and adding data about settlement patterns, boundary types, and resources. The project also aimed to raise awareness and to engage with a cross section of the people who visit, live and work in the area, in order to appreciate how the historic landscape is perceived and valued. Carrying out a perceptions survey at Beacon Fell © Lancashire County Council Learning Use as a tool to raise questions, establish research agendas and provide wide-ranging data was seen from the outset as a primary application of Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC). This application is, however, relatively under-developed owing to the pressure of time on priorities such as development control and advising agrienvironment schemes. Nevertheless, many local authorities have experimented with HLC in this area, for example comparing HLC with information about archaeological features from the Sites and Monuments Record (SMR) and trying to establish where patterns and correlations exist. HLC is also proving to be a useful method of identifying gaps in existing knowledge of the historic landscape, and is being used in the formulation of Regional Research Frameworks (in the North West, for example). 44
Partnership, Learning and Outreach Suffolk The Suffolk HLC has been used for a number of analyses, including comparative landscape mapping (e.g. English Nature’s Lifescapes and the Countryside Agency’s County Landscape Character Assessment). It has also been used to examine aspects of the SMR. For example, plotting Bronze Age barrows against the HLC mapping revealed that these monuments are almost entirely restricted to areas covered by heathland, commons, late enclosed heathland or 19th and 20th century plantations. Further analysis using geological data demonstrated that these areas have predominantly sandy soils. The close correlation between round barrows and areas of late enclosure/marginal land may strengthen the claim that the distribution of barrows reflects a correspondence of geology and detection levels rather than the actual spread of prehistoric populations. HLC has thus prompted discussion about why certain landscape types feature particular patterns and concentrations of monuments. The distribution of Bronze Age barrows compared with HLC types in Suffolk © Suffolk County Council Round barrow known as Pole Hill, Foxhall Heath, © Suffolk County Council 45
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Using Historic Landscape Characterisation

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