Using Historic Landscape Characterisation

Using Historic Landscape Characterisation
Parish Plans and Village Design
Statements also offer important
opportunities for using HLC. HLC
provides a useful framework for these by
showing how a village or town fits into
the surrounding historic landscape.
It helps discussion about the historic
attributes of an area and their future
management. One example of how
HLC can become embedded into this
process comes from Halton in north
Lancashire:
The Viking
long cross in
St Wilfrid’s
churchyard,
a feature of
Halton’s
historic
landscape
© Lancashire
County
Council
Halton with Aughton Parish Plan
Throughout 2002-3 officers from Lancashire County Council Archaeology & Heritage
Service worked with parishioners from Halton with Aughton Parish Council (north
Lancashire) to prepare a Parish Plan. The initiative, supported by a Countryside
Agency grant, required local residents to identify the heritage assets of the area and
issues relating to them. The process will lead to the implementation of a local Action
Plan for the conservation and improvement of local heritage, and the adoption of SPG
(or Area Action Plans as part of the emerging Local Development Frameworks).
HLC was an integral part of the work; its mapping was included alongside more
conventional displays of heritage information. Consequently, the draft Action Plans for
the area and the SPG make frequent reference to the importance of maintaining and
enhancing local heritage ‘character’, for example:
‘The people of Halton with Aughton are proud of their heritage and wish to protect
the parish’s historic landscape, including traditional field boundaries, and its
archaeological sites and structures.’
‘There is a need and desire to protect and enhance the historic character of the
villages of Halton and Aughton.’
‘…work with the HLF and Lancashire local authorities to develop local records of
heritage assets, and to pilot landscape management techniques (such as LCC and
English Heritage Historic Landscape Character programme).’
Draft SPG policies also demonstrate awareness of the historic environment and the
need for sustainable management:
‘The distinctive form and layout of the parish, which stems from its long and
important history, should be reflected in the positioning of future development.
New development will be expected to ‘nest’ into the historic landscape of the parish,
rather than cut across it, respecting and enhancing patterns of scale, land-use,
materials and boundaries.’
‘New development should respect and enhance the historically separate nature of
the villages of Halton and Aughton, and the dispersed nature of the parishes’ rural
settlement. Proposals which detract from that pattern, through promoting village
sprawl, or through increasing suburbanisation of the rural setting, should not be
permitted.’
‘Sites of potential historic or archaeological interest should be protected whenever
possible. Special weight should be given to the protection of sites of local character
and distinctiveness within the parish. These include prehistoric sites, the Roman
Road, surviving medieval field boundaries and patterns, relict industrial sites and
historic farm buildings.’
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