Montgomery Canal Conservation Management Strategy (1.2MB PDF)

3.1 LANDSCAPE HERITAGE
3.1.1 Overview and Survey Approach
The assessment of the character and significance of the landscape heritage has been informed by national and regional
character assessments, a landscape appraisal of the Montgomery Canal corridor, an assessment of the historic
landscape, and community consultation work. The area assessed comprises the area visible from the canal – the visual
envelope – as well as land immediately adjacent or historically connected with the waterway. The significance of the canal
as a feature in the landscape has also been considered. More detailed landscape character assessments, which cover
the whole land areas and include natural, historic, and cultural influences, are close to being published by Shropshire
County Council and the Countryside Council for Wales (Landmap).
The assessment identified a predominantly attractive rural landscape, gently undulating in Shropshire and more hilly in
Powys, with the Breidden and Llanymynech hills forming landmarks on the border. Mostly pastoral, historic landscape
features, although diminished by modern agricultural practices, continue to shape and contribute to the local character.
Landscape designations and responses from the local community show that it is a valued landscape, with the peaceful
and unspoilt character of particular importance to local people. The built heritage and wildlife habitats along the canal
make a key contribution to the character of landscape viewed from the waterway, as well as forming features in the
landscape in their own right, and are again particularly valued by local people.
3.1.2 Landscape History
i. The Historic Landscape
The canal in all its phases cuts through a series of landscapes that have been used by humans in different ways for
several millennia. It passes three known major areas of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age activity on the valley floors of
the Severn and the Vyrnwy:
• Berriew: barrow remains, a standing stone and the remains of a ceremonial monument known as a henge.
• South of Welshpool: a complex of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age ritual monuments focused on the Sarn-ybryn-caled
cursus.
• Four Crosses: extensive cropmarks include the remnants of ploughed-out barrows, which excavations between 1981
and 1985 showed to be Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in origin.
Later in prehistory and into the Roman period, the same valley floor areas and the low hills beyond them, were
populated by farming establishments which make their appearance as ditched enclosures of varying complexity. A
remarkable number of such farmsteads lie within the immediate environs of the canal and in one case the canal
appears to have impinged on such an enclosure. These are now evident only as below ground remains or cropmarks
visible from the air. The enclosures themselves do not necessarily represent the full picture of these late prehistoric and
Romano-British farms; while stock keeping undoubtedly played a major role in the local economy, cereals would also
have been cultivated.
ii. Defensive Structures
The most important enclosures in the late prehistoric period are the hillforts:
• Llanymynech Hill, straddling the border of England and Wales and overlooking the canal, is one of the largest
enclosures in Britain, and extending well over 50 ha. is usually considered to relate to the control of the lead ore
sources on the hill.
• Dolforwyn Castle; the hill is occupied by a later defensive structure.
• Gaer-fawr at the western end of the Guilsfield branch of the canal.
• Bryn Mawr fort looks down on the canal adjacent to Pentreheylin Hall.
The centuries after the Roman withdrawal remain difficult to detect in the archaeological record. Churches are likely to
have been founded in those centuries, even though nothing from that time is visible in the structures of today. Some holy
wells, too, may have originated in this period.
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