Background

The invention and development of

‘Historic Landscape Characterisation’

(HLC) in England in the 1990s was

part of a broader movement to devel-

op new ways of managing the natural

and historic environment by means of

defining and celebrating “character”.

This movement in itself was part of a

broader trend, the emerging interest

in how the concept of sustainable

development was just as relevant to

the protection and use of cultural

assets and resources as were global

‘green’ issues such as water quality

and climate change. By 1995, three

main areas of relevance - ways in

which sustainability ideas might

change heritage conservation - had

been identified. These were the need

for local but comprehensive defini-

tions of significance, the desirability

of deep and close public participation

in the debates about value and

change, and recognition that all

aspects of the cultural landscape can

be valued in multiple ways, not just

the scientific or the economic, but

social, associative, personal, amenity

and many others (English Heritage

1997). Such ideas are now in the

mainstream of UK government policy

((DCMS/DETR 2001). Historic Land-

scape Characterisation in particular

encapsulates these ideas in a practical

and flexible method for managing

change.

Furthermore, the philosophy and

aims of HLC fit perfectly within the

objectives of the European Landscape

Convention (Council of Europe 2000,

Florence), which recommends compre-

hensive assessment and understand-

ing of the whole of the landscape from

a variety of perspectives (Council of

Europe 2000, 2002, Déjeant-Pons

2002). Norway is one of the three

countries that have already ratified

the Convention; ten ratifications are

needed before the Convention can

enter into force, but these will proba-

bly be achieved before 2005.

The Florence Convention is a new

instrument devoted exclusively to the

protection, management and planning

of all landscapes in Europe, and to

organising European co-operation on

landscape issues. For the first time it

brings together in a formal instru-

ment all the many different aspects of

landscape, placing cultural dimen-

sions alongside ecological aspects.

Secondly, and equally important, it

insists on the need for, and the value

of, ‘democratisation’. Recognising that

landscape is everywhere, and is every-

one’s common heritage, the Conven-

tion draws the conclusion that the

evaluation and protection of the land-

scape must be socially inclusive. The

Convention insists that sustainable

landscape protection and manage-

ment should not be limited to special

or the most ‘natural’ areas, but that

all landscape areas, ordinary as well

as special, deserve to be the subject of

study, understanding and sustainable

management.

This starting point requires all areas

of landscape to be understood and

appropriately valued, and for their

future to be carefully taken into

account when change is considered.

This is not a negative ambition to stop

change, but an intention to ensure

that the best type of change happens,

in the right way, to create a culturally

rich landscape for the future (Council

of Europe forthcoming).

Procedures such as HLC can be key

contributors to this agenda. Although

it is a method designed specifically to

understand the historical dimension

of the landscape, it is complementary

to other ways of seeing landscape. It

was developed to work in English con-

texts, but it has already been adapted

for use in the rest of the UK and in

Ireland. Furthermore, pan-European

programmes such as European Path-

ways to the Cultural Landscape are

experimenting now with adapting

HLC to different landscape contexts

in many European countries

(www.pcl-eu.de, Nord Paullson &

Fairclough 2002, Ermischer 2002,

Nord Paullson 2002).

The Character of Landscape

The new ideas that were being devel-

oped during the 1990s about sustain-

ability, integration and characterisa-

tion ranged across most areas of

conservation and heritage manage-

ment. They were perhaps most influ-

ential, however, in relation to land-

scape. Here the movement had

several inter-linked aims, primary

among them being integration, holis-

tic views, the championing of local

diversity, conservation and protection

at landscape not site scale, the cre-

ation of greater levels of participation

and the centrality of perception when

dealing with landscape.

Integration:

the bringing together of separate

approaches to natural, landscape and

cultural heritage assets and

resources, and the creation of common

ground between the various disci-

plines involved, such as archaeolo-

gists, landscape ecologists and other

ecologists, landscape architects, histo-

rians, geographers, spatial planners

etc.

Championing of local diversity:

recognition that not just outstanding

or special places are important for the

creation of a sustainable, high quality

and valuable environment but rather

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29

7 Steps towards the integrated management ofa changing landscape: Historic LandscapeCharacterisation in England

Graham Fairclough

English Heritage, 23 Savile Row, London W1S 2ET, UK.

that commonplace and everyday

places are important too. They are

recognised by all citizens; they create

people’s links to history and the past,

to identity and sense of place, to

nature and to the future.

Conservation and protection at

landscape scale as well as at the

level of individual sites:

this is an attempt to broaden the can-

vas of heritage resource management.

Most conservation and environmental

management has operated at site lev-

el, neglecting spaces between sites,

and overlooking the larger-scale pro-

cesses that not only provide site set-

tings and contexts but in many cases

actually allow their physical survival.

Sustainable management of change

cannot afford such a narrow focus,

and thinking of heritage through the

filter of landscape is proving success-

ful. Widening the view also draws

attention to underestimated values

and significance, such as 20th century

heritage or the historic or archaeolog-

ical aspects of semi-natural features

such as hedgerows or woodland.

Greater participation:

the desirability of increased

democratisation so that citizens take

part in decisions about both signifi-

cance and future change; landscape

(particularly everyday, ‘ordinary’

landscape) is everyone’s inheritance

and thus a good vehicle for such par-

ticipation.

Perception

lies at the heart of landscape under-

standing. ‘Landscape’ is not only cul-

tural because the environment almost

everywhere in Europe has been

shaped and modified by direct or indi-

rect human activity over several thou-

sand years. It is also cultural in the

sense that ‘landscape’ is a construc-

tion of intellect and emotions, and can

contain many different ideas, feelings

and associations. Although we use

material objects within the environ-

ment as our building blocks for its

construction, landscape itself is less of

a thing than an idea, a highly impor-

tant way of seeing the world that

everyone shares and participates in

differently.

Characterisation

In very simple terms, characterisation

is an approach that seeks to take into

account at a general level different

ways of seeing and valuing in order to

help manage change. It broadens the

canvas of landscape management

while modifying the picture: paying

attention to all areas and their char-

acteristics (not just to selected special

areas) while having the management

of change everywhere rather than

protection as it goal. There is still a

place for protection of important sites

and monuments (and in England,

characterisation is operated in sup-

port of selective legal designations),

but characterisation aims at a differ-

ent mentality to be applied every-

where, by planners and developers as

well as by conservationists.

Until recently, only pre-defined signif-

icant (usually nationally selected)

sites and buildings were given much

consideration when change to the his-

toric environment was being pro-

posed. There was little chance to

influence change in the wider land-

scape or in more ordinary places.

Techniques of wider characterisation

are a way of starting to ensure that

the historic environment plays its

proper part in modern life. In the her-

itage sector, these started in England

in the 1980s with the evaluative, pre-

cautionary procedures for archaeology

that were first enshrined in UK spa-

tial planning regulations (PPG16) and

thereafter in the Valetta Convention,

but they grew to maturity in relation

to landscape during the 1990s.

Characterisation is the broad and

generalised understanding and appre-

ciation of the overall character and

significance of an area. It works best

at larger scales, and is very well suit-

ed to use at landscape-scale where it

can allow context as well as site, and

‘place’ as well as buildings or monu-

ments, to be taken into account in

managing change.

In England, there are currently two

main complementary approaches to

characterisation at landscape level:

The first of these, and the longest

established, is landscape character

assessment (also known as landscape

assessment, or countryside character

assessment), promoted by the Coun-

tryside Agency, the government agen-

cy that is responsible for overseeing

the stewardship of the countryside

and the health of rural life. It is main-

ly an exercise in aesthetic and visual

appreciation of landscape, carried out

at national level and at county or dis-

trict (ie municipality) level. It recog-

nises to a limited extent the holistic

aspect of landscape by bringing

together natural history, geology and

soils, scenic character and historic

aspects, a sort of environmental

approach (Countryside Commission

1987, Countryside Commission 1993,

Countryside Agency & Scottish Natu-

ral Heritage 2002).

The other current approach in Eng-

land, to compensate for the necessari-

ly limited historic awareness of land-

scape character assessment, is

Historic Landscape Characterisation

(HLC). This is a national programme

of county-scale projects that is pro-

moted by English Heritage (the gov-

ernment agency responsible for lead-

ing the protection, management and

sustainable use of the historic envi-

ronment, in both town and country) in

partnership with local government

(county council) archaeological ser-

vices. It is an archaeologically based

approach, and more detailed and fine-

grained than landscape character

assessment. It treats the present-day

environment as a complex artefact, a

form of material culture in which to

read the historic and archaeological

dimension, or “time-depth”, of land-

scape.

Historic Landscape Characterisation

(HLC) is a fairly new procedure,

devised during the first half of the

1990s and first fully developed and

proved in 1994 in Cornwall (SW Eng-

land) (Fairclough et al 1999, Herring

1998, Fairclough (ed) 1999). It began

as a mainly rural method, but is now

being adapted to operate in urban

contexts as well, and its uses on the

urban fringe have particular poten-

tial, where it can chart the connection

of town to country, and the outline of

the fields between the streets. It is

currently abut half-complete across

England (Figure 1).

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30

Fig 1:

Map showing the progress of the HLC programme in England as at April 2002. [drawn by Vince Griffin, EH]

The county (ie sub-regional) level of

resolution that was chosen for HLC in

England partly for administrative

reasons, is also a very appropriate

scale because it allows high-level gen-

eralisation whilst still being capable

of seeing some aspects of local distinc-

tiveness (Fairclough 2002b). There

have been successful experiments at

adapting it to work more locally, and

to produce regional overviews. The

HLC work at county level also fits into

national frameworks such as the

Countryside Character Map men-

tioned above, (Countryside Commis-

sion 1998, Countryside Agency 1999)

and English Heritage’s Settlement

Atlas (Roberts and Wrathmell 2000).

Eventually, HLC will be part of a

series of characterisation at different

levels that will form a ‘ladder’ of

understanding, from ultra-local small

studies, through county and regional

assessments, to national and interna-

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31

tional overviews. Different aspects of

the landscape will be considered at

each level, with greater and lesser

degrees of generalisation, to answer

appropriate research and manage-

ment questions and needs.

The Purpose and Aims ofHistoric Landscape Charac-terisation

The overarching aim of the HLC

method is to help with the manage-

ment of change by providing under-

standing to support informed conser-

vation. The information and

understanding that it creates can be

used in very many different ways.

Most simply, it can be used to add

landscape knowledge to traditional

Site and Monument Records, and thus

to support their existing use in devel-

opment planning, development con-

trol, Environmental Impact Assess-

ment, designation, land management

policy & agri-environmental pro-

grammes and hedgerow protection. It

can also add an understanding of the

effects of people and time (history) to

aesthetic-based visual landscape

assessment (ie Countryside Charac-

ter) and to the insights into the

mechanics of land use that are provid-

ed by landscape ecology. It can also

stimulate avenues of new research on

both landscape and site-based work,

by providing a meaningful context for

site-specific data that takes into

account landscape change that deter-

mines the mode of survival of archae-

ological sites. It can be used as a pre-

dictive tool, or to identify gaps and

weaknesses in existing knowledge, or

to define research agendas. Looking

forward, an HLC project carried out in

2002 could provide a future bench-

mark against which to measure both

change in the landscape and change

in our knowledge and perception of it.

HLC also offers the potential for clos-

er links to public awareness, encour-

aging ‘democratisation’: landscape is

often more accessible to the public

than conventional site-based archae-

ology. If assessed in ways that recog-

nise multiple values, landscape is

ubiquitous - everywhere, and on

everybody’s doorstep; it also finds a

place in everyone’s personal memories

and dreams. It can therefore be readi-

ly used to support awareness of iden-

tity and common heritage. This must

be one of the first steps to enabling

greater wider social participation in

decision-making, both about the land-

scape’s significance and about its

future management and sustaina-

bility.

The HLC method is of course only one

of many approaches used by archaeol-

ogists to understand and manage the

cultural, historic and archaeological

dimensions of landscape (see, for

example, Ucko & Layton 1995, Fair-

clough & Rippon 2002). Many other

ways of studying archaeology in the

landscape exist, particularly those

that are more traditionally archaeo-

logical. HLC is distinguished from

these other methods in three main

ways.

In the first case, HLC concentrates on

the archaeological aspects of the pre-

sent-day landscape, the things that

survive to influence perception of

landscape, and those things whose

origins and date are most relevant,

whereas much landscape archaeology

is - rightly given its objectives - con-

cerned first and foremost with under-

standing past landscape and environ-

ments.

Furthermore, HLC works at a high

level of generalised understanding to

achieve comprehensive coverage,

whereas landscape archaeology tends

to be more localised and to be obliged

to select areas where the most data

survives.

Finally, HLC is designed first and

foremost as a tool for managing

change, and secondarily as research

into the past. It was conceived as a

fundamental component of archaeo-

logical resource management, with a

particular aim to create multi-pur-

pose tools for spatial planning,

research, countryside management

and agricultural policy.

The HLC programme was developed

to meet two principal perceived needs:

• to expand archaeological interest

from individual site-based work to

exploring time-depth in the whole

landscape, and thus to broaden

archaeologists’ horizons, and

• to expand existing ways of looking

at the whole landscape so that

they cease to understate its his-

toric dimension, that is to deepen

landscape architects’ and ecolo-

gists’ appreciation of landscape’s

historical origins.

The first of these needs arises because

archaeological heritage management

usually concerns itself principally

with separate sites, monuments and

areas. These are highly important,

but they have their wider contexts,

both spatial and temporal, which are

often overlooked; furthermore they

are only part of the whole historic and

archaeological resource. The first

need, therefore, that HLC seeks to fill

is to enlarge and expand this focus so

that the landscape aspects of the

archaeological resource - in practice,

in one way or another the whole of the

historic landscape - is understood and

appreciated, and therefore capable of

being sustainably managed. The aim

of HLC is to promote the archaeologi-

cal significance of places and things

that may not have archaeological

deposits that can be excavated, but

which are nevertheless humanly-

made artefacts capable of releasing

understanding and knowledge about

the past to archaeologists’ ways of see-

ing, analysing and ‘reading’. As well

as archaeological sites and monu-

ments, therefore, HLC is concerned

with, for example, areas between

sites, field patterns and other pat-

terns in landscape, semi-natural

objects such as heath or woodland,

and living things such as hedgerows.

But if conventional archaeology has

partly avoided the study of the pre-

sent-day landscape, other ways of see-

ing landscape have to a much greater

degree undervalued the archaeology

and history of landscape. An addition-

al aim of HLC was therefore to add an

appropriate depth of knowledge about

landscape archaeology and its historic

depth to other already established

methods of landscape study. The work

and perspectives of landscape ecolo-

gists does not always recognise the

deeper layers of time-depth, but can

nevertheless be straightforwardly

with archaeologists’ views, because

they share an interest in process,

human/natural interaction and land

management. Landscape assessment

carried out by landscape architects

and other landscape design special-

ists, however, are aesthetically-based

ways of looking at landscape that do

not always fully appreciate the cultur-

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32

al and historic character of the land-

scape as opposed to its natural

aspects. The expansion of landscape

assessment to reflect history proved

rather more difficult than making

connections to landscape ecology,

hence the creation of the separate but

parallel approach that is HLC.

Part of the agenda for HLC is there-

fore an attempt to produce an under-

standing of landscape that adequately

describes its archaeological and his-

toric dimensions using a sort of ‘lan-

guage’ that other landscape practi-

tioners can most easily understand

and work with, particularly spatial

and visual languages. This integra-

tive agenda has always been one of

the main aims of HLC.

There were other aims in creating

HLC, which are equally important but

are necessarily secondary in the sense

that they could only be achieved fol-

lowing progress with the first two

aims. These include particularly pro-

ducing a method and product that

could engage public interest, provide

frameworks for incorporating demo-

cratic, community and personal views

of landscape, and relate to emerging

concerns about the need to protect

local identity and the common her-

itage. In addition, as already men-

tioned, there is an intention to con-

nect archaeological heritage

management to the sustainability

debate. This will help to ensure that

historic landscape conservation comes

to be seen not simply as a process of

protecting special places or monu-

ments that have survived from the

past, but as a process of influencing

the future of the whole landscape and

managing change within it.

The Philosophy of HistoricLandscape Characterisation(HLC)

The need to manage change in the

wider historic environment is also one

of the starting points of the European

Landscape Convention (Dejeant-Pons

2002, Council of Europe forthcoming).

The Convention recognises that the

methods used to assess, understand

and manage the landscape will vary

from one country to another. There

will, first, be a healthy diversity

because of different governmental

structures, for example, the balance

between national, regional and local

levels of action, or the different func-

tions of “Culture” or “Environment”

ministries. Methodological diversity is

also unavoidable because of the differ-

ent character of landscape across

Europe, specific pressures for change

and development in each country, and

the national professional, scientific

and technical infrastructures that

have grown up over the past century

or so.

The ideas underlying HLC have been

distilled into a simple set of points for

the purposes of the Culture 2000 net-

work ‘European Pathways to the Cul-

tural Landscape’ (www.pcl-eu.de).

These work within the straightfor-

ward definition of landscape that was

established by the European Land-

scape Convention: - “an area, as per-

ceived by people, whose character is

the result of the action and interac-

tion of natural and/or human factors”.

They summarise what HLC is setting

out to achieve:

present not past;

today’s landscape as material cul-

ture: that the main object of study

and protection by HLC is the present-

day landscape, as created by human

action and perception;

history not geography:

that the most important characteris-

tic of landscape for the purposes of

HLC is its change through time, the

human story, time-depth, the way

that earlier landscape and change can

still be seen in the present-day land-

scape;

area not point data:

that HLC-based research and under-

standing is concerned with landscape

not sites; it is not a process that sim-

ply maps find-spots and monument

distributions;

all areas and aspects

of the landscape, no matter how mod-

ern, are treated as part of landscape

character; not just ‘special’ areas;

landscape is a human construct:

that semi-natural and living features

(woodland, land cover, hedges etc.)

are as much a part of landscape char-

acter as archaeological features; that

bio-diversity is a cultural phnomenon;

landscape is different to environ-

ment:

that a characterisation of landscape is

a matter of interpretation not record,

perception not facts; “landscape” is an

idea not a thing, although it is con-

structed by our minds and emotions

from the combination of physical

objects;

Peoples’ views:

that an important aspect of landscape

character in HLC will be the collective

and public perceptions to lay along-

side more expert views.

Perhaps the most important of these,

if any can be singled out, are those

which concern time and human agen-

cy (Fairclough 1999a, 2002b). These

are concerns that make up HLC’s

unique and special contribution to the

wider project of knowing the land-

scape by co-ordinating all the several

ways of defining landscape character,

including landscape ecology and land-

scape architecture as well as HLC.

Time

Learning to see and understand the

historic and archaeological dimension

of the present-day landscape whilst

identifying, understanding and char-

acterising its historical dimension or

“time-depth”, rather than only study-

ing or reconstructing lost past land-

scapes, is basic to HLC. There is

already a good archaeological appreci-

ation of the character and distribution

of archaeological sites of many peri-

ods, and much work has been done on

understanding past landscapes and

their development through time. HLC

innovates, however, in being con-

cerned with the historic character of

the present-day landscape, rather

than with any particular past envi-

ronments.

In pursuing this aim of appreciating

the historic character of today’s land-

scape, it is necessary to define the sur-

vival of past environments at land-

scape scale. This is not a matter of

studying archaeological sites in the

landscape, rather it is a task of look-

ing for deeper structures and framing

patterns - long-established communi-

cations systems, deeply embedded

field and enclosure patterns or settle-

ment patterns for instance. A particu-

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33

Fig 2:

The Lancashire county HLC (NW England): a map showing the basic, broad HLC types. This is the

‘Entry-level’ map, acting also as a user interface for the main GIS, (from work by Joy Ede and

John Darlington). [EH & Lancs CC]

lar concern is the way these past envi-

ronments and landscape components

have either changed through time

(undergoing modification and partial

replacement) or have survived

through continuity.

Human agency

The most distinctive aspect of the

HLC method is its emphasis on the

role of people in landscape creation,

both in the past through physical

activity and in the present through

perception. The European Landscape

Convention’s definition of “landscape”

highlights the significance of the peo-

ple/nature interaction. It is precisely

this interaction that HLC must

defines, through the idea of “agency”

and social and historic processes (eg,

in England, prehistoric woodland

clearance, privatisation of land in the

late middle ages, fenland and coastal

land reclamation). HLC recognises

that geology, soils and climate play a

major role in landscape creation, but

it tries to move beyond simple geo-

graphic or environmental determin-

ism to explore the subtle nuances of

human responses that are amongst

the main underpinnings what we

mean by cultural landscape.

The HLC process also contains the

idea that landscape is a mental, emo-

tional or intellectual construct. HLC

treats landscape not as a set of mate-

rial things, like the environment, stat-

ic and unchanging in their essential

physical character. Rather it sees

landscape as an intellectual and emo-

tional construct, a concept that is

forged by perception from the building

blocks of the environment itself.

Landscape is what people see or imag-

ine or understand when they contem-

plate large blocks of the environment.

It follows therefore that landscape

continually changes - obviously, with

changes in the real world, but also

hand-in-hand with changes in the

viewer brought about by age, experi-

ence, greater knowledge, raised

awareness, or as responses to change

and the threat of loss.

So far, in its development, HLC has

principally been an area of work for

experts, normally archaeologists.

Built into its philosophy, however,

waiting to be activated, is recognition

of the need to strengthen the HLC

process by adding local peoples’ and

visitors’ reactions and associations

alongside expert professional views.

Early work on this difficult topic is

being is being piloted for example dur-

ing 2002-03 in NW England, in the

Bowland/Lune project of the EPCL

network (www.pcl-eu.de).

A detailed description of the HLC

method is probably not appropriate in

this paper, which is focussed more on

uses and applications than on meth-

ods. A number of detailed accounts

are published elsewhere (eg Herring

1998, Dyson-Bruce 2002, Fairclough

(ed) 1999, Fairclough et al 1999 chap-

ter 11, Fairclough 2002b, Fairclough,

Lambrick & Hopkins 2002, Darling-

ton 2002), and most HLC projects

have produced unpublished method

reports that are available from the

relevant SMRs.

In summary, HLC uses area-based

generalisations within a GIS environ-

ment to produce an overview of an

area’s broad landscape character

(Figures 2 and 3). The work is desk-

based, using maps (firstly modern,

but also historic), vertical air pho-

tographs and other datasets such as

land cover or land use, to produce a

vertically-based assessment of pat-

tern and function in the landscape.

Areas of land with similar character-

istics (eg type of enclosed land, field-

shapes, historical functions such as

past industrial use) are defined, creat-

ed as GIS polygons, and described by

a wide range of multivariate

attributes and data contained in relat-

ed databases. The result is a sophisti-

cated spatial database that produces-

not just one simple HLC map but

many different combinations of

attributes and many different maps,

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34

Fig 3:

The Surrey county HLC (SE England) – a map

at detailed level of all the basic HLC types in

the county of Surrey (SE England), (from work

by Nicola Bannister and Patrick Willis). [EH &

Surrey CC]

Fig 4:

An analysis from the Lancashire HLC: model-

ling earlier landscape as part of time-depth,

to demonstrate degrees of change; how, for

example, woodland extent is minimal compa-

red to, say, AD1700, as a product of complex

patterns of overall change (from HLC work by

Joy Ede and John Darlington). [EH & Lancs

CC]

Fig 5:

Surrey HLC – selection of areas attributed to

Historic Landscape types that are probably

pre-1800 in dates, with Heathland, Downland

and Commons, (from work by Nicola Bannis-

ter and Patrick Willis). [EH & Surrey CC]

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35

selective, synthetic or interpretative

(Figures 4 and 5). Past landscape

character can be modelled, change

and activity can be charted, and

benchmarks and baselines can be set

for monitoring future change. The

maps can be web-enabled and used for

public consultation and participation

(eg Hampshire;

www.hants.gov.uk/landscape).

The HLC method is wide ranging in

its approach to defining landscape

character, limited only to the need for

its ‘components’ or patterns to have

ahistoric aspect and to be able to

influence perception at landscape

scale. It is neither restricted to

archaeological sites or ‘monuments’ in

any conventional sense, nor to historic

buildings or settlements. Indeed, by

and large, site-specific elements do

not form a major part of HLC. More

important are historic and present-

day patterns of land-use and land-cov-

er, and what they tell us about human

modification of the whole landscape.

It encompasses semi-natural compo-

nents, such as the location and distri-

bution of hedgerow, woodland, or

heath. It also includes more abstract

aspects such as the pattern of land-

use (arable, pasture, woodland), their

inter-relationship to each other, and

to settlement patterns, roads and

trackways or coastal movement. Less

tangible aspects, such as the histori-

cal processes that underlie the mate-

rial record of the spatial and territori-

al patterns of estates, are also part of

the pattern of HLC. Patterns of differ-

ent types of land ownership and enclo-

sures, and the shapes and character of

fields, are central to the method in

most parts of England.

But whilst HLC’s subject matter can

be described in terms of things and

material patterns, identifying a series

of physical components and their rela-

tionships within the environment, its

true character is more subjective and

conceptual, being defined by the per-

spective of the viewer, or of the person

studying it. This can be recognised as

being true of all types of landscape. A

particular building arguably exists

and can be described fairly definitive-

ly. Landscape in contrast (and as

opposed to the environment) exists

principally in interpretation and in

perception, its description always

being mainly provisional, contingent

on the viewer’s selection of those

aspects to which priority is given,

arising from the viewer’s or the stu-

dent’s perspective.

The chosen perspective for HLC

method is an archaeologist’s view-

point, and HLC is therefore concerned

to understand past societies and their

present-day surviving remains

through the medium of material cul-

ture. HLC does not take documents or

historic maps as its starting point

(though these may have later support-

ing roles), but uses the material cul-

ture of the landscape itself (ie, the

artificiality of the landscape) as its

starting point. For landscape, that

material culture is the whole of the

environment, whether ‘cultural’ or

‘natural’. There are no chronological

or temporal cut-offs, and both the ear-

liest prehistoric remains and the most

recent landscape change can be rele-

vant, as long as they make their

impact at landscape (macro) scale.

In practice, in most parts of England,

HLC emphasises the most recent cen-

turies of landscape change and modi-

fication because of its concentration

on present-day historic landscape

character. This reflects the general

character of the surviving landscape

as experienced by the bulk of the pop-

ulation, and can provide a useful cor-

rective to archaeologists’ normal pre-

occupation with more distant epochs,

requiring us to confront the difficul-

ties of appreciating the significance of

the archaeology of recent centuries. In

this way, as well as reflecting the evo-

lution of heritage management from a

straightforward concern for single

monuments and single periods to

more sophisticated and comprehen-

sive area-based and multi-period

understanding, HLC also reflects the

growth of interest in more recent,

‘new’ heritage, including the later 20th

century.

Objectives and applications- how HLC can be used

Like the European Landscape Con-

vention, England’s HLC work consid-

ers landscape as a present-day inter-

pretation of the ways in which the

environment has been continuously

altered time and again over thou-

sands of years by the interaction of

people with nature. One of land-

scape’s most significant characteris-

tics is change, and landscape itself is

a dynamic and living thing. First, its

physical elements are subject to con-

tinual change, on a variety of time-

scales from diurnal through seasonal

to very long term; second, perceptions

change depending on the observer’s

viewpoint and autobiography.

Given the importance of change to the

landscape, it requires a culture of

managing change rather than the

simple mechanics of protection that is

appropriate and effective for the pro-

tection of individual special buildings

or monuments. A general understand-

ing of landscape (and of what has cre-

ated it and of what has survived to

become a valued part of landscape

character) is required to help to direct

change into directions that allow the

future landscape to continue mean-

ingfully to reflect its past (Fairclough,

forthcoming). This need for new lay-

ers of understanding to help manage

change within the environment was

one of the main starting points for the

invention of the HLC methodology

and for its use, as a form of applied

archaeology, ‘informed conservation’

(see analogous ideas in Bloemers

2002, Clark 2001).

In relation to English conservation

and spatial planning, the types of new

understanding that HLC provides are

wide-ranging. Because HLC uses

sophisticated GIS and spatial

databases, it can produce an almost

endless series of interrogations, anal-

ysis and thematic mapping. Many dif-

ferent combinations of attribute can

be created and recorded, and many

different maps, whether selective,

synthetic or interpretative, can be

made, in response to different priori-

ties and policies. Past landscape char-

acter can be modeled, change and

activity can be charted, and bench-

marks and baselines can be set for

monitoring future change. New

research agendas can be created using

HLC’s insights, so that the process of

understanding becomes iterative and

ongoing. Analysis of HLC in compari-

son with other archaeological, ecologi-

niku 126

36

cal, or architectural datasets can help

to explain the patterns and biases of

existing knowledge, highlighting gaps

and illuminating questions of survival

and condition and revealing new prob-

lems.

HLC is relatively new, and it is likely

that its full potential for enhancing

landscape understanding is yet to be

tapped. It is possible, however, to

point to a few areas where HLC teach-

es us new things about the present-

day landscape and its past, eg:

• to understand what exists in the

landscape, by demonstrating that

the origin of certain types of field

patterns are likely to be medieval

or even earlier, and that such sur-

vivals (which tend not to be identi-

fiable by traditional document-led

regression analysis) are more com-

mon than expected, even in heavi-

ly modified and suburbanised

areas such as SE England

• to demonstrate how much has

changed, how, for example, wood-

land extent (or upland moorland

or heath) is minimal compared to,

say, 1700AD, but how this is less a

product of straightforward loss

and more a matter of complex pat-

terns of overall change. Woodland

extent can be shown to have

expanded and contracted several

times across history, and attempts

to reverse such deeply-embedded

change is less that straightforward

in terms of cultural landscape

than it may be for the simpler

“Green” agenda of simply planting

more trees for the sake of it (Fair-

clough 1999b)

• that the surviving remains of even

the most distant past can be mea-

sured at landscape scale if

approached through characterisa-

tion rather than through localised

site survey - areas of still-surviv-

ing prehistoric fields, the antiquity

of dispersed settlement patterns in

West and East England, pre-

Industrial revolution industry, etc.

• the ability to define the predomi-

nant aspects of an area’s historic

landscape character. Dominant

components may be self-evident

(18th century enclosure perhaps)

but often are slightly more sur-

prising and unexpected: the

assarted fields - cleared from

woodland in the historic period - of

Hampshire for example, or that

Hertfordshire and Surrey, heavily

urbanised counties on London’s

fringe, can still be perceived as

rural and still ancient in large

part).

HLC, like much archaeological

research, is not only about finding out

about the past: it is also (perhaps

mainly) about understanding the pre-

sent. It recognises what we have

inherited, how much has changed or

survived, and what could be preserved

and passed on to the future as part of

the next stage of landscape evolution.

Humanly-led landscape creation and

modification has been very extensive

for centuries, based on a wide variety

of conscious, deliberate acts driven by

social processes such as food produc-

tion, land ownership, social control,

industrialisation and the more latter-

ly the demands of the marketplace).

Continued landscape creation and

modification in the 21st century, giv-

en concerns for sustainability and the

increasing pressure of population

growth and development pressure, is

very likely to add to these drivers

impulses and desires that fall under

the general banner of “conservation”,

“resource management” or “local iden-

tity”. Landscape protection and man-

agement will itself probably be a

mainstream part of the very widest

social processes that dictate people’s

use of their environment and of how

they perceive the landscapes in which

they live and work. Techniques such

as HLC will become increasingly

important as more and more knowl-

edge and understanding is needed to

help make future landscape change

sustainable.

The methods by which that under-

standing will be used (as recognised in

the European Landscape Convention)

be very diverse, changing from coun-

try to country and being adapted to

particular needs, whether determin-

ing government policy, managing

agriculture, regulating infrastructure

development, or influencing the mar-

ketplace. It is certain that singular

designations of special areas (as, for

example, National Parks, World Her-

itage Sites, Protected Areas or special

nature reserves) can no longer provide

on their own the flexibility or the com-

prehensive range that will be needed.

In an English context, the main cur-

rent uses for HLC are within spatial

planning and agricultural manage-

ment contexts (Fairclough 2002b). All

HLC databases form part of local gov-

ernment Sites and Monuments

Records (SMRs). SMRs are first and

foremost archaeological resource

management tools. The people who

run them are connected to planning

departments, negotiate with potential

land developers, have involvement in

matters such as Environmental

Impact Assessment, and advise the

national conservation officers who

direct the environmental incentives

that form part of the EU’s CAP farm-

ing grant schemes. It is straightfor-

ward therefore for HLC to be used to

influence a wide range of develop-

ment, landscape management and

land-use proposals.

HLC also has a rather earlier use in

its contribution to district and county

level spatial plans, landscape strate-

gies and other strategic forward

plans. These are public documents,

which move through a phase of public

consultation and debate before being

finalised and becoming government

policy. They therefore bring HLC

towards a wider more democratically

broad audience. Furthermore, they

are increasingly fully integrated docu-

ments, and they therefore provide the

means to align HLC’s findings and

insights with ecological data, with

other views of landscape, and with

socio-and economic needs for the

future. This ought to be more effective

than allowing historic landscape val-

ues to be dealt with separately, and it

encourages planners, land-managers

and developers to recognise and

utilise, and thus to manage and pro-

tect, the social and communal signifi-

cance of our inherited historic land-

scape character.

niku 126

37

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39

My contribution to this seminar is

entirely based on my own experience.

I will discuss examples where I myself

have been an active participant in

editing the cultural landscape, not

through introducing new physical ele-

ments or changing physical character-

istics of the landscape, but through

telling stories based on the research I

have been involved in.

Kabelvåg, the historicalcentre of the North

Kabelvåg in Lofoten is a small town

with less than 2000 inhabitants. The

population is a mixed group. A large

number lives in Kabelvåg, but works

in Svolvær, the modern town 5 km

away. Another group lives on the Nor-

wegian social security system, some of

them because they did not cope with

the transformations causing Kabelvåg

to be overshadowed by Svolvær. A

third group is linked to local and

regional educational institutions. This

is the only major sector of society that

has not been taken by the 20th century

shift from Kabelvåg to Svolvær. A

fourth group is active in the rather

small local business sector.

Svolvær expands in a way Kabelvåg

does not. The better conditions for a

modern harbour in Svolvær is the rea-

son most people blame for the sad fact

that nearly all business and institu-

tions moved. A novel by Sverre

Asmervik (1976) has become a sort of

roman à clef for the place and for the

population’s understanding of how

and why Svolvær has taken the lead-

ing role. Kabelvåg is finding comfort

in leaning heavily on the rich history

and myths that are constantly being

handed over, reproduced and pro-

duced.

No one has investigated how and

when the different myths of Kabelvåg

were established. A good guess is that

Vågan Folkehøgskole (county college)

was a good cradle. But the local histo-

ry writer Cecilie Rist-Anderssen has

clearly played an important role.

Since long, there have been competing

versions of the myths. This is an inter-

esting aspect which I cannot deal with

in detail here. There are however

common characteristics. The begin-

ning and the end have classical ele-

ments, they are wrapping ”The old

Vågan” in between a glorious past, the

believed foundation by king Øystein

Magnusson ca AD 1115 and a final

crises at the end of the Medieval peri-

od based on earlier historians’ inter-

pretation of two ambiguous written

sources, AD 1384 and 1591.

Another important aspect is Kabelvåg

as the historical centre of the Lofoten

fisheries and therefore a core in the

identity of most male northern Nor-

wegians. The mythical mountain

“Vågakallen” is seen from everywhere

on the Lofoten waters and any north-

ern fisherman knows it as the eternal

guardian of the fisheries. Figure 1.

The professional antiquari-ans on the scene

Tromsø Museum was until 1990, the

institution responsible for antiquari-

an matters in North Norway. The

museum was approached by the local

history tellers through their

spokesman, headmaster T. Wicklund,

in 1936 with the idea that the fields of

Storvågan outside Kabelvåg were hid-

ing interesting archaeological finds.

This idea was rejected by the muse-

um, and the fathers of the town decid-

ed that the roots of Kabelvåg must

have been around the present market

place. They erected a statue of King

Øystein who was considered the

8 Manipulating the status of sites and monuments

Reidar Bertelsen

Institute for Archaeology, Tromsø University, N-9037 Tromsø.

NIBR, Norwegian Institute of Urban and Regional Research, P.O. Box 44, Blindern, N-0313 Oslo.