Assessing historic landscapes

All the landscape areas on the Register of Landscapes of Historic Interest in Wales have been “characterised” into areas that share a consistent historic context.

When assessing these, equal weight was given to the two main elements of an historic landscape – what we see and what that means to people.

The work has been done by the four Welsh Archaeological Trusts and can be viewed on their respective websites.

What is historic characterisation?

Historic landscape characterisation is the examination of the processes that have shaped and moulded the present-day landscape.

This means studying all the components that make up a landscape and are the result of centuries of human activity, such as field boundaries, field shapes, buildings, settlement patterns, parks and gardens, roads and railways, industrial and archaeological sites.

The information has a serious purpose as well, as it can be brought to bear in determining how significant the impacts of a development might be on a Register area.

Very often, this will routinely be done as part of an Environmental Statement, which developers have to submit with planning applications.

Every landscape on the register also carries what’s known as a “Historic Landscape Characterisation Report”. The Reports provide much more detailed information for anyone wishing to discover more about how our unique landscapes have evolved in their own area.

What makes a landscape 'outstanding' or 'special'

There are five criteria mentioned in the register:

1. Landscapes which have been changed in major ways showing human endeavour on a grand scale, including cities, conurbations, industrial areas and civil engineering projects.
2. Landscapes which show change during a particular period and where change has since stopped.
3. Landscapes which show the effect of changes over several periods, including a range of different features or different versions of the same feature.
4. Landscapes where historical evidence has been buried or lost.
5. Landscapes which have ‘cultural merit’ – through links with important cultural trends or achievements.

'Outstanding' landscapes are generally large areas that are justified against one or more of the criteria. Whereas 'Special' landscapes are smaller and often justified against a single criterion.

Nevertheless,the quality of historic interest is the same in both and they are treated the same for planning and development purposes.

What is it used for?

Once experts have analysed all the components, they divide a landscape into historic landscape character areas – each area is designated as different than its neighbour because of the unique features it includes. This information is then used to write a historic landscape characterisation report.

Local governments and developers, for example, then employ these reports to show the impact a development might have on an historic landscape.

Often this information will be included as part of an environmental statement, which developers have to submit with planning applications – showing for instance how a new housing estate could change a landscape.

Information gleaned through the historic characterisation process is also used as the basis for the descriptions of historic landscape areas in LANDMAP.

LANDMAP is the system used by the CCW to ensure that landscape is taken into consideration when we are making decisions about how we should manage the Welsh countryside.

A characterisation report also provides curious locals, visitors and students with extremely detailed information about the evolution of a unique landscape and is a good tool for finding out more about the history of a place.

Characterisation is the job of the four Welsh Archaeological Trusts - they have initially written reports on the areas included in the Historic Landscapes Register, but plan to gradually extend the process to other parts of Wales, including towns and urban centres.