A matter of time

England has a rich diversity of landscapes, each a record of how people have related to their environment over generations. But in too many places this diversity is being eroded with homogenous development, devoid of vibrancy or life. Ian Houlston and Dr Stephen Carter argue that every site can respond to the local context and express our cultural heritage.

A tumbled country

Interpreting the landscape is a science that emerged in the second half of the 20th century, starting with W. G. Hoskins’ groundbreaking The Making of the English Landscape 1 . Hoskins observed that there was not just one English landscape to explain “…but as wide a variety as could be found anywhere in the world…” adding that each landscape had its own character, making England “…a tumbled country with few large tracts of sameness…”. He reasoned that diversity arose from the fashioning of the local scene by men and women according to their needs. This was subsequently enshrined in the definition of landscape in the European Landscape Convention (2000).

A recent housing audit found many developments which fail to respond to context, and have no character or sense of place.

© Place Alliance

However, there is a growing threat to those landscapes. In his essay “Non-Places” on ‘supermodernity’, Marc Augé describes the alienating everywhere/nowhere spaces where the individual, like the space, is anonymous. His neologism ‘non-place’ perfectly describes the widespread, transactional urban and peri-urban landscapes of out of town shopping centres and business parks. Most significantly, it also describes ubiquitous new housing which may appear to offer the homes of our dreams, but proves an isolating and unhealthy place to live. A recent national audit found that the design of new housing developments in England are overwhelmingly ‘mediocre’ or ‘poor’, and low-scoring schemes were especially weak in their architectural response to context. The authors reported that developments often have little distinguishing personality or sense of place, and that public realm and play spaces were poorly designed and badly located for social interaction.

What is it like to live in a place like this, which shows the casual stamp of a corporate pattern book? People are denied the opportunity to develop a sense of belonging. A place is a location with a meaning: somewhere that has been colonised and shaped by people and their collective energy. When bad design prevents this from happening, health and wellbeing suffers. The research found that less affluent communities are ten times more likely to get worse design.

The flow of history

We need to look for the root of the problem. It seems to lie with the process of planning and designing for change. Too often this is a shallow endeavour. Hoskins started to explore the depth of what is required to do a good job when he said that botany, physical geography, natural history and historical knowledge are all needed to understand any given scene.

The recent housing audit found that design outcomes scored progressively worse as projects reduced in density and moved away from an urban core which provides pre-existing context. In this situation, the task of rooting the project in an understanding of what people need, and responding to the specific social, environmental and economic context, may feel more challenging but it is no less essential, and just as exciting.

Fenland Parks mark the transition between Waterbeach New Town East and the wider setting.

© LDA Design

So how should landscape architects and other professionals go about exploring the cultural heritage of an area, its archaeology, to inform successful placemaking? First, consider time itself. Our actions and interventions are a part of, not outside, the flow of history. This is why archaeologist Graham Fairclough argued in a seminal paper that landscape architecture is strongest when design is informed by archaeological knowledge and theory. It is the way to arrive at a full understanding of the patterns, relationships, interactions and overall character that we see in today’s landscape.

Fairclough, who worked for English Heritage for many years and is now at the McCord Centre for Landscape at Newcastle University, provides a useful guide to some of the more important considerations:

– Time in landscape: the extent to which today’s landscape is a patchwork and a distillation of all previous landscape and environments.

– Human agency: the effect of human decision making, cultural processes and the side effects of human behaviour, actions, inactions and decisions through time and the overriding of environmental determinants.

– Cause and effect: how one layer in the landscape through time is a response to previous layers of landscape and human actions and the frame for future landscape change.

– Historical processes: the collective social, political, economic drivers, land use, religious processes and fashions that have shaped landscape. Thus, collaboration between landscape professionals and archaeologists is fundamental to success. It avoids ‘siloed working’ and the narrow confines imposed by a ‘constraints led’ approach by widening the scope of interest beyond designated ‘sites’ and ‘monuments’. Collaboration also informs a wider appreciation of how the past contributes to the character of a place and can inform decision making .

For development-led projects, the archaeologist often compiles information into a Desk-Based Assessment (DBA). This documents the nature, extent and significance of the historic environment and typically includes plans illustrating the distribution of heritage assets and relevant historic maps.

The DBA will draw from the wealth of information available to interpret the cultural dimension of the landscape. Key sources include: – Historic Environment Records (HER) which contain details of local archaeological sites and finds, historic buildings and historic landscapes.

– Historic Landscape Characterisations (HLC) which can reveal the connections within a landscape, spatially and through time, for example in relation to buildings and patterns of fields, streets and routeways.

– Urban Archaeological Databases (UADs) 11 and Extensive Urban Surveys (EUS) 12 which present assessments of a selection of towns and cities in England.

The ancient Bannold Drove through Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, is being retained in Waterbeach New Town East. This 1810 map in the Victoria County History was used to plot its alignment.

© University of London

In addition to these sources, the analysis of historic maps can reveal further patterns and features in the landscape that can inform how new development or change is planned and designed. For example, first and second edition Ordnance Survey maps may indicate that fruit orchards were once part of the local economy and could be reinstated as part of new development or proposals for green infrastructure. Regional and local accounts such as local history books, papers and guides can reveal traditions, customs, crafts and industries as well as associations with people and events in history that can add richness and depth to a design and guide the specification of materials.

The Victoria County History series is particularly informative, especially the more recent volumes. Place names can also be revealing – testifying to changes in patterns of settlement and population, as well as recording associations with important individuals, antiquities, religious beliefs, industries and economies. In some cases the names of villages and towns record important topographic features or land uses, indicating relationships between settlements and landscape features that have been lost or which are hard to interpret from maps and documents. For example, the Old English element ‘lēah’ can indicate a settlement originated as a clearing in a woodland, which may suggest the area was at one time more wooded and inspire strategies for new native planting, perhaps to address flood risk, contribute to habitats and ecological networks and provide a setting for development.

Past, present and future in the Cambridgeshire Fens

LDA Design and Headland Archaeology put the collaborative approach into practice in our work to support the planning and design of a new settlement at Waterbeach New Town East, north of Cambridge. The landscape and historic environment teams prepared a comprehensive appraisal of the complex of historic buildings and features at Denny Abbey and the contribution that the local landscape makes to its heritage significance. The Abbey was founded as a Benedictine monastery in the twelfth century and was subsequently occupied by two further monastic orders before becoming a Franciscan convent of the Poor Clares, which was dissolved in 1539.

Existing view of the meandering Bannold Drove in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, a route which predates the draining of the Fens.

© LDA Design

The masterplan for the new community draws significantly on the team’s findings. It respects and enhances the setting of the Abbey through the introduction of Fenland Parks, which are evocative of the pre-drainage fenland landscape which would have existed in medieval times when the abbey was in use. The parks also mark the transition between the new town and the wider countryside and will provide extensive semi-natural wetland habitats and community assets.

The Waterbeach New Town East masterplan also preserves underlying patterns in the landscape created by field boundaries and drainage channels to structure roads and development parcels within the new community. The alignment of an ancient ditch and drove road, which probably dates from before the drainage of the fens to create farmland, is also retained as a principal walking and cycling route, wildlife corridor and sustainable drainage feature through the new development.

Being good ancestors

We are on the cusp of enormous change across the UK, and we need to be ambitious about the quality of design. The development and the re-modelling of urban and rural landscapes is at a pace and scale possibly not seen since the end of the Second World War. Creaking infrastructure needs replacing and upgrading and a growing population needs feeding and housing. We need to move quickly to reverse decades of environmental degradation and address the challenges posed by the climate crisis, including decarbonising the economy.

A transformed Bannold Drove will be central to life in Waterbeach New Town East and form a new cycling and walking route through the development.

© LDA Design

One of the biggest stories of growth ahead is the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, which by 2050 will see the construction of up to one million homes and associated infrastructure. The Government has stated that the natural environment is at the heart of its ambitions for the Arc. It has also committed to the 25 Year Environment Plan’s comprehensive approach to improving landscapes and habitats, with biodiversity net gain and a natural capital approach. However, this massive initiative affects the unique character and identity of highly diverse landscapes and communities across an area around 90 miles wide. If we don’t get it right there is a risk of perpetuating the expansion of non-places. The Arc, therefore, needs a big vision to ensure its potential is realised. It needs to prioritise quality of life, green infrastructure and health and wellbeing in placemaking, and draw up a clear methodology to show how high standards of planning and design will be achieved.

Within and beyond the Arc we have a duty to deliver a positive legacy for future generations or, as Robert MacFarlane puts it, “…to be good ancestors”. As the inheritors and creators of legacy, decisions need to respect and reflect the genius loci by purposefully considering context and by drawing on the cultural dimension of the land. Such decisions must serve to strengthen local identity, rather than detract from it.

Framing change in this way sees placemaking as a special sort of continuity. It sets new development and infrastructure within a broader evolutionary narrative, and forges deeper and more meaningful connections between people and the land.

Ian Houlston CMLI MCIfA (LDA Design) and Dr Stephen Carter MCIfA FSA Scot (Headland Archaeology) are part of a small professional team supporting a collaborative project between the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, the Institute of Historic Building Conservation and the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment to prepare Guidelines for Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment, which is to be published in 2020.