Wessex Archaeology has been commissioned to prepare a regional Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) for the East of England Integrated Regional Landscape Forum.
The Forum facilitates a joined-up approach to landscape issues in the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, ensuring their integration into regional strategies. As well as the six counties, the Forum is supported by Natural England, the Environment Agency, English Heritage and the Regional Assembly.
The existing data that underpins the Forum's policy and advice contains only limited information on the historic environment. The development of a regional HLC was identified as a way to address this.
HLC data exists for all the counties in the region but was created on a county basis. The project will be the first unification of county HLCs to allow assessment at a regional level. It is predicted that this approach will become widely adopted to assist with regional spatial planning, for example, with housing growth.
The project requires the evaluation of the county datasets to establish common themes that are meaningful at a regional level. There is significant variation between the six HLCs technically, and in their interpretation of the landscape.
Wessex was selected because of our breadth of experience in creating and using HLCs across England and our innovative use of GIS.
Historic Landscape Characterisation uses modern and historic maps, aerial photographs, and data about archaeology and buildings to show how the landscape has developed over time. The information gained from this process is mapped as GIS data to allow it to be used for land management and research.
The method has been evolving under the aegis of English Heritage since the early 1990s. Work was on a county basis and most now have an HLC. However, technological and methodological developments over the last decade mean there are significant differences between HLC datasets created at different times. This means there are significant differences in the way neighbouring counties have been characterised.