Last update:

3rd June 2008

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Heritage explained

Strategy for the SW Historic Environment

State of the historic resource in the SW

Condition of the historic environment

Traditional skills

Historic environment in the SW counties

European & worldwide perspective

English Heritage Plans for 2003 - 2005

Landscape Detectives - South West latest finds

Quick links:

Heritage Counts: South West

Strategy for the SW historic environment

SW historic environment - places to visit (English Heritage)

SW historic environment - places to visit (National Trust)

English Heritage

National Trust

HistoricLandscape Survey Guidelines (National Trust)

Environment Heritage Service

Historic Environment

What's new on this page...

• Traditional skills in the South West 2008
• Heritage Counts 2007 - heritage in the South West counties
• Heritage Counts 2007 launched - state of the South West's heritage

Our historic heritage makes a vital contribution to the quality of the environment. It can consist of a wide range of both natural and man-made features - some of which we can see every day and which contribute to our local, regional and national quality of life.

Although the region accounts for just 19% of the land area of England, it has 32% of the country’s scheduled monuments, 26% of all listed buildings, and 18% of the registered designed landscapes.

Visitors to historic attractions are estimated to spend £5 billion annually (English Heritage).

What is historic heritage?

Historic heritage is made up of a number of features of both our natural and built environment, including (see links for more information about each feature - source English Heritage):

• Archaeology (a tool for recording and analysing the historic environment - ranging from the discovery and analysis of new sites, recording and researching the history of landscapes and developing techniques for geophysical survey, technological analysis and dating)
• Conservation areas (places that are of special architectural or historic interest or deserve protection - ranging from range historic towns and cities, fishing and mining villages and historic transport links)
• Listed buildings (legally protecting the best of our architectural heritage)
• Historic parks and gardens (a national record of the historic parks and gardens which make such a rich and varied contribution to our landscape)
• Places of worship (including churches, chapels and cathedrals)
• Scheduled monuments (legally protecting nationally important sites and monuments - ranging from prehistoric standing stones to wartime pillboxes)

The National Trust describe the historic environment as not just about the past, but also the present and future. It is the countryside, village, town or city in which we live, work or choose to visit, and can be what gives a place its character, shapes our perceptions and gives people a sense of place and identity in a changing world.

Conserving the historic environment is crucial for building a sense of local community (ODPM, 2003)

Strategy for the South West Historic Environment

The first ever strategy for the South West historic environment has been produced by English Heritage on behalf of the South West Historic Environment Forum and published as part of the launch of the Regional Environment Strategy for the South West.

The Strategy aims to change the way the historic environment is perceived and valued in the region. It recognises that the entire environment is historic - with human activity having creating land use and settlement patterns that closely reflect the physical environment, particularly geology and topography, climate and the region’s peninsula landform.

Priorities for the Historic Environment Strategy are to:

• Ensure the Historic Environment is integrated into the Region’s Policy Framework
• Develop positive and creative partnerships that reflect the many linkages and opportunities in the South West
• Ensure the Historic Environment is accessible and relevant to people in their everyday lives
• Raise awareness of the historic dimension of the wider environment and its contribution to quality of life
• Share knowledge and build a better understanding of the role and potential of the Historic Environment through ‘Heritage Counts’ an annual state of the historic environment report.

State of the historic resource in the South West 2007

Heritage Counts: South West 2007 (English Heritage) is now available, which contains the annual audit of the state of the historic environment in the region, detailing the current state and condition of our historic environment and key regional heritage initiatives.

Heritage Counts 2007 is the sixth annual survey of the state of England’s historic environment. It is five years since the publication of the original State of the Historic Environment Report and this year’s report looks at the principal changes which have occurred in the historic environment since 2002. It also includes a focus on the historic environment as a learning resource and on the issues faced by the sector in relation to the skills of the workforce.

The historic environment is a key component of the South West’s identity, important to the quality of life of those who live, work and visit the region, and essential to the key regional tourism economy.This report looks at the ways people are learning from this remarkable resource, and considers the skills required for its sustainable future.

According to this audit, the South West has a high number of protected heritage sites, details of which can be seen table below:

2007 audit of the South West's historic heritage

You can now also download heritage data according to local authority in the region. Click here to go straight to the Heritage Counts 2007 Data Report.

Other points of interest from the South West Heritage Counts 2007 report include:

• Around 74% of all adults in the South West attended at least one historic environment site in 2005/06, the second highest participation rate of all the regions in England.
• The rate of participation at historic environment sites for black and ethnic minority groups in the region is the highest of all regions, at around 7 out of 10, significantly exceeding the national average rate.
• Participation rates at historic environment sites for those with limiting disabilities and illnesses and from lower social and economic groups are second highest of all regions and significantly above the national average.
• Visitor numbers to South West historic properties have remained broadly unchanged since 2001/02,but gross revenue levels have risen by one fifth since then, demonstrating commercial growth in the heritage tourism sector in the region.
• 22% of all Historic Houses Association (HHA) properties are in the South West.They attracted 2.18 million visitors in 2006, 17 per cent of all visits to HHA properties. 10 HHA houses in the region have formal education programmes.
• There w ere 142,866 education visits to the South West’s National Trust properties in 2006/07, accounting for
  30% of all education visits to National Trust properties in England, and representing an increase of 15% on 2002/03.
• Education visits to English Heritage properties in the South West in 2006/07 totalled 68,789, or 16% of the England total. Stonehenge is one of the top four sites for English Heritage school visits in England.
• Membership of the National Trust and English Heritage is growing steadily in the region. There were 560,000
  National Trust members in the South West in February 2007. Around 55,000 (9%) of English Heritage members live in the South West.
• There were 10,300 volunteers in the National Trust in the South West in 2006/07, one quarter of the total number of National Trust volunteers in England. In 2001/02, there were about 6,700 volunteers; numbers have grown by more than half.

Source: English Heritage (2007)

Condition of historic heritage features in the South West

Possibly the most accurate information about the condition of historic features is for Scheduled Ancient Monuments and Listed Buildings. Listed buildings and scheduled ancient monuments are protected by national policy and, as a result, the majority of the protected built environment is in good condition.

English Heritage maintains a Register of Buildings at Risk of all Grade I and II* listed buildings and structural scheduled ancient monuments in England which are at risk or are vulnerable to neglect or decay.

There were 157 buildings at risk on the register as of October 2007, down from 160 in 2006. Of these, 28 were Grade I, whilst 111 were Grade II* and 3 Grade II. An additional 14 were Scheduled only, 8 were entries in World Heritage Sites and 27 were entries in Registered Parks & Gardens.

10 entries were removed during the past year, bringing the total number of removals since the baseline Register to 90 (or 48.9% of the original 184 entries). In a region with nearly a third of the country’s listed buildings, this is a significant achievement and above the national target (of 43.8%).

Bringing these historic features back into use may require up to £30.1 million of public subsidy. Since 1999, 86 (46.7 per cent) of the original 184 entries have been removed, although new entries have been added. The proportion of Grade I or II* buildings at risk has declined from 2.3% in 1999 to 2% in 2007.

Parkland (areas of designed landscape, wood pasture and former estate lands) is not only of great cultural & historic importance but also provides much of the remaining wood pasture (a Biodiversity Action Plan priority target). Loss of parkland has been a particular problem in the South West. Between 1918 and 1995, the area of parkland in the region reduced by 45%, from an estimated 58,000 hectares to 32,000 hectares. This was the greatest loss measured in any of the English regions.

Agriculture is the main pressure on the historic environment in a predominantly rural area such as the South West. However, the new agri-environment schemes are helping to support farmers in caring for the environment whilst farming. Since 1994, agri-environment schemes have invested over £36 million in protecting the South West's historic environment. Around £11 million of this has been spent on restoring more that 1,100 historically important non-domestic buildings on farms and £1 million on the management and protection of archaeological sites and other features of historic interest.

Source: English Heritage (2007)

Traditional skills in the South West 2008

Maintaining the historic environment is dependant upon keeping alive traditional skills, such as thatching, lime plastering, dry stone walling and stone masonry.

In 2005, analysis carried out by the National Heritage Training Group estimated that there were 2,344 traditional buildings craftspeople in the South West (just 3.7% of the English total). Just over half of all contractors identified recruitment difficulties, the main reasons being a lack of applicants and a lack of skills.

This research was repeated in 2008 in the Traditional Building Craft Skills review: England 2008 review, and suggests that the regional situation is improving.

• In 2005, a quarter of all specialist construction contractors reported long-term vacancies; in 2008 the figure had come down to just 7%.
• Although based on relatively small samples, there are more contractors with at least one specialist bricklayer, carpenter, glazier, leadworker, fibrous plasterer or joiner
• Conversely, there seems to be a sharp decline in the number of contractors with at least one drystone waller, general roofer or thatcher.
• For very specialist trades, such as cob building, pargetting and stained glass working, small sample sizes in the resurvey mean that a true picture of skills provision in the region is hard to form and may benefit from further research.
• In terms of training, the picture seems to be improving, with a small increase in average numbers of full- and part-time trainers in the region. However, employer awareness of NVQ Level 3 in Heritage Skills may need to be addressed – it has not improved significantly since 2005 (from 33% to 36%).

Historic heritage in the South West counties

The South West has a significant proportion of England’s heritage assets. It has almost a quarter of its Listed Buildings, over a third of its Scheduled Ancient Monuments and four of England’s 17 World Heritage Sites (Stonehenge and Avebury, the Jurassic Coast, the Cornwall and West Dorset Mining Landscape, and the City of Bath).

Heritage Historic assets are not evenly distributed throughout the South West. Devon has the highest proportion of listed buildings with 23% of the regional total (89,137).

Devon has the highest number of Scheduled Ancient Monuments with 25% (1,723) of the regional total. Torbay, Bristol, Bath & North East Somerset, Bournemouth, Poole, South Gloucestershire and Swindon all have below 1% of the regional total.

With 17% (53) of the regional total, Gloucestershire has the highest number of historic parks, gardens and battlefields, whilst the Isles of Scilly have none.

Devon also has 19% (295) Conservation Areas, the largest proportion in the region, whilst Poole & Bournemouth both have around 1%.

Some areas in the South West have lost particularly high amounts of parkland, such as Dorset Heath (68% loss) and the Somerset Levels & Moors (55% loss). The Vale of Taunton and the Quantock Fringes have also seen more than 30% of parkland converted to arable land.

Agri-environment schemes have proved to be an increasingly important resource for the restoration of historic parkland. On the whole, the highest take up of agri-environment schemes has been in areas of the country where the proportion of parkland is relatively low, such as Exmoor, Dartmoor & the Mendip Hills.

Source: English Heritage

European & worldwide perspective

Conflict, war, earthquakes and other natural disasters, pollution, poaching, uncontrolled urbanisation and unchecked tourist development post major problems to World Heritage Sites. There are currently 34 sites out of 812 on the List of World Heritage in Danger (UNESCO, 2006)

English Heritage Plans for the South West: 2003 - 2005

English Heritage has recently produced Regional Plans to explain its national policy and how it will be delivered in each region. The South West Regional Plan details what makes the region special and 2003-2005 action plans for:

• Urban regeneration
• Rural revival
• Sustainable tourism
• Investing in the heritage
• Managing change
• Learning, access and citizenship
• Skills and training
• Working in partnership

Also detailed are key facts on the historic environment, casework and grants.

Landscape Detectives - South West finds

The Landscape Detectives Team ( English Nature) interprets and records ancient monuments, historic buildings and entire landscapes, as well as setting standards for others engaged in similar research. Working throughout England, regional focusses are available to find out more about the local historic environment.

For more information about the latest finds in the South West, visit the Landscape Detective's South West website - a summary is provided below:

Latest heritage discoveries in the South West:

• Oldbury Castle (Wiltshire)
• Brentor (Dartmoor)
• Dyrham Park (Gloucestershire)
• Silbury Hill (Wiltshire)
• Castle Neroche (Somerset)
• Dartmoor
• Larkbarrow Farm (Exmoor)
• Minchinhampton Common (Gloucestershire)
• RAF Perranporth (Cornwall)
• Quantock Hills (Somerset)
• Malvern Hills (Worcestershire)