The aim of this pilot website is to help the user:
It has been developed with funding from the Hampshire Rural Pathfinder Programme and English Heritage. Particular acknowledgements are also due to Hampshire County Council, Natural England and the High Weald AONB.
Guidance is provided through preliminary character statements for the national National Countryside Character Areas (Your Area) with access to national guidance (Farmsteads Guidance) and a glossary of terms. There are also regional summaries and a library of sources and work in progress. It will be linked to an Assessment Framework that aims to help the user gather evidence and make informed choices for change.
At this early stage, a sufficient amount has been developed in outline form for the user to gain an understanding of its potential and provide comments on its structure and content. It can be searched thematically or geographically, and a preliminary glossary of terms has also been provided. All have clear potential for development with maps, schematic illustrations and photographs, a selection of which have been provided as a ‘taster’ of what can be developed.
Subject to funding, and comments received on this website and any work in your area by 31st January 2010, we can then consider how it could be restructured and the statements fully illustrated. You can give us your comments by replying to: farmsteads@english-heritage.org.uk
More on National Character Areas
This website has been developed in response to extensive research and consultation.
The National Countryside Character Areas (formerly known as Joint Character Areas or JCAs) have been chosen as the framework for the Farmstead Character Area descriptions, because they are already used at a national level for the Environmental Stewardship Schemes (www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/farming/funding/es/default.aspx) and the analysis of the rate and meaning of change in the countryside (http://countryside-quality-counts.org.uk/). They comprise 159 areas and were jointly developed in the mid-late 1990s by English Heritage, English Nature and the Countryside Commission in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders (www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/landscape/englands/character/areas/default.aspx). Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) has since been developed at a finer grain for use by planners and communities at a local level (www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/landscape/englands/character/assessment/default.aspx) or (www.landscapecharacter.org.uk).
These national areas provide a good starting point for rapidly describing character. English Heritage’s Characterisation Team and its county-based partners is leading on deepening an understanding the patterning of farmsteads in the landscape, and the rates of survival of different types of steading and building, in relationship to patterns of landscape and settlement character and type. This rapid mapping is helping to deepen an understanding of individual areas in their broader context, in combination with its Historic Landscape Characterisation Programme, and better understand how reuse can contribute to emerging forms of rural economy and society (www.englishheritage.org.uk/characterisation).
This Toolkit is aimed at all those with an interest in understanding farmsteads and landscapes, including communities and individual researchers, and all those involved in the planning process and land management (especially those preparing Farm Environmental Plans and Whole Farm Plans). It has been structured so that it is:
Historic farmsteads and their buildings make a fundamental contribution to landscape character and local distinctiveness. This is because their varied character, like the patterns of settlement and landscapes around them, has been shaped by centuries of change and cultural traditions. An understanding of regional and national context will also help to define what makes one place distinct from another.
There is far less information available at a landscape scale about farmsteads and their buildings than other aspects of the cultural landscape, such as settlement patterns, field systems and boundary features. This is of critical importance, as structural changes in the farming industry have hastened their wholesale redundancy and the decoupling of entire farmsteads from agricultural production.
National planning policy and guidance also places local distinctiveness and sense of place at the heart of developing sustainable communities. In the case of farmsteads, however, these concepts have not been adequately defined, the result being uncertainty on the impact of development proposals and how to manage and direct future change.
The future of historic farm buildings is largely dependent on funding a use for which they were not originally intended, but they will continue to play an important part in the diversification of farm incomes, rural development and the maintenance and enhancement of a high-quality rural environment. Solutions lie far less in consideration of their merits as historic buildings alone, and increasingly as part of the wider landscape, rural communities and economies. Such solutions also need to take account of local diversity and differences in patterns of settlement, redundancy, dereliction and conversion, and in farmstead and landscape character.
There are often considerable differences of opinion on how best to approach the challenges posed by redundant rural buildings and their reuse. This website has been developed in response to the need for a structured framework for making decisions about future change, based on a clear understanding of local character and context. The Assessment Framework is a step-by-step guide that aims to help the user gather evidence and arrive at a structured consideration of the sensitivity to and potential for change of the whole group and its buildings.
Further to more consultation, the database will be restructured and developed. This will include the completion of the Local Farmstead Character statements, the Regional Summaries and Farmsteads Guidance, the Glossary and any other parts that require completion of which require development as a result of consultation.
All sections have clear potential for development with maps, schematic illustrations and photographs, a selection of which have been provided as a ‘taster’ of what can be developed.
The section on Building Types under National Guidance is an introduction to the range of building types in the glossary, and the proposal is to have this hyper-linked in the final product. Only the historical development and timber framing sections are completed.
The character of farmsteads is the result of their historical function and development to the present day. Most farmstead buildings are 19th century in date, and in many areas farmsteads experienced little change between the late 19th century and the Second World War. A major change came in the 1950s with the widespread adoption of industrial-style sheds, which are essential to modern farming requirements.
Farmsteads have developed as units of settlement that worked land which was held as a single block or intermixed as parcels with the holdings of other farmers. They are an integral part of how communities, farmers and landlords have shaped the patterns of fields, routeways and woodland in the English landscape. These range from landscapes of nucleated settlement where the land has historically been farmed from villages, to dispersed settlement dominated by scattered dwellings and farmsteads, with a range of mixed settlement patterns in between.
The type of farming – ranging from the largest corn-producing farms to the smallest dairying or stock rearing farms – has resulted in the varied size and forms of farmstead layout (farmstead types) and a rich variety of specialist or multi-functional buildings (building types).
The range of materials used reflect England’s huge diversity in geology, and differences in building traditions and wealth, access to transport links and the management of local timber and other resources. This has contributed to great contrasts and variety in traditional walling and roofing materials and forms of construction, which often survived much longer on working farm buildings than farmhouses.
Policies need to be aware of the pressures placed upon landowners and farmers, and the range of options for future change.
The future maintenance of the great majority of historic farm buildings is increasingly dependant on a new role outside mainstream agricultural use. The need for new multi-functional agricultural buildings is increasing on working farms, whilst an increasing number of traditional buildings and entire steadings are being sold out of the agricultural sector and acquire high value in the property market. So-called ‘traditional’ buildings are in strongest demand for housing, and post-1950 sheds for industrial units or demolition and replacement by housing.
This pressure for change differs from one area to another, depending on the rates of redundancy and dereliction, farm income, the broader social and economic character of the surrounding area, the supply of traditional farmsteads and buildings onto the property market and demand for economic and residential conversion. There pressures are likely to accelerate further over the next few years as global influences on farming and other factors increase.
English Heritage is continuing to deepen an understanding of the pressures for change at a local level (links to work to be provided here).
The Conservation Guidance section outlines the key characteristic features of each Farmstead Character Area. It also identifies rare examples of their type or date, which will either be rare examples of formerly common types or highly specialised and unusual buildings such as dovecotes.
The Regional Guidance sections outline the key features in each region and the key themes are further explained in various sections under the National Guidance heading.
A basic record submitted to the relevant county Historic Environment Record (HER) – photographs and notes on the historic functions of each building all cross-referred to a plan and historic Ordnance Survey maps – will always contribute to our knowledge. It is important to clearly justify and ask what more detailed levels of recording are expected to deliver, and what questions each can hope to answer. This is why each Farmstead Character Statement will have a Research Issues section at the end: an example is included for Area 130 (Hampshire Downs).
The Toolkit has been originated and developed by Jeremy Lake (Jeremy.lake@english-heritage.org.uk) of English Heritage’s Characterisation Team.
The website has been prepared and designed by Diva Arts and Fat Free.
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