| ISSN 1357-4442 | Editor: Simon Denison |
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| ESSAY |
Ancient environmental and ecological evidence for cultural history is inadequately protected in Britain, the CBA told the House of Commons Environment Sub-Committee in a written submission to its recent inquiry into English Nature.
Sites such as peat bogs that contain pollen records, ancient insects, or the bed of a stream diverted in the Neolithic, cannot be protected as `monuments' under the 1979 Ancient Monuments Act, the CBA explained. In theory, such sites fall within the remit of English Nature and could be designated as SSSIs. In practice, they are overlooked.
This stems partly from a fundamental divergence of interests between the Government's environment and culture departments, and their respective agencies, and a widespread failure amongst public organisations to see `natural' and `cultural' aspects of the environment as interlinked. More specifically, sites containing environmental evidence are ignored because Holocene stratification is not included among the 90 `themes' specified as grounds for SSSI designation.
According to the CBA's submission, English Nature's `limited sensibility to this issue' was exemplified in its 1997 proposal to denotify parts of the Thorne and Hatfield SSSI (see BA, October 1997). Denotification was proposed on the grounds that the areas had lost much of their interest as a result of peat milling. English Nature did not consider the Holocene sequence, which included outstanding evidence for dendrochronology, ancient climate and insects. Moreover, English Nature did not consult English Heritage before denotification was proposed, despite a joint `Statement of Intent' between the two organisations.
The CBA called for Holocene stratification to be included as a grounds for SSSI designation; a redefinition of `a monument' to embrace sites of palaeoenvironmental importance; an end to the `environmentally reckless and culturally philistine' exploitation of Holocene sites (such as by peat milling); and a new unified approach to environmental protection, requiring a convergence of policy and closer co-operation between Government departments and agencies.
Each year, the CBA examines several thousand applications to alter or demolish listed buildings. Interesting current proposals include alterations to Shrewsbury Flax Mill and to Waterloo House in Epsom, Surrey. Shrewsbury Flax Mill, listed Grade I, was built in the late 18th century as the first iron-framed building in the world. It survives, disused, with associated outbuildings such as a dyehouse, apprentices' house and stables. The proposal is to convert it to a mill shopping centre, with galleries, studios, a lecture room and restaurant. The proposal is regarded as broadly sympathetic, but the CBA is calling for a fuller understanding of the building's structural condition before consent is granted.
Less sympathetic is the proposal to convert Waterloo House into a café and bar. Listed Grade II* but now disused, it was built in the late 17th century as possibly the first purpose-built Assembley Rooms complex serving a spa resort. The CBA does not object to the proposed change of use, but to the method of it, particularly to the demolition of internal walls and the remodelling of the front elevation, which would be detrimental to the building's character.
The National Lottery has led to damaging imbalances within heritage funding, the CBA told the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee in its written submission to an inquiry into the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Although welcome for its unparallelled capacity to finance conservation projects, and for its emphasis on public benefit, the Lottery cannot be judged in isolation from the wider context of grant-giving, the CBA said. That wider context includes both local government and national bodies, which provide core conservation services in accordance with agreed national policy, but which have suffered severe cuts in Government funding (see BA, February). These cuts are influenced by the Lottery's arrival, the CBA claimed, despite Government assurances that Lottery money would be an extra, not a substitute, for existing public resources.
The present climate therefore incongruously combines feast and famine, according to the CBA, because while resources for permanently accessible basic services are vanishing, and have vanished in some areas, large resources for one-off short-term projects remain available. The result is that the vast bulk of the overall set of grants is now concentrated on ad hoc customer-led initiatives, rather than a coherent national conservation policy, while at the same time the infrastructure needed to monitor and derive best long-term value from one-off Lottery grants has been weakened and in some cases destroyed.
These imbalances are the result of a strategic policy vacuum within the Government, the CBA said, and a failure amongst Ministers to understand the extent of the crisis now affecting core services. The submission called for a new strategic approach, in which national agencies and local government are adequately resourced to take the lead on conservation, while the Heritage Lottery Fund works within an agreed policy framework, acting as the conscience of public benefit.
Ten research reports and three practical handbooks will be published this year by the CBA. The practical handbooks, aimed at local groups or individuals who want to carry out a recording project in their area, will be Recording Graveyards by Harold Mytum, Churches and Chapels by David Parsons, and Romano-British Glass Vessels by Jenny Price and Sally Cottam.
The research reports cover all periods and disciplines, and will include Intertidal Archaeology in the Welsh Severn Estuary (prehistoric), Excavations at Catterick (Roman), and The Conservation of Industrial Monuments: Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site (post-medieval). Flyers within British Archaeology inform readers of new titles as they are published. A complete stocklist is available.
Eight books were published during the financial year 1997-98, and 6,165 sold, accounting for 10 per cent of the CBA's total income.
UPDATE is compiled by Simon Denison
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© Council for British Archaeology, 1998