Landscapes & Areas

woman drawing at Stonehenge site

The European Landscape Convention and the National Heritage Protection Plan provide a  framework for much of English Heritage's research into the historic environment, whether rural, urban or marine. Our approaches range from the broad brush analysis of characterisation of whole towns, cities and counties, through area-based building investigations, to detailed landscape investigation on the ground. Some of these approaches are brought together in current multi-disciplinary projects in the North Pennines and the Hoo Peninsula in Kent.

Defining a Place's Character

By interpreting maps, aerial photographs, existing knowledge about archaeology and buildings and of course the land itself, we can build up area-based pictures of how places have developed over time. 

How we use characterisation 

National Mapping Programme

English Heritage's National Mapping Programme (NMP) helps to improve our understanding of past human settlement, by providing information for all archaeological sites and landscapes visible on aerial photographs or other airborne remote sensed data.

Read the NMP research

Protected Landscapes

National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty contain over 63,000 listed buildings and over 52% of scheduled monuments. Our research on Protected Landscapes includes projects carried out on Dartmoor and in the North Pennines.

More about research projects