England’s Historic Seascapes: our coastal and marine heritage

Intertidal exposure of late Neolithic peat deposits, Porth Mellon, St Mary’s, Scilly. As on land, millennia of human cultural activity have left extensive material impacts, both direct and indirect, on our present coastal and marine environment. Beneath our seas and along our coasts lies a very rich heritage. This includes vast areas of prehistoric inhabited land later submerged by sea level rise following the last glaciation and many well-preserved settlement areas with associated palaeo-environmental evidence, including the earliest north European evidence for human occupation in deposits from previous inter-glacial periods.

Forward boilers on the Iona II designated wreck site (Lundy, Bristol Channel). Photo taken by Wessex Archaeology, © English Heritage Considerable numbers of wrecks and other debris bear testament to millennia of varied maritime activity, reflecting developing technological capabilities since the prehistoric period and their impacts on the scale of economic and political relationships, culminating in the rapid growth of trade, military and imperial power as England became a major player on the world stage.

Windfarm under construction off Norfolk Coast. © English Heritage/NMR Along our coasts, substantial areas bear distinctive imprints from fishing, wildfowling, coastal grazing, warfare and military defence, and, most recently, from the leisure and tourism industries, to name but a few. The scale and intensity of these impacts are accelerating too from, amongst others, natural resources extraction, wind and wave power generation, port development, shipping channel dredging and strengthening of our coastal sea defences.

Coastal squeeze: saltmarsh by the sea defence, Old Hall Marshes, Essex. © Dave Hooley Besides such direct traces and impacts from human activities, many expressions of our coastal and marine ‘natural environment’ are also shaped by human activity, defining many aspects of the deposits, landforms and marine biodiversity that we encounter today. Since prehistory, huge quantities of silts and other materials have been transported into our seas from land-based activities including agriculture and mining, redefining as cultural artefacts the shape and Mining equipment on the Wheel Wreck designated site (Isles of Scilly). Photo taken by Wessex Archaeology, © English Heritage forms of many of our coastal and estuarine areas and the ecological communities that they support. The same is true on a broader, even global, scale in the impacts from extensive human modification of key parts of the food chain from fishing, dredging and dumping, along with our effects on sea-water temperature and chemistry from global warming.

Diver approaching a cannon on the wreck of HMS Colossus off the Isles of Scilly. Image courtesy of K. Camidge. In recognising the historic environment as a dimension permeating the whole environment, seascapes characterisation can provide an understanding of inter-related historical and cultural processes which have shaped our present seas. That is essential to inform perceptions and debates that will determine the sustainable management of change affecting our seas for the future.