North Pennines AONB
Miner-Farmer landscapes of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB): research into extensive lead-mining landscapes and the threats they face from erosion and climate-change.
The North Pennines landscape that can be seen today has been almost entirely shaped by twin industries: exploitation of the rich geological and mineral resources (principally lead), and farming. Historically, most of the region’s people and settlements were intimately connected to one or other industry, and many to both, according to the season: these were the so-called ‘miner-farmers’. However, the development of these exploited upland landscapes is poorly understood and inadequately recorded. The wealth of diverse industrial and agricultural remains within the North Pennines AONB offers the opportunity to develop the understanding of lead-mining beyond the documented and technological aspects of the industry (which tend to dominate existing studies) and to archaeologically investigate its landscape, social and cultural dimensions, and their evolution through time.
In late 2008, English Heritage’s Research Department commenced work on an innovative, multi-disciplinary 5-year landscape survey investigating the Miner-Farmer landscapes of the North Pennines AONB. The project has been designed in partnership with the AONB Staff Unit and will contribute to the aims of the Joint Accord signed between English Heritage and the National Association of AONBs to work together to further the understanding, conservation and public enjoyment of the historic environment within these protected landscapes. The research will integrate archaeological and historical understanding of the lead industry, along with its attendant agriculture and settlement, with the identification of threats specific to these types of landscapes, and in the process will develop new methodologies for recording and analysis.
One of the key themes of the research is the need to understand the constantly changing relationship between the artificial historic environment of large, lead-mining landscapes and the natural environment within which they reside. The sheer scale of such industrial landscapes and the complexity of the archaeological remains within them make them subject to a wide range of threats. It is of crucial importance to understand the contribution of historic human land-use to threats usually associated with the natural environment and climate change, particularly fluvial erosion. For example, how did drainage for agricultural improvement, or peat extraction to provide fuel for the lead industry impact on the dispersal of water from precipitation? Above all, what impact did the lead industry itself have? From the earliest periods, the interplay between the locations of the ore-bearing veins and the rivers and streams has dictated the location, pattern and distribution of mining landscapes. Whilst ore is static, water has often been moved and managed over very large areas to power waterwheels, wash ores, and so on. Now that the lead mining industry is no longer active, the impact of now unmanaged water systems through these industrial landscapes is one of the most significant threats to the historic environment. This project aims to record threats like these together with all aspects of landscape development, past and present, so that they all can be taken into account in assessing the threats faced by the historic and natural environments. In the context of the current debate on the potential impacts of climate change, the project will deliver a solid holistic evidence base.
The area selected for the Miner-Farmer project covers the whole of the historic manor of Alston (c 300 square kilometres) and provides a representative sample of the evolution of a miner-farmer landscape. This area will be recorded through aerial survey by English Heritage as a contribution to the National Mapping Programme. Within this, a core research area, which includes one of the most heavily mined areas within the AONB (c50 square kilometres of Alston Moor) will be the subject of intensive field survey by English Heritage’s Landscape Investigation team. The boundaries of this sample for intensive fieldwork have been defined to include peat moorlands, extensive lead-mining remains, enclosed pasture recovered from former peat moorlands, mining smallholdings, three larger settlements, as well as fourteen scheduled monuments. Twelve of these are lead mines, of which a number have current management and conservation problems related to peat loss and fluvial erosion, and one, the Whitesike and Bentyfield Mines complex, is currently on the Heritage at Risk Register.
This core research area will be surveyed on the ground by the Landscape Investigation team using methodologies which combine traditional observation and analysis with new and innovative recording techniques, involving real-time use in the field of Ordnance Survey (OS) digital mapping, mapping-grade GPS, GIS database collection, specially-commissioned aerial imagery (including digital orthophotography, LIDAR and hyperspectral datasets). Historic Area Assessments by English Heritage’s Architectural Investigation team will provide finer resolution analyses of the principal town of the area, Alston, and two other major mining settlements, Nenthead and Garrigill, while Characterisation of the farmsteads over a wider area will provide a starting point for the management of this locally distinctive building stock. The ground survey will be used as a control sample for the validation and assessment of desk-based analysis of the remotely captured datasets and satellite imagery. In due course, targeted environmental science and trial excavation will allow the testing and refining of the results. The research programme also includes contributions by research teams based at Birmingham and Durham Universities, which are being funded through English Heritage’s Historic Environment Enabling Programme (HEEP). By comparing and contrasting the component methodologies, and by examining the relationship between the historic and natural environments, this project will make a significant contribution to English Heritage’s Heritage at Risk strategy beyond the project area by developing predictive models for the identification of threats to the historic environment, and testing the most appropriate research and recording methods. The work will dovetail neatly with the Peatscapes Project, largely funded by Natural England, and with the Living North Pennines project run by the AONB staff unit. The project is also supported by the North Pennines Heritage Trust. Clearly, this body of work as a whole will contribute to the development of standards and guidelines for recording of similar landscapes elsewhere in Britain and Europe, in line with the UK’s commitment to the European Landscape Convention.
More detailed investigation of the exceptionally well-preserved Roman fort known as Whitley Castle, using a similar suite of research techniques, is acting as a figurehead for the project as a whole. This work was undertaken in advance of the overall landscape survey to inform a Higher Level Stewardship agreement between Natural England and the farmers who own the site. The positioning of this magnificent fort, close to the lead- and silver-bearing veins and only 18km from the Hadrian’s Wall corridor, has prompted speculation that its main function may have been to control exploitation of the valuable mineral resources. English Heritage’s Research Department, working in partnership with the Ministry of Defence, has also investigated another threatened lead-mining landscape within the North Pennines AONB at Scordale, in Cumbria. This work acted as a pilot for some of the methodologies adopted for the Miner-Farmer project.
For further information about this project, contact the Project Manager, Stewart Ainsworth, Senior Investigator, Landscape Investigation Team, English Heritage Research Department
stewart.ainsworth@english-heritage.org.uk
Email this to a friend