Historic Seascape Characterisation

Historic Seascape Characterisation (HSC) maps a cultural understanding of coastal and marine landscapes, extending principles of Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) completed across most of England’s land area. Beneath our seas and along our coasts lies a rich and varied heritage: past human activity has made extensive impacts on all aspects of the present coastal and marine environment, just as on land. HSC, with HLC, allows historic landscapes from land through coast to the sea to be encompassed in a common framework suitable for application alongside natural environment datasets.

Present Historic Seascapes Character Types mapped by the Scarborough-Hartlepool pilot project © English Heritage & Cornwall HES 

A nationally-applicable HSC method was finalised in March 2008 from the experience of the England’s Historic Seascapes Programme, funded by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF). SeaZone Solutions Ltd and Hants & Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology (HWTMA) are now implementing that method across a large area of England’s north east coast and adjacent seas. That and five more HSC projects, also ALSF-funded, will by March 2011 cover approx. 75% of England’s seas and adjacent UK Controlled Waters, including all areas of current or prospective marine aggregates extraction and contributing to a national HSC database.

Pressures on our coasts and seas are increasing rapidly in number and scale, from coastal sea defences, port expansion, new shipping channels, extraction of aggregates, oil and gas, and wind-farm construction amongst many others. All contribute to, but also impact on, the historic marine environment. Entry into force of the European Landscape Convention in the UK in 2007 and the introduction to Parliament of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill in 2008 signal major changes in marine policy which provide a receptive framework for applying HSC.

MV Willy aground in Plymouth Sound near Kingsand, 2002  © Dave Hooley Understanding the character of historic and cultural processes that have shaped the present landscapes of any area is vital for sustainable future management of our coastal and marine environment as it is on land. The growing development pressures are taking place against firm evidence for severe degradation of the marine environment from man’s activities, whether directly on, in and beneath our seas or from wider global impacts such as climate change. That is prompting radical reviews at EU, national and agency levels to the policies and measures governing how we use our seas. HSC will provide the area-based perspectives needed to give cultural context our marine management decision-making, ensuring marine planning measures enjoy the support of an informed public and giving time-depth to our understanding of man’s impacts on marine ecosystems.

National Maritime Museum Cornwall: Ben Ainslie’s gold-medal winning boat from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. © Dave Hooley Our coasts and seas are widely used as a leisure resource and their cultural heritage plays a major role in defining our identity from the local to the European. Public attitudes to the sea are changing too, with concerns, for example, about pollution from sewage and vast amounts of litter washed ashore. But beneath that identity, public understanding of marine cultural landscapes and their relevance to our daily lives remains limited.

HSC is readily adaptable to enhancing public awareness and engagement with the coastal and marine cultural dimension. By presenting that cultural perspective for all coastal and marine areas and activities, HSC connects with the experience of all who use our coast, the sea and their resources. Making that connection with people lies at the heart of our approach and has profound implications for how we treat and manage the sea.

Resources from the England's Historic Seascapes Programme, including the Method Statement detailing the national HSC methodology, are available on the Archaeological Data Service website.  

Further information on the 2007-08 HSC method-consolidation project will also shortly be available on the Cornwall Council website.

Further information is available on the SeaZone website about the  2008-9 HSC implementation project across England’s north east coast and seas.

Information is available elsewhere on this website about the work of  English Heritage Maritime Archaeology Team.