Historical Development of the Landscape
4.1 Introduction
4.1.1 The landscape that we see today is
largely the product of three major historical influences, the
enclosure of common ‘open’ fields from around the 14th/15th to the
late 17th centuries, the growth of settlement, particularly urban,
and the consequences of industrialization from the 18th century to
the present day. Each of these has played a major part in setting
the character of both the physical landscape and our perceptions of
it. Although not so obviously influential, these processes, as we
shall see, have their origins in much earlier periods.
4.2 Early Origins
4.2.1 Peel away these layers formed largely over the past 2,000
years and the actual physical structure of the region, the hills,
plateaux, valleys and slopes have been witness to another set of
influences. This physical template was laid down during past ice
ages, particularly the last two, the Anglian (around 450,000 years
ago) and the Devensian (around 20,000 years ago). During these
periods and intervening warm episodes the actions of ice, frost,
warm and cold climatic changes had affected the landscape in a
variety of ways, not least the formation of our present river
systems, particularly the Avon Valley, one of the most dominant
features in the region and one which has acted as a gateway for the
movement of human populations since approximately 500,000 years
ago.
4.2.2 Whilst it is relatively easy to
visualize an agricultural landscape of 2,000 years ago, trying to
comprehend a landscape of 500,000 years ago is not so easy
particularly as many of the animals that inhabited the area such as
the scimitar toothed cat are no longer with us. This period saw the
arrival of the first humans into the region exemplified by finds
from a cave at Westbury-sub-Mendip. Here human remains were found
in association with the bones of horse, deer, hyena, rhinoceros and
scimitar toothed cat suggesting a very temperate climate. Indeed
these animals together with elephant, hippopotamus, bears and cave
lions would not have been uncommon in the area; the carnivores
feeding on herds of wild cattle, bison, deer and horse, and the
environment a mixture of forest and open savanna.
4.2.3 Essentially, the landscape of the region
remained natural and the small human population of the time had
little impact on the environment until post-glacial times (around
10,000 years ago) when we begin to find much more evidence of human
activity, usually in the form of flint artifacts and the waste from
their manufacture which occurs throughout the region. Some
particularly interesting collections from possible habitation sites
have been located on the hills to the north of Bath at Lansdown and
Charmy Down. These Mesolithic hunter gatherer populations lived in
small groups and moved within relatively large territories
exploiting both animal and plant communities. Organized clearance
of natural vegetation began in earnest during the early Neolithic
period, around 6,000 years ago when the management of domesticated
animals and the growing of food crops such as wheat and barley
begins to be recognised in the archaeological record. These first
farmers almost certainly co-existed with other human groups who
still practiced the more traditional hunting and gathering economy
that had dominated human subsistence over the previous 6,000 years.
However, to what extent these early farmers manipulated and changed
the landscape in the area is difficult to determine and hunting and
gathering probably still continued. Evidence from the Somerset
Levels prehistoric timber trackways dating to the early Neolithic
suggests by this time forest stands were already of varying ages
and that the natural ‘wild woods’ of any substance may well be
quite rare. Analysis of the timbers used to make up these trackways
also indicates a high level of carpentry skill and woodland
management. For instance, much of the roundwood derived from
coppiced stools.
4.2.4 Settlement sites of this period are
extremely rare, the only possible house site, a round timber framed
structure about 3m across was excavated at Chew Park Farm in the
1950’s, now beneath the waters of Chew Lake. As the period advances
however, new types of monuments are found in the landscape
expressing symbolic relationships both between the living and the
dead and between the living and their environment. Really good
examples of this relationship are found at Stanton Drew and
Stony Littleton. At Stanton Drew, the stone circles of the late
Neolithic/ early Bronze Age which is a
Scheduled Monument of national importance and an associated
earlier earth bank and timber enclosure sited by the River Chew are
clearly visible from the hills around. There is strong evidence to
suggest that this visibility was apparent at the time and that
landscape features themselves may have had special significance to
these prehistoric human groups. The idea that the dead can ‘watch’
over the living has strong currency in the archaeological
literature and the Neolithic long barrow (burial chamber) of Stony
Littleton, another Scheduled Monument, is a clear example of this.
Located on a ridge overlooking the Cam Valley this impressive
prehistoric monument seems deliberately sited to be viewed from
surrounding hill-tops and ridges, also implying that these more
upland areas had been substantially cleared of scrub and woodland.
This positioning of burial places and marking the locations in
sustainable and visually impressive ways continues throughout
history to the present with the round barrows of later prehistory
to the formal cemeteries of Roman and later settlement.
4.2.5 Landscapes mean different things
to wide ranging hunter gatherers and settled farmers; their
territories are very different in size and with crop and animal
husbandry comes the necessity for boundaries, initially to separate
animal from crop and later to define land ‘ownership’ and it is
this factor that has done most to shape the way the landscape
template is perceived today. Whilst this process must have
originated in the Neolithic, it is not until the late Bronze Age
(around 3,000 years ago) that examples can be seen in the landscape
today. On the north facing slopes of Bathampton Down, partly
preserved within the golf course are the visible remains of a
complex system of fields and possible settlement enclosures, part
of which, Bathampton Camp, is a Scheduled Monument. This system
must once have been very extensive. Similar field systems survive
as earthworks on Charmy Down to the north of Bath.
4.2.6 Some existing patterns of land enclosure
may have their origins in a much more ancient pattern of landuse
and settlement. Nempnett Thrubwell parish contains some
particularly intriguing examples to the west of West Town and
around Strode Farm in North Somerset. These field enclosures are
generally much smaller than the norm and somewhat irregular in
shape and associated with deep lanes and hedges containing a high
species diversity and they have a clear impact on the character of
the landscape. Although dating the origins of these field
enclosures is by no means certain and requires the results of
detailed study, they may well fossilize a late prehistoric or Roman
landscape not dissimilar to those found in Devon and Cornwall in
use today.
4.2.7 The distribution of large Roman
buildings in the area, often referred to as villas, gives a clue to
the mechanisms by which the agrarian landscape was managed at this
period through large estates and tenant farms of varying size and
importance. Some archaeological research suggests that many of
these estate boundaries may survive today as parish boundaries.
This may be particularly true of Wellow, once part of a much larger
early medieval administrative area called a Hundred and coinciding
with substantial Roman buildings near Wellow village, one of which
is designated as a Scheduled Monument.
4.3 Medieval Settlement and Enclosure
4.3.1 Whether the medieval villages themselves
originated as Roman settlement is arguable but interestingly, the
most common form of medieval settlement in the region is the small
hamlet and isolated farmstead rather than the large formal village
such as Wellow. Many of these hamlets are either abandoned, as in
Pickwick, a Scheduled Monument near Norton Malreward, Eckweek, now
under modern housing at Peasedown St John and Barrowmead to the
south of Bath, or shrunken as at Baggeridge, Camely and the old
part of Dunkerton by All Saints Church . The only extant example of
a deserted village is Woodwick in the parish of Freshford surviving
now as a complex of earthworks adjacent to the Warminster Road.
This village deserted before 1444AD had its own church and parish.
The field systems supporting these settlements were by no means all
the same and the traditional medieval open fields associated with
some villages and hamlets were interspersed with more enclosed
landscapes and large areas of open pasture. Enclosure of open and
common land was not limited to 18th and 19th century parliamentary
enclosure.
4.3.2 Late medieval enclosure of open land,
usually achieved through local agreement has handed on to us some
of the finest hedged pasture landscapes in this part of the
south-west, preserving the line of earlier strip-field boundaries
and headlands, forming around 30% of the area. This landscape
supports significant numbers of species rich hedgerows, a large
proportion of which were created from locally derived shrubs
growing wild, rather than through nursery plantation more common in
later enclosure episodes. Although this historic landscape category
is by no means confined to the west of the area, the most
interesting and informative examples can be found around Chew Stoke
and Hinton Blewett. Land immediately north of Hollow Marsh Lane in
the south of Hinton Blewett parish provides an excellent visual
demonstration of the processes at work. The lane itself, now an
un-surfaced bridleway and footpath, runs below hedged fields within
which the earth bank remnants of earlier strip fields can be
clearly seen running down the slope. In two locations terracing
into the hillside betray the locations of the type of medieval farm
referred to earlier and associated with these fields.
4.4 The Growth of Settlement
4.4.1 The second major influence on the landscape, the growth of
settlement has already been touched on in relation to changes in
the agrarian landscape but it is with the growth of towns and
cities that this influence is most apparent, particularly Bath and
Keynsham in the Roman and medieval periods and Midsomer Norton and
Radstock in the 18th and 19th centuries. The earliest major urban
centres such as Cirencester had a major administrative and economic
function that transformed the relationship between countryside and
settlement, although in the case of Bath this role is rather
enigmatic. The existence of the hot springs led to quite a
different sort of urban development focused on religion and
international tourism, the legacy of which is still with us today.
These urban centres supported relatively large populations and
acted as regional markets. To facilitate these functions a network
of major and minor roads was created linking settlements and
isolated farms. Some survive today as major routeways such as the
A367 from Bath through to Shepton Mallet, part of the Roman road
known as The Fosse Way.
4.4.2 Whilst Bath and Cirencester continued as
successful urban centres, other smaller settlements such as
Camerton to the west of Peasedown St John did not. Keynsham itself
shifted onto higher ground overlooking the Hams, site of a Roman
settlement. Keynsham became a successful market town in the
medieval period dominated by the Augustinian Abbey. By the 16th
century wool was the dominant industry, the demands of which
involved the management of large areas of pasture. Associated
activity had an impact on the nature of both the countryside and
villages. Pensford saw significant growth at this time and became
large enough to have its own market. The Chew Valley, particularly
from Keynsham to Chew Magna retained a number of large fulling
mills, some of which survive today albeit altered and added to in
the 18th and 19th centuries. Interestingly, woad, used for dying
wool, appears to have been a significant cash crop in the Keynsham
area. Mills were established throughout the area for a variety of
purposes and are now in various states of preservation and their
associated features of leats, weirs, millponds and stream
diversions form important features of the landscape.
4.5 Industrialization
4.5.1 In the 1840’s the extent of built up
areas in the rural environment probably differed little from the
medieval period and it is only with the City of Bath that
substantial growth is recognised. Overall, the built up areas
represented 2.4% of the area’s landscape more than doubling by the
1880’s to 5% and substantially increasing to 11.6% by the 1950’s.
Much of this expansion was connected with the third major
influence, industrialization, particularly the growth of coal
exploitation in the North Somerset coalfield. Small villages such
as Radstock were transformed into major coal production and
distribution centres, the legacy of which can be viewed in a number
of locations and has had a profound effect on the landscape. The
batches (colliery waste tips) associated with coal mining are ever
present although the majority have blended neatly into the
landscape. An excellent example is the large batch adjacent to the
site of Pensford Colliery, visible from all around. This batch is
now a significant wildlife and plant habitat. Other industries have
also left their mark, glass making at Stanton Wick Farm, the
medieval and later fulling mills of the river valleys already
mentioned above and the brass mills of the Upper Chew and the Avon
such as the surviving Saltford Brass Mill, a Scheduled
Monument.
4.5.2 The wealth generated by these industries
contributed to the creation of the country estates and landscaped
parks of the 18th and 19th centuries all of which have made a
significant contribution to the character of the landscape. A
notable example, Newton Park, a Capability Brown project is
undergoing restoration and conservation. Others, such as Prior
Park, associated with the stone mining industry on the outskirts of
Bath have already been restored. With these country estates came
new tree planting for game rearing purposes and much of our
existing woodland is of this time.
4.5.3 The infrastructure required to maintain
these industries has also contributed to landscape character. New
turnpike roads divided the landscape and major new transport
facilities were constructed in the 18th and 19th centuries. The
Somersetshire Coal Canal was constructed between 1795 and 1801 to
link the North Somerset coalfields with the Kennet and Avon Canal.
The main branch followed the Cam valley from north of Paulton to
the Dundas Aqueduct and served the coal fields around Paulton,
Timsbury, Camerton and Dunkerton. This continued in use until the
end of the 19th century. A second branch which was never completed,
was planned to run from the main branch at Midford to Radstock.
This was replaced by a tramway and later by the Somerset and Dorset
Railway in 1872 which ran until 1966. The main branch of the canal
was replaced by a railway which ran from Limpley Stoke to Camerton
until 1951. Both railways and the canal have left their mark on the
landscape in many places. The Kennet and Avon Canal and a short
section of the Somersetshire Coal Canal at Monkton Combe continue
in use for leisure. Radstock subsequently became a major
communication hub with several major roads and railways converging
on this centre of the Somerset coalfield. Movement between London
and the West Country benefited from the construction of Brunel’s
Great Western Railway, a feature of the Avon Valley and a major
factor in the growth of Bath.
4.5.4 Beyond the obvious continuing growth of
settlement throughout the last century the most substantial recent
impact on the landscape has been the creation of Chew and Blagdon
Lakes and various road improvements such as the by-passes at
Peasedown St John, Keynsham and Batheaston providing a visual
reminder of the very significant impact such schemes have on
landscape character.
4.6 Conclusion
4.6.1 Whilst the ancient field systems of
Bathampton Down and Nempnett Thrubwell have survived for more than
2,000 years along with prehistoric ritual sites like Stanton Drew
and Stony Littleton it is interesting to note how ephemeral many of
the surviving parts of the Somersetshire Coal Canal are and how the
line of some of the early railways have almost completely vanished.
The historic grain of the countryside that does more than just
remind us of landscape origins is clearly a very fragile resource
and significant elements can disappear almost overnight.
