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There is more to war thanweapons and fighting.Thegrowth of interest in 20th-century military remains ispart of a wider span of socialarchaeology

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OF CONFLICTTHE ARCHAEOLOGY

There can hardly be an English field that doesnot contain some martial debris – an earthwork,a splinter of shrapnel, a Tommy’s button. Asubstantial part of our archaeological inheritancehas to do with war or defence – hillforts, Romanmarching camps, castles, coastal forts, martellotowers, fortified houses – and it is not just sitesevoking ancient conflict for which nations nowcare.The 20th century’s two great wars, and thetense Cold War that followed, have becomearchaeological projects. Amid a spate of public-ation, heritage agencies seek military installationsof all kinds for protection and display.

Why do we study such remains? Indeed, shouldwe study them? We should ask, for there aresome who have qualms. I have heard it said thatan interest in military remains reflects a devotion(implicitly male) to militarism, while others arenervous lest nostalgia for wartime structuresshould fan Eurosceptic insularity. I have neverheard the contrary argument, that the demolitionof wartime fabric would cause jingoism to abate,perhaps because its silliness when put that wayround becomes all too evident. Even so, we are

still left with a question: why have the prosaictraces of structures which were often stereotypedand mass-produced become so interesting?

Part of the answer, I think, is that there is more towar than weapons and fighting. One reason forthe growth of interest in 20th-century militaryremains is that it is not a stand-alone movementbut part of the wider span of social archaeology.It encompasses the everyday lives of ordinarypeople and families, and hence themes whicharchaeology has hitherto not been accustomed toapproach, such as housing, bereavement,mourning, expectations.This wider span hasextended archaeology’s range from the nationallyimportant and monumental to the routine andevanescent. Increasingly, this includes themeaning of spaces as well as the significance ofstructures, and the study of military camps bothas settlements and sites.

The new romance with the commonplace issometimes contrasted with the values ofmonumentality. Arguably, however, what is reallyhappening is not the rejection of an earlier

Wall painting of a stag in themidst of a German forest, by an

unknown prisoner of war atHarperley PoW Camp, County

Durham (see Nieke, 22–6)

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Introduction by Richard Morris

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aesthetic theory but the assimilation of themundane to it.This poses new technical andphilosophical problems. Concepts we take forgranted, such as minimum repair or the displayof exemplars for public explanation, are notalways easy to apply to transient structures ofplanking, corrugated iron or temporary brick.When William Morris and his friends wrote theirmanifesto for the care of old buildings in 1877,saying it was for buildings ‘of all times andstyles’, they did not have before them the curvedasbestos hut or the phony clock on the dummystation at Treblinka, where the painted handsalways stood at three o’clock.1 What should thecurators do with rusting tin sheds or the forestscene painted on the wall of a hut by a homesickGerman prisoner of war? Should they beconserved or left to decay? How much should beleft undisturbed for future archaeologists tointerrogate? Collapse and the triumph of timemake a dignified pall but do not easily translate

into public understanding. Should they be rebuiltin facsimile? Unless the reasons for that decisionare carefully explained, the facsimile may elicitthe holocaust denier’s jeer that Natzweiler’s gaschamber is a fake, or a Morrisite allegation oflifelessness.

These are important questions.War’s embers are worth sifting ‘to discover the relationsbetween those done to death and those alivethen, and the relations of both to us.’2 This issueof Conservation Bulletin explores these questions,and more. ■■

Richard MorrisEnglish Heritage Commissioner

The Monument ProtectionProgramme’s assessment ofrecent coastal batteries hasdemonstrated the degree towhich sites are lost, the causes ofloss and the speed at which itcan occur. Here on the EastYorkshire coast, a coastal batterynow lies fragmented on thebeach, having been some distanceback from the cliff top when built

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1 George Steiner 1969 Language and Silence.London: Pelican, 192

2 Steiner, 193

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Military archaeology is a diverse subject, in termsof site typology as well as materials and styles ofconstruction. Often built of materials designednot to last, and typically functional in form andappearance, these buildings and sites are rarelyattractive, and sometimes deeply unattractive tovisitors.They often represent a significant stagein a longer scientific process, connected withresearch programmes or the manufacture ofmatériel. So, factory buildings and experimentalsites are as much monuments of war as those inthe front line, such as the Heavy Anti-aircraftsites and coastal batteries of World War II.

There is a new vocabulary for researchers andcurators to use. In the past, different terms wereused to describe the same objects or monumenttypes, leading, for instance, to a confusion overthe typology of pillboxes. Now, with thecompletion of several studies based on archivesources, this new vocabulary is available for all touse consistently.

This recent past is also a challenge for thecurators and site managers who study, presentand interpret it for visitors.What, for example,are the relative merits of archaeological evidence,documentary sources, official histories and oraltestimony, and how can these various sources beused to develop a critical archaeology of 20th-century warfare? How should the Cold Warhistory of Greenham Common be told? Whichof the many voices of Greenham (the military,

the protestors, the media, the local community)should be heard, or should they all be heard,challenging visitors to reach their ownconclusions? At Dover Castle, the realistic re-creation of a wartime hospital in theunderground tunnels has proved popular amongvisitors. Other re-creations of the past have beensuccessfully used around the world at sites whereconflict and suffering has occurred.

Finally, there is a challenge to be faced indrawing military archaeology more formally intothe wider context of the recent past – developinglinks with industrial and maritime archaeology,landscape studies, and issues concerning theurban and rural environment.The creation ofEnglish Heritage’s strategy groups in these areashas enabled a joint strategic approach to be takenon initiatives set out in Power of Place (2000) andA Force for our Future (2001).

RecordingThe subject of amateur investigations over manyyears, culminating in Henry Wills’ Pillboxes(1985), modern military archaeology started toattract serious professional interest in the early1990s.Though some work had been completedbefore then and some sites in England hadstatutory protection, no systematic survey hadbeen made of what had been built or whatsurvived.This lack of knowledge was redressedwith the launch of two related but separateprojects in 1994–5: English Heritage’s TwentiethCentury Fortifications in England project, laterextended to the other home countries, that usedarchival sources to produce detailed typologiesand site locations for several major monumentclasses, and the Defence of Britain Project, thatfocused on anti-invasion defences. Both projectsare now complete and some of the findings arereported elsewhere in this issue.

A significant consequence of these relatedprojects has been the degree to which modernmilitary sites are now included in archaeologicalrecord systems, notably the locally-based Sitesand Monuments Records and the NationalMonument Record.The Defence of Britain datais now also available online from the ArchaeologyData Service: http://ads/ahds/ac.uk/catalogue/specColl/dob/ai_q.cfm

Military archaeology, especiallyof the modern period, is acomparatively new dimensionof the cultural heritage.That ispartly true by definition, yetother challenges presented bythis archaeology of themodern era are new too:methodology and terminology,for example, and theinterpretation of sites ofconflict and discord. Here arepresented some challengesand achievements of recentyears

Past practice – future directions

MILITARY ARCHAEOLOGY

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Teachers from Kent learn aboutmilitary archaeology at Dover

Castle, part of an English Heritageinitiative to promote the use of thissubject in the national curriculum.

A free booklet for teachers onusing World War II sites in Kent

has been sent to every school inthe county to support this work

5

The inclusion of defence sites in archaeologicalrecord systems has led to an increasingknowledge and interest in the subject. First, thisinformation on the NMR and SMRs records notonly all surviving sites but also, in counties suchas Hampshire and Essex, all documented sites,whether there is any modern surface trace or not.Second, some county archaeological staff havesought to promote this subject (SomersetCounty Council’s 1998 leaflet and LincolnshireCounty Council’s airfields trail and to undertakefurther research. Notably, Fred Nash hasundertaken a comprehensive field-based visitingprogramme in Essex, based on EnglishHeritage’s archive-based work and local sources;Kent County Council has recently completed acomprehensive survey of the county’s defenceheritage, including assessments of significance aswell as cultural and tourism benefits.Third,many county archaeological officers are nowacknowledged experts in this field.

Together with the national framework forsurviving sites in England, provided by EnglishHeritage’s work and the Defence of BritainProject, these developments provide a solid basisfor the growth of this comparatively newdimension of the cultural heritage.

Organisation and managementMilitary heritage involves a broad and activecommunity of enthusiasts and specialists, with anestablished series of groups and committees.TheFortress Study Group has been successful overthe years in promoting this subject andpublishing much about it; other groups focus onspecific topics or themes. Subterranea Britannica,for example, includes those with an interest inunderground military sites, while its ResearchStudy Group focuses on the Cold War, aboveand below ground.There is also a group offormer rocket scientists whose membership

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Modern military sites on theSomerset Sites and MonumentsRecord.This data is now beingused by a researcher studyingpillbox placement along theTaunton stopline

Roger J C Thomas from EnglishHeritage describes managementoptions at the ROC HQ at Acomb,York, to staff from other heritageagencies, October 2001 (seeThomas, 45–6)

contains a wealth of testimony about Britain’sCold War rocket-testing programmes.

The Defence of Britain Project provided anational focus for this community through itsmanagement panel and steering group.With theclosure of the project, however, the collectiveexpertise and UK-wide perspective needs a newnational focus to pool its resources.

Within English Heritage, the Military and NavalStrategy Group, which meets three times a year,is developing strategic initiatives within andbeyond the organisation, including researchframeworks and the provision of training anddevelopment opportunities throughout England.

It is important, moreover, to ensure a UK-widedevelopment of the subject. In 2001, members of

6

staff from virtually all the UK heritage agencies(English Heritage, Historic Scotland, Cadw, DoENorthern Ireland, Manx Heritage and Jersey)met in the north of England to visit somechallenging sites and discuss commonality ofapproach and future directions. It is hoped thatthis conference will become an annual event.

English Heritage is also promoting a moreunified approach to designation andmanagement, as described for Hayle, Cornwall,in Conservation Bulletin 41 (Guthrie and Hooley,26–7).This approach – combining scheduling,listing and management agreements – informsour work on the challenging and extensive ColdWar monuments.The production ofmanagement guidelines for aviation sites(Holborow, this issue, 32–3) is also a significantdevelopment, pursued with the full co-operationof Defence Estates, the owner of many of thesesites.

Research Following a year of consultation with staff fromEnglish Heritage and elsewhere, a researchframework has been produced to cover currentknowledge and future research priorities over thenext five years or so. Among the researchpriorities is the need for a rapid characterisationand assessment of military training areas, ofTerritorial Army drill halls and military camps ofall kinds. Much work remains in understanding

the scale of operations in the build-up for D-Dayand their archaeological manifestations.There isalso a need for further training of professionalstaff and for developing a method of evaluatingand recording military sites.Will photographicrecording normally be sufficient in advance of asite’s removal, for example, or can archaeologicalexcavation provide a new dimension to thenature of the site’s wartime occupation?

This Research Framework is available both as a published document and a website filewww.english-heritage.org.uk

Training and developmentSince 1997–8, English Heritage has organised orbeen involved with training courses, seminarsand conferences to raise awareness of modernmilitary archaeology and to provide training forthose increasingly coming into contact with it. Adayschool on Modern Military Matters, held atOxford University’s Department of ContinuingEducation in November 2000, was over-subscribed. Sessions at conferences have theadvantage of taking the subject to an audiencewith diverse interests. Lectures, classes anddayschools are increasingly being arranged forspecific groups of staff, such as those working onthe National Mapping Programme, whose workin areas such as East Anglia has brought themincreasingly into contact with military remains.

Bournemouth University now offers a course topromote oral testimony to improve under-standing of the sites themselves.There is a needfor training courses in the management ofsurviving wartime sites, including the treatmentand repair of wartime materials and thepresentation of monuments of war.

Finally, modern military archaeology plays anincreasing part in school and university teaching.Following the publication of English Heritage’s ATeachers’ Guide to Battlefields, Defence, Conflict andWarfare (1995), English Heritage staff have beenasked to train teachers in the contributionmilitary sites can make to the nationalcurriculum. At university level, courses onhistorical archaeology can include themethodological and theoretical issuessurrounding the use of testimonial, documentaryand archaeological source material; the numberof undergraduate dissertations on the subject isgrowing. Postgraduate courses and researchwould be a logical next stage.

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This Heavy anti-aircraft site onMalta is a scheduled monument

under Maltese legislation andthere are plans to provide public

access and interpretation.Thiswas one of many sites on Malta

built and manned by Britishtroops during World War II.

A dialogue now exists to addressthe problems and challenges

common to such sites inEngland and Malta

The commemorative value ofmodern military sites. Here the

Normandy veterans and the localcommunity participate in a

Remembrance ceremony at theTorquay D-Day slipways

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European and global contextsThe monuments of World War I,World War IIand the Cold War have a global context.Although frameworks for assessment are usuallybased on national criteria and often haveconsiderable local interest and support, theirEuropean or global context is oftenacknowledged in the wider statements ofsignificance that accompany them. EnglishHeritage’s thematic survey of aviation (Lake,28–31), for example, is based on the ‘L’Europede l’air’ Raphael project on aviation architecture.Wider geographical contexts are also relevant inpromoting tourism, as demonstrated in the jointInterreg II-funded project involving KentCounty Council, the Syndicat Mixte de la Coted’Opale and the Province of West Flanders.

A number of publications present militaryarchaeology within a global context, and closelinks are being forged with heritage agenciesoverseas – with Malta, for example, where WorldWar II and Cold War military sites were built forthe use of British military personnel.

English Heritage, in partnership with AngliaPolytechnic University and BournemouthUniversity, is developing proposals for aEuropean-funded Cold War legacies project bothto explore the material record throughoutEurope, significantly on both sides of the ColdWar political divide, and to examine this culturallegacy in its widest sense: the archaeology andarchitecture of former bases, and the artistic andcultural achievements which they inspired.

Community archaeologyAbove all, this is a subject with huge andenthusiastic support. From the valuable earlyamateur work to the Defence of Britain Project,the subject has been further driven by the

initiatives of heritage agencies, local authoritiesand local communities. Harnessing this enthu-siasm, reflected in the number of websites andthe plethora of new and often locally-fundedpublications, is the challenge that faces us next. ■■

John SchofieldHead of Military and Naval Evaluation

Programmes

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The knoll at Naseby, in the middledistance: a focus of activity duringa major Civil War engagement, andone now better understoodthrough the proper use of metaldetectors

Modern military sites are nowidentified routinely in such projectsas the National MappingProgramme.This example showsdefences identified at Hollesley,Suffolk

Bibliography

Schofield, J, Johnson,W G and Beck, C M (eds)2002 Matériel Culture: the archaeology of twentiethcentury conflict. London: Routledge

English Heritage continues to take responsibilityfor maintaining and enhancing the BattlefieldsRegister. Managing battlefields remains achallenge for English Heritage, not least becauseof unsupervised metal detecting. If doneproperly, however, metal detecting can improveour understanding. At Naseby, for example, anamateur metal detecting group working withprofessional help has discovered a significantnumber of musket balls on a knoll to the rear ofthe battlefield, apparently the site of a fightingstand during the royalist retreat.This discoveryshould lead to a revision of standard accounts ofthis major Civil War engagement.

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The Defence of Britain Project,completed in 2002, recordedmany sites and identifiedlandscapes where defencessurvive fairly intact in theirphysical context.Their futuremanagement is now underdiscussion

Defended areas of World War II

PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY

The Defence of Britain Project, co-ordinated bythe Council for British Archaeology, ran from1995 to 2002 and, in particular, harnessed theenthusiasm of volunteers, amateur archaeologistsand military historians to record Britain’s WorldWar II anti-invasion defences. During the finalyears, the project became closely aligned with thework undertaken by English Heritage on othersignificant areas of 20th-century fortifications.

As well as promoting this subject to a wide andincreasingly diverse audience, and attractingmuch media attention, the Defence of BritainProject built up an impressive database of theWorld War II anti-invasion defences, the greatmajority of which were erected in the few weeksfrom June to September 1940 against theimminent threat of a German ground attack.Thedatabase records 12,464 sites in England, ofwhich some 9,000 survive, including 5,500 ofvarious forms of the ubiquitous pillbox (or

‘hardened defence work’), perhaps 20% of thenumbers built. For further information anddetails of surviving structures, and the facility tosearch by country, area, monument class, orcondition, search the database online on theArchaeology Data Service website: http://ads/ahds/ac.uk/catalogue/specColl/dob/ai_q.cfm

A new two-year project, known as the DefenceAreas Project, commissioned and funded byEnglish Heritage’s Monuments ProtectionProgramme (MPP), now seeks to draw upon theDefence of Britain work, and to add substantiallyto it, so that a selection of structures may beproposed for preservation, either individually orin relation to others in discrete areas of defence.

Defence structuresThe first, and more straightforward, work of thenew project has been the preparation of lists ofstructures arranged by ‘anti-invasion monument

The structure of surviving anti-invasion defences in South-East

England: this would have been thekey area of German attack. Eachred dot represents a single anti-

invasion defence structure recordedby the Defence of Britain Project

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eumtypes’, further categorised by their surviving

condition and stability as recorded by thevolunteers. Seventy-three monument types havebeen identified, ranging from the different formsof pillboxes (for instance, types FW3/24 – themost common – and FW3/27) to spigot mortaremplacements (a Home Guard weapon, thefiring positions of which can still be found), anti-tank ditches (the largest system of defensiveearthworks ever built in England, now almostentirely infilled, but still visible in places as cropand soil marks), army headquarters buildings,flame warfare installations, anti-tank blocks,observation posts, loopholed walls, Home Guardstores and so on.The list is lengthy, with manyvariations on a standard form. Some tenthousand structures have been listed andcategorised, the lists presented to EnglishHeritage in rank order by type.

These sites will be assessed by English Heritage,using the Secretary of State’s non-statutorycriteria, and a combination of the best and mosttypical surviving examples of each type will beconsidered for protection, by scheduling (wherea future use is envisaged) or listing. Mostpillboxes that meet the criteria and aredemonstrably of national importance are likely tobe recommended for scheduling, even thoughsome have been adapted for new uses: aplanning application was recently submitted toconvert a standard pillbox to a small café; othershave been converted to public conveniences.

Defence areasSince July 2002, some sixty discrete areas havebeen identified where components of anti-invasion defences survive well in landscapessubstantially unaltered from those of 1940. Allmeet the criteria agreed with English Heritagefor identifying significant surviving defenceareas: differing but inter-related monumenttypes, good survival in a clear visual envelopeand a physical environment largely unalteredfrom the time the defences were established,ideally with public access. In addition, these areashave been selected to reflect different nationaldefence strategies, such as coastal, stop line(linear anti-tank barriers) and area (the defenceof towns and villages); examples fall within eachof English Heritage’s nine regions.

Following a 2001 pilot project examining threelandscapes, the methodology is now used for thefull national study. Each area will be assessedthrough both documentary sources and

fieldwork, and the results published in a reportincluding detailed maps of each defencecomponent within its physical context.

New documentary sourcesThis is exciting work, for the subject matter isnew and the documentary resources largelyunexplored, although significant work on anti-invasion defences of this period was undertakenfor MPP by Colin Dobinson in 1995 and 1996.Aerial photographs at the National MonumentsRecord are being used to establish the totality ofdefence in each area before the post-warclearance of many sites, as well as to evaluatelandscape change. Further work will be carriedout on documents at county record offices andthe Public Record Office. Although many havebeen destroyed – for example, the tens ofthousands of files of the War Office’s LandsBranch which took the land for the building ofthe defence works under the DefenceRegulations – many survive and have yet to befully evaluated.The designated military areas anddistricts of Britain, as well as Army Commandsand units, from Corps and Divisions down toBattalions and Companies, drew up detaileddefence schemes. Many survive at the PublicRecord Office among Home Forces War Diariesand include comprehensive lists of the defenceworks built, complete with six- or eight-figure

German reconnaissancephotograph showing defence worksfollowing the line of the RiverChelmer in Essex. Almost all thesesites survive today

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military grid references that can be converted tothose of the National Grid.There is, however, noeasy index to the location of the defenceschemes, and a trawl has to be made througheach unit to build up a picture of what they weredefending and when.Though this process can bespeculative and lengthy, the rewards are oftenspectacular as the whole strategy of defence forkey areas can be obtained; the details of what wasbuilt can be compared with modern survival.

These documents will be cited in the finalreports to aid further research.

Another source of information, only recentlyidentified, is the Luftwaffe’s reconnaissance in1940–1 of defence works that were hurriedlybeing built to keep the German Army at bay.Theaerial photographs and maps were captured byAllied forces at the end of the war, and the bulkof this material is now at the United StatesNational Archives, awaiting assessment. Enoughalso survives at the Imperial War Museum andthe British Library Map Library to show itsvalue, and relevant material will be used by theDefence Areas Project.The pilot project hasshown it to be accurate, often filling gaps insurviving British documentation.

Future managementOnly recently have World War II defence worksbeen accepted as part of the country’s longhistory of fortification.

Sites, however, are still being removed at analarming rate, ahead of construction andtransport links, and through erosion and decay.Coastal erosion, in particular on the east coast ofEngland, is a major threat to structuresstrategically sited on cliffs and beaches (Thomas,12–14). By ensuring that they are recorded onSites and Monuments Records (SMRs) and theNational Monument Record, however, they canbe managed through the local planning process,either by preserving in situ or recording prior toremoval. Recording sites on SMRs also provides

Public Archaeology

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Section of unfilled anti-tank ditch,with pillboxes behind, at Cuckmere

Haven, East Sussex

Pillbox disguised as part of theManor House in Acle, Norfolk

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an opportunity for the local community tobecome more closely involved in their research,recording and protection.

Public enjoyment and educationThe report of the pilot study includedrecommendations for presentation. Localplanning authorities, museums and societies wereencouraged to draw the World War II defencesinto the activities of the three areas assessed. InWaverley Abbey, Surrey, these defences are nowincluded in a self-guided walk, with leaflet andinformation boards, along the River Wey; thewalk was filmed for the BBC’s ‘Invasion’ series.In Acle, Norfolk, a community-based research

and recording project has been established.In Cuckmere Haven, East Sussex, EnglishHeritage’s regional team and the local authorityare developing plans to include the defences inthe events at a popular coastal country park, topromote understanding of an area where the fearof invasion was most keenly felt.

There is much public support for this recentarchaeology. Both the Defence of Britain Projectand the Defence Areas Project are adding to anincreased knowledge and understanding ofWorld War II defences. ■■

William FootProject Manager, Defence Areas Project

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pillbox (all types)

anti-tank gunemplacement

anti-tank obstacle

anti-tank ditch

other defence site

RED: extant

YELLOW: destroyed or infilled

WHITE: unknown

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The character of the Yorkshirecoastline varies dramaticallyalong its length, thegeomorphology ranging fromtowering chalk cliffs atBempton to the low slumpingglacial clays of Holderness.Indeed it is the rapid coastalerosion of these clays thatposes the greatest threat tothe area’s heritage, resulting inan urgent need to record andidentify the military defenceworks before their inevitabledestruction

Monitoring military sites on the Yorkshire coast

COASTAL DEFENCE

Two major erosion processes are at work on theHolderness coast – rotational slumping andunder-mining by the sea – and in some placesthe two combine to further increase the rate ofloss. Rotational slumping can result in a largecrescent-shaped section of ground (up to 6m indepth) slowly sliding down the cliff face, takingany structures with it, as can be seen clearly atRingborough Battery and Cowden Sands.Whereundermining occurs, any structures above simplycollapse such as at Godwin Battery, Kilnsea,where two massive 9.2-inch coast artilleryemplacements now lie on the beach.

Previous workThe vulnerability of military structures in thisarea was recognised some eleven years ago bythe Fortress Study Group (FSG), who thenundertook a desktop and ground-based survey ofthe Borough of Holderness on behalf of theRoyal Commission on the Historical Monumentsof England.The Holderness Study set out to testa standardised methodology and proforma thatcould be used to undertake similar workthroughout the British Isles.This study ledultimately to the establishment of the Defence ofBritain Project under the auspices of the Councilfor British Archaeology.

The FSG’s fieldwork, undertaken during April1992, initially produced some 270 sites,subsequently increased to 540 by furtherinterpretation of stereo aerial photographs.Thenorthern limit of the area surveyed by the FSGterminated at Low Skirlington and did notcontinue up the coast beyond the boundary ofthe former Borough of Holderness.Consequently, no fieldwork-based informationhas previously been available on the identity orcondition of World War I and II features north ofthat point.

New surveyGiven that 11 years have passed since the FSGsurvey, and coastal erosion continues to take itstoll, there is a growing need to supplementexisting knowledge. A decision was thereforetaken by English Heritage’s Yorkshire andHumberside Team to set up an identification andmonitoring scheme along the 65km coastlinefrom Bridlington to Spurn Point.The objective isto locate and identify all remaining 20th-centurymilitary features and structures, whether fullyextant or fragmentary, to enable futuremanagement policies to be developed inconjunction with landowners and localauthorities.

Rapid survey techniques have been adopted tocarry out the fieldwork. Each feature or structurehas been inspected, identified and recordedphotographically.The location of each featurehas also been plotted using a hand-held GPSunit producing a grid reference to 5m accuracy.The priority has been to identify features andstructures within the inter-tidal zone, or thoseclearly threatened by imminent coastal erosion.Two sections of coast – Easington to KilnseaWarren and Cowden Sands – were not surveyedby the FSG and have been included as a part ofthe present survey.To date, the entire coast hasbeen examined apart from a 5km stretchbetween Barmston and Skipsea. Furtherfieldwork remains to be carried out betweenBridlington and Skipsea along the coastal margin(up to 2km inland), to identify survivingearthworks and the inner belt of defencesassociated with the coastal crust.

Coastal battery behind a HeavyAnti-aircraft site at Ringborough,

taken in April 1945. The HAAsite is long gone and now the

coastal battery is largely in pieceson the beach

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Surviving remainsOver this length of coastline, a considerablediversity of structures and earthworks has beenencountered, the majority of which were built toresist invasion during 1940–1.The mostcommon structures include pillboxes, beachdefence light emplacements, 6-pdr anti-tank gunemplacements, trenches, scaffolding obstacles,barbed wire entanglements, anti-tank walls andcubes. During World War II, the design of suchpermanent defence works was the responsibilityof the War Office’s Directorate of Fortificationsand Works (DFW). Each design was issued witha type number, the Type-22 and 24 hexagonalpillboxes being the most common varieties.These designs were issued to the variousCommander Royal Engineers (CRE) in theregional Commands, who would supervise theirconstruction, whether by soldiers or civiliancontractors. Unusually, however, none of thestandard pillbox designs have been found in thesurvey area; designs that do occur do notconform to any known DFW drawings.

The two most common varieties of pillbox tosurvive in the study area, the so-called ‘lozenge’and the ‘eared’ types, are both bullet-proof andwere cast in situ in reinforced concrete designs.The ‘lozenge’ pillbox was designed for infantryarmed with rifles and/or sub-machine guns.Theycan be found in the coastal crust beach defences,on the perimeter of the anti-tank island atHornsea, covering road blocks and protecting thecoast artillery batteries of Spurn Point.Thedesign is not unique to the East Yorkshire Coast;it can also be found in Northumberland and themodern county of Cleveland.The examples in

the survey area do, however, exhibit differencesin detail: a slot has been cast internally below thesill of the gun loops to allow for the use of 20-round box magazine for the Thompson sub-machine gun.Where the pillbox straddled a ditchor a hedgeline, some have low gun loopscovering that approach.

The more substantial ‘eared’ pillbox wasdesigned to house two Vickers medium machineguns in the sustained fire role, and unlike the‘lozenge’ type, it does not have a 360˚ field offire.The design of the ‘eared’ pillboxes is unusualin having two wide-splay embrasures, one in eachflanking wall; the wall bulges out beneath theembrasure sill to allow for water cooling cans forthe guns, and they are entered by two forward-facing doorways.These pillboxes were only usedas part of the coastal crust defences and are onlyfound on or overlooking beaches. Due to thenature of the glacial tills, the foundation rafts forthese pillboxes were often built to massiveproportions, an example of which can be seen atAuburn Sands where coast erosion has left thestructure marooned on the beach.

Probably the most significant survivals are to befound between Wilsthorpe, Auburn andFraisthorpe. Here the beach consists of gentlyshelving sands backed by low boulder-clay cliffs.The length of the beach has been subdividedinto areas by transverse rows of anti-tank cubesthat extend out beyond the low tide mark.Thecubes are roughly 1.2m square in plan and varyin height.The ‘eared’ pillboxes are generally set atthe rear of the beach, permitting enfilade(flanking) fire in support of the ‘lozenge’

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Emplacement, at Fraisethorpe nearBridlington, now on the beach

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pillboxes, trenches and beach defence lightsnearby.The base of the coastal slope wasobstructed by a variety of means, possiblyindicating alterations and additions over time;these include concrete anti-tank walls, corrodedstubs of scaffolding obstacles and linear rows ofanti-tank cubes, some of which have initials anddates (1941) inscribed into them.The inscriptionon one cube sums up the attitude of the time:‘They shall not pass!’

World War I defencesIn addition to the ‘lozenge’ and ‘eared’ pillboxes,a square design occurs commonly betweenWilsthorpe and Barmston. Initially it was thoughtthat this dated from World War II, but it is nowthought to be earlier on the basis of fieldevidence.The construction method differs fromadjacent World War II features: the walls arethinner, of a different concrete mix and havebeen weathered more severely. However, it istheir siting that indicates a greater age, oneexample having its fields of fire totally obscuredby a later ‘lozenge’ pillbox. Clearly, archival workwill be necessary to confirm the conclusions thathave been drawn, but if correct, this discoverywill be of great significance. Although there is ascattering of square, circular and hexagonalexamples in Norfolk, Suffolk and Kent, it wouldappear that these Yorkshire pillboxes mayrepresent the only cohesive World War I anti-

invasion beach defence scheme surviving inEngland. Furthermore, these form part of aconcentration of extant defence works in north-east England, built before and during WorldWar Iand indicating the shift in threat from France toGermany.These defences include Bull and HaileSand Forts at the mouth of the Humber, theSpurn Point fortifications, Sunk Island gunbattery, various anti-Zeppelin acoustic dishes, theTyne Turret at Hartley, and Fort Coulson, Blyth.

Future directionsThe present phase of recording and assessmentwork has drawn to a close, and a survey reportwill be produced for the guidance of theRegional Team, to inform further discussionswith landowners and the local planningauthorities, and to enable the future managementof these military features. Preliminary fieldworkhas already contributed to the East RidingIntegrated Coastal Zone Management Plan,which recognises the importance of the 20th-century military structures as a part of thehistoric environment. Further recording workand archive study will be undertaken to broadenthe knowledge base and to ensure that thetransition of military features from a terrestrial toa marine environment is closely monitored. ■■

Roger J C ThomasMilitary Support Officer

Coastal defence

Interpreting a pillbox atHow Hill, Spurn

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When Henry VIII ordered the construction of abulwark, the place was called Langer Point. Bythe 18th century, it had become commonlyknown as Landguard. In the summer of 1667,the second fort came under attack by sea andland from De Ruyters’ battlefleet and marines.The defences here complimented others on theHarwich side at Beacon Hill, and batteries at theconfluence of the rivers Orwell and Deben atShotley were designed not just to prevent alanding, but to keep allied vessels andinfrastructure in the Haven a safe distance fromthe enemy’s seaborne ordnance.

Today the spit is dominated by the LandguardTerminal of the Port of Felixstowe. Multi-coloured shipping containers, stacked ten high,overshadow the remains of the defences. Despitethese incursions, there remains standing the thirdfort built in 1717 and then modified dramaticallyin 1750 and 1870.

The fort is a pentagonal structure with anglebastions and a dry ditch, its terreplein nowsurmounted by a monumental granite and iron-armoured casemated battery. It is surrounded bycoast artillery batteries of the 1880s and 1890swhose form, despite being only a decade newerthan the armoured fort, reflects the speed oftechnological development of the late-19thcentury: wrought iron armour has given way tosteel, making guns lighter and stronger, andreducing manual handling problems; themagazine rifle and machine gun have removedthe need for complex outworks for defence indepth; brick and stone have given way to massconcrete which lends itself to the organic formsof the new defences.

Left Battery, to the north of the fort, is the mostcomplete survivor of four such batteries built forhydropneumatic disappearing guns, the othersbeing at Dover, Plymouth and Harwich. RightBattery to the south and Darell’s Battery, one ofthe harbourmouth defence batteries, also survivevirtually complete. Sandwiched between the fortand the container terminal lie workshops andoutbuildings of the late Victorian SubmarineMining Establishment from where the armywould assemble and seed electrically controlledmines across the harbour mouth.

A key monumentThese outer defences and the fort are cared forby English Heritage.The remaining defences ofthe Peninsula – the Tudor bulwark, Jacobean fort,Victorian carbine butts,World War I defencesystems and D-Day embarkation hards – areprivately owned and managed. All have recentlybeen scheduled.

From 1957, when the last soldier left Landguard,to 1997, the fort and outer defences layabandoned, accessible only by arrangement witha keyholder. In 1992, the fort was identified bythe Department of National Heritage as one of ahandful of key monuments in need of backlogconsolidation to place the site on a routinemaintenance footing. Consolidated in 1997, thefort has been open to the public since 1998,operated by the local Landguard Fort Trust. Inthe summer of 1999, the project to consolidatethe remaining outer defences began.

Outer defencesThe outer defences presented a particularchallenge given the site’s ecological interest.Thearea containing military remains is alsodesignated a Site of Special Scientific Interestand a Local Nature Reserve.The short grassprovides a foothold for nationally scarce lowflowering plants. Rabbit activity encourages the

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AND BATTERIESLANDGUARD FORT

Conservation and management

The shingle spit at thesouthernmost tip of Suffolkadjacent to the commodiousanchorage of Harwich Havenwas, for five hundred years,recognised by successivemilitary strategists as aconvenient landing andmustering place for invasionand an attack on London.Thefortifications erected therereflect this strategicimportance and cataloguehalf a millennium oftechnological innovation.A conservation plan is nowbeing prepared to inform thefuture management of thisimportant site

Mike Reed of the LandguardBird Observatory ringing andmeasuring a migrant bird withinthe converted batteryobservation post

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Landguard Fort and batteries

growth of a red databook species, the StinkingGoosefoot. Pyramid orchids are common.Thestands of tamarisk on Right Battery largelyobscure the defences but are a first landfall formany migrant birds; since the mid 1960s,migration has been monitored here by theLandguard Bird Observatory.The battery istraversed by numerous virtually invisible ‘mistnets’ strategically placed across openings (rides)in the tamarisk to catch birds.The nets areregularly inspected by volunteers who work atthe battery day and night during the migration.The birds are taken to the old BatteryObservation Post, set up as a bird hide andringers post, where ring data is loaded ontocomputer or new migrants are ringed for futurerecognition before their release.The LandguardNature Reserve and Site of Special ScientificInterest are managed from Right Battery by theSuffolk Wildlife Trust’s resident Ranger.

The workshops of the Submarine MiningEstablishment house the Felixstowe Museum oflocal history.Within is a fascinating collectionranging from Felixstowe’s pivotal role in thedevelopment of the flying boat to photographsand artefacts relating to the Landguard defences.There is also a growing display of the fort’ssubmarine mining role with some exemplaryreplica machinery.

Conservation planIt was clear from the outset that a balancedapproach which responded to the variousbeneficial uses and significance of the outerdefences would be the key to a successfulproject. Following condition surveys of thebuildings and landscape, policies were devised toprotect and enhance the archaeological andecological importance of the site.The resultingconservation plan sought to:

● place the defences on a routine maintenancefooting

● make them accessible to guided groups

● promote their beneficial use, and

● promote ecological diversity.

Left BatteryOne significant decision was to re-excavate LeftBattery, backfilled in the 1970s for safety reasons.The excavation was undertaken as enablingworks in advance of the main conservationcontract and allowed for a full condition surveyand specification of repairs before the maincontract was tendered.The battery wasexcavated in November 2000 and the twohundred tons of spoil generated was used torecreate a defensive ravelin at the entrance to the

Battery during consolidation inFebruary 2002 with the Tressiderscarriage exposed. Spoil generated

by the works was used to recreatefeatures lost to the defences since

1957, such as the massivetraverse to the rear of the battery

(see opposite below)

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fort, effectively reversing the process undertakenin the 1970s, avoiding landfill tax and morepractically, preventing random parking in front ofthe fort – a situation which was out of hand anddetrimental to the setting of the monument.

Below the battery was discovered, buried in atunnel, a 6m-long steel ammunition carriage andwinding mechanism.This ‘Tressiders’ carriagewas designed to deliver ready-use cartridgesclose to the breech of the largest weapon on thebattery (a 10in breech loading gun) to reduce themanual handling to an absolute minimum.Thecarriage was excavated, overhauled and returnedto the tunnel for demonstrations to guided tours.

The restoration of Left Battery also provided anopportunity to reconfigure the parkingarrangements for the fort, thus reducing thevisual impact of parked cars on the monument.Before laying the parking spaces, Suffolk CountyCouncil Archaeology, funded by EnglishHeritage’s Archaeological Projects, took theopportunity to excavate part of the north bastionand curtain of the second Landguard Fort(1625). After penetrating the massive Georgianglacis deposits to a depth of about 3m, theexcavation uncovered the ditch, fausse braye,covered way and base of the parapet.Thisexcavation – including traces of the frantic assaultby Dutch marines in the summer of 1667 – has

augmented our understanding of a period offortification history poorly representedarchaeologically.The works and excavation havebeen interpreted and widely publicised, and therehas been much public interest and mediacoverage.

The conservation project was completed in 2002.The East of England Regional Team is nowengaged in discussions with the licensees of thedefences on the future operation of this complexsite.There is still work to do to make the defencelandscape legible and accessible and to publishthe results of the research, but it is an inspiringplace with much potential. ■■

Richard LinzeyFormer Head of Architecture

Major Projects

Landguard Fort with Left Battery inthe foreground before excavation,September 2000

The same view after excavation ofLeft Battery, November 2000

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Very little has been writtenabout World War II Prisoner ofWar Camps in the BritishIsles. Even less work has beendone to identify their totalnumber and location. A recentproject, however, has recordedand assessed surviving sites inEngland

What survives and where

POW CAMPS

With a few notable exceptions (such as Hellen1999) very little has been written about WorldWar II Prisoner of War (PoW) Camps in theBritish Isles.This is surprising given that a largevolume of documentary material exists at thePublic Records Office. Even less work has beenundertaken to identify the total number andlocation of the camps. Incomplete lists have beenpublished in a number of magazines and on theInternet but often the addresses given are notsufficiently detailed to permit an accurateinterpretation.To help inform the futuremanagement of known surviving sites such asHarperley (Nieke and Nieke, 22–5), research wasneeded to discover the number of sites originallybuilt, their location and type, and modernsurvival.

MethodologyGiven the poor quality of the original addressinformation in wartime documentation, oftenonly the camp number and nearest town orvillage, the first stage of the assessment was a

map-based search to identify basic locations. Forthis purpose the mid-1950s Ordnance Survey1:10 650 scale 6-inch ‘Revision Series’ mapsproduced the best results, usually showingindividual huts and camp boundaries with greataccuracy, many of which were identified as ‘workcamps’ or ‘agricultural workers’ hostels’.Wherethe map evidence failed to provide clear results,the location of sites was obtained by theinterpretation of aerial photographs held at theNational Monuments Record Centre.

There were some problems with interpretation.Most of the camps established during the earlywar years were within pre-existing countryhouses,Territorial Army camps, cotton mills,racecourses and so forth, and most of the latewartime sites were located in all manner ofbuildings, none definable as PoW camps on amap. Only the purpose-built mid-war sites wereclearly identifiable. Also, the official numberingsequence included some duplication.

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yAerial view of the former PoWCamp at Easton Grey,Wiltshire,

June 2002.The site is now a lightindustrial estate

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Typical ‘standard’ campItalian prisoners taken during the 8th Army’sNorth African Campaign built the majority ofthe so-called ‘standard’ camps during late 1942and early 1943, living under canvas until theaccommodation huts were built.The mostcommon type of building used was the 18ft 6in-span Ministry of War Production (MoWP)standard hut, although some timber sectional16ft- and 24ft-span Nissen huts were used at anumber of sites.

Camp 81 (Pingley Camp) at Brigg, Lincolnshire,is a typical example. Built to house 750prisoners, it consisted of a tented camp, guards’compound, prisoners’ compound, prisoners’garden plots, recreation ground and a sewagedisposal works. An outer plain wire fencesupported by concrete posts and an inner barbedwire fence enclosed the prisoner compound andrecreation ground.Within the prisoners’compound a ‘sterile’ area was establishedbetween the inner fence and a further coiled‘Danart’ barbed wire entanglement. Contrary topopular belief there were no guard towers at themajority of these camps, as the prisoners held inthem were usually considered ‘low risk’.

The complex was accessed from a publichighway by a single-track spine road.The guards’compound consisted of a group of some 15 hutsand a brick water tower occupying a rectangularparcel of land immediately north of the maingate to the prisoners’ compound.The prisoners’compound occupied a six-acre square of landand contained 35 huts, including a cookhouse,grocery and produce store, two dining huts, tworecreation huts, drying room and showers, twoablution and latrine blocks, a camp receptionstation (sick quarters), a living and carpenter’shut, and 23 living huts.

The majority of the living huts were ten-bayMoWP standard huts built using pre-castreinforced concrete frames and wall panels, buteight were Laing composite timber-framed hutsclad externally in bitumised corrugated iron andinternally in plaster-board.The MoWP huts usedfor domestic purposes, such as the cookhouse,ablutions and latrines, were built of hollow clayblocks rather than concrete panels.

After 1944 and particularly following thesurrender of Germany, many camps were hardpressed to hold the number of prisoners taken;additional accommodation was provided in bell

German PoWs and Nissen huts atan unidentified camp

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tents erected within the prisoners’ compound. InMay 1946, Pingley was responsible for 1,862prisoners, 984 of whom were housed at thecamp and the remainder were either billeted outor lived at one of four hostels (Elsham Hall,Elsham Mount, Elsham Manor and Scawby). Atsome camps the capacity was substantiallyincreased by the erection of new prisoners’compounds, with accommodation mostly undercanvas, but a few sites like Camp 86 (StanhopeCamp) at Ashchurch, Kent, eventually acquired16ft-span Nissen huts to replace the tents.

Survival and condition Although much work has already been carriedout, a clear understanding of the numberingsystem mentioned above has not been possible.

A national total of 1026 camps is unlikely, giventhe large gaps in the numbering sequence, forexample, 300–402, 412–553, and 702–1000. Interms of plan form, the majority of sites in thenumerical sequence 25–122 conform to acommon basic shape, giving a total of about 97‘standard’ camps.This total currently representsapproximately 1/5 of the known number of 487PoW camps positively identified throughout theBritish Isles.

The condition of 53 of these ‘standard’ sites hasbeen positively established and can be taken as arepresentative sample to assess probable rates ofsurvival across the country. As a general rule,survival diminishes the further south and eastone goes. Clearly land values and greaterdemand for brownfield sites has exerted someinfluence; national government policies have alsohad an effect on this pattern of survival. Anumber of sites have been demolished to permitthe building of schools and the planting offorestry, while the majority of the extant siteshave survived because they were used asagricultural hostels by the county agriculturalcommittees of the late 1940s and early 1950s.During the late 1960s and early 1970s, a numberof camps became hostels for internationalstudents doing seasonal agricultural work, butwith the exception of Camp 90 (Friday BridgeCamp) at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, this practiceappears to have come to an end by the early1980s, when the remaining sites passed into low-grade agricultural and light industrial uses.

Of the total of 53 ‘standard’ sites examined, 33have been demolished, though footings maysurvive, nine are semi-extant (at least 20% ofstructures have been demolished) and eleven areextant (over 80% of structures remain standing).Camp 93 (Harperley Camp) falls into this

One of the standard designbuildings surviving at Brigg,

Lincolnshire

Mickey and Minnie Mouse,painted on the inside wall of a hut

at Brigg, Lincolnshire.Contemporary graffiti often

survives, giving these sites addedsocial significance

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category and has now been scheduled (Niekeand Nieke, 22–5).The terms ‘semi-extant’ and‘extant’ do not necessarily imply that the hutsremain in good condition; on the contrary, andwith a few notable exceptions, the standard ofmaintenance at these sites has been minimal ornon-existent. It should be borne in mind,however, that the buildings were originallydesigned for speedy, low-cost, non-skilledconstruction and intended only for a short-termtemporary use. Nevertheless there are a handfulof sites that have been maintained to a highstandard and these particular sites do give a goodimpression of their original appearance.

ImplicationsSome 20% of the ‘standard’ PoW camps survivesufficiently to provide a clear impression of theiroriginal plan form and appearance. Some remainin use: Camp 83 (Eden Camp) at Malton, NorthYorkshire, is a museum dedicated to ‘ThePeople’s War 1939–1945’, Camp 108 (Thirkleby

Camp) near Thirsk, North Yorkshire, is a farm,while Camp 100 (St Martin’s Camp) nearGobowen, Shropshire, is a light industrial estate.Though these surviving examples are significantsites, even those where only footings survive tell astory and contribute to the local scene. They arealso a reminder both of the presence of PoWs inEngland during World War II and the integrationof some former prisoners into the localcommunity. From this comparatively smallnumber of surviving sites, some will now beconsidered for protection to ensure that thesesites are not needlessly destroyed in the future. ■■

Roger J C ThomasMilitary Support Officer

Reference

Hellen, A 1999 ‘Temporary settlements and transientpopulations.The legacy of Britain’s Prisoner of Warcamps’. Erdkunde (Archive for Social Geography)53(3), 191– 211

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Warwickshire, 1946, showingclearly its plan form

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HARPERLEY POW CAMP

The events leading to thescheduling and considerationof future management of aPrisoner of War camp inCounty Durham are areminder of the closeinterweaving of the past andthe present

It came as a surprise to open The Guardian oneday in 1999 and find an article on HarperleyPrisoner of War (PoW) Camp in CountyDurham.The camp was for sale following thedeath of the owner, and the survival was ofmedia interest. For us it was a surprise as thiswas the camp where my father, as a GermanPoW, spent the years 1944–8. It was a wellremembered time, during which his life was tochange totally and irrevocably. Some 60 years on,I became involved in having the site designatedas a scheduled monument, an unusual turn ofevents and perhaps a unique dilemma.

Harperley, known in official records as Camp 93,is a purpose-built camp located in Weardale onrequisitioned farmland. Originally built in 1943for Italian PoWs, it soon housed around 900Germans identified as of low risk.The prisonerswere housed in quickly built Ministry of Warsupply standard huts. Adjacent to the tightlyordered PoW camp lay guards’ quarters ofsimilar construction but with slightly granderfixtures and fittings. A 1946 site plan, recentlyrescued from German files by a former PoW,confirms that over 85% (about 50) of the

buildings survive today in varying states ofpreservation.The site had survived because ithad remained in one ownership and, apart froma spell when it was used for agricultural storageand chicken sheds, had been largely mothballedfor years. Despite the loss of many internalfittings, sufficient survives – when allied withpersonal recollections, comparable sites and thelimited documentary evidence – to allow the fullground plan and nature and function ofindividual buildings to be reconstructed.

Among the buildings are two remarkablesurvivals. One is a theatre, created within one ofthe standard huts, with a stage, orchestra pit,prompt box and tiered flooring in theauditorium.Walls were decorated with hessiansacking, presumably dyed, and fragmentarycuttings from German magazines remain stuckto the walls in the back stage areas.The second isa canteen building set aside for rest andrelaxation in which a series of wall paintings oftypical German scenes survive. Here windowswere decorated with hardboard curtains paintedin chequer patterns.

Memories and monuments

Aerial photograph of the site takenin 1999. Prisoners were held in thethree regimented rows of buildingson the right.The guard’s camp lies

on the left-hand side

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Life in the campThe history of Harperley is interwoven with thehistory of its many inmates, guards and the localcommunity. Unlike contemporary PoW camps inGermany, camps in England were not hiddenaway but were important elements of thewartime British landscape. Life in the camp wasobviously traumatic for many of the prisonerskept away from their families and homelands anduncertain about their futures, but many, like myfather, were glad to be out of a war they neverhad any enthusiasm for. At least their familiesknew where they were and that they were safe.Prisoners were humanely treated and atHarperley the Camp Commander encouragedthem to make themselves as ‘at home’ aspossible.The camp had its own newspaper, DerQuell (The Source), and an eleven-pieceorchestra performed regular concerts. A dramaticgroup was formed and performances included aseries of comedies at Christmas 1947.Therewere educational classes and football games, withexcursions to play neighbouring teams.ThePoWs created and tended small gardens betweenthe tightly packed huts. Craftsmen among themmade wooden toys, chess sets and other smallwooden articles as well as leather slippers andother goods, given away in exchange for favoursor sold to supplement meagre incomes.

However, Harperley’s main role was as a workcamp from which the prisoners were taken eachday to work on local farms.Throughout thecountry, a large number of such camps werebuilt so that PoWs could be used for work inagricultural, forestry, dam, road and otherconstruction industries. In total some 400,000Germans and 100,000 Italians were held inBritain as PoWs, the vast majority undertakinghard manual work.

The contribution of PoWs to agriculturalproduction cannot be under-estimated. At a timewhen increased production was essential toensure sufficient home-produced supplies

despite a reduced local workforce (the majorityof able-bodied men being away at the war), theimpact of PoW labour helped Britain survive, notleast through the harsh winter of 1946–7.Depending on their level of skill, PoWs were paidup to 6 shillings a week – at a time when theminimum wage for a British agricultural workerwas 75 shillings a week. My father recalls earningjust enough to buy a small piece of cake and abottle of lemonade each week.The movement ofGermans around the countryside to their placesof work became commonplace and wellremembered and was made possible by anagreement that the majority required littleguarding.

My father was eager to spend as little time aspossible in the camp and soon joined the partiesworking on local farms. Here he was able to useskills developed on his own family farm in Silesiato good effect. Like other prisoners, he wasgenerally well and kindly treated by local peoplekeen for cheap labour. Placements that providedfree meals during the day to augment the meagrecamp rations were always highly prized. Securitythroughout was generally low-key and it was notunheard of for the guards accompanying them toand from work to disappear into a local hostelryat midday and not reappear for the return tocamp! Eventually a system of billeting PoWs onfarms was developed to allow more personalfreedom and a break from camp routines.

Survival in 2002: some of thestandard huts in which prisonerswere housed. Conserving thesebuildings and finding suitable re-uses will be a major conservationchallenge

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Game bird in a German forest.One of the surviving wall paintings

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Repatriation began after the war, although theauthorities showed some reluctance to lose theiradditional labour force. By 1949 all who wantedto go had been sent home.This left some 25,000,my father included, to stay on. In his case he nolonger had a real home to return to, his Silesianhome having been given to Poland after the warunder international agreement. (The resultantethnic cleansing of some 13 to15 million nativeGermans from their ancient homelands inPomerania, East Prussia and Silesia remains thelargest single refugee movement in Europeanhistory). He had found a local farming family tostay with and indeed marry into.

Significance and futuremanagementShortly after the survival of Harperley becamewidely known, English Heritage was asked to

comment on its national importance and thepossibility of any statutory designation. Ourimpression then, now confirmed by RogerThomas’s national assessment of PoW camps(Thomas, 18–21), was that the nature of the siteand the extent of survival were both remarkableand unusual. In total perhaps some 1000 PoWcamps were created in Britain, of which around100 were, like Harperley, purpose-built, thoughthe vast majority of these have long disappeared.In considering it for protection, it was hearteningto find a groundswell of local interest in securingthe future of the camp and much support for theidea that it should be preserved.The publicityraised much interest in Germany. A range ofpersonal and media requests for furtherinformation appeared, for example, from a manwho wanted to see whether the paintings mighthave been by his late father-in-law, an artist whohad been a PoW in England. (Sadly the paintingsare unsigned but it now appears that the artistwas held in a camp near London.) The siteowners and local planners discussed futureoptions. Overall, designation was thought to beappropriate only if a suitable and sustainable re-use could be found that would preserve as muchas possible of its character, key buildings andplan form.

A new future has been agreed.The camp hasbeen bought by a local couple well aware of itshistory and interest.They are working closelywith English Heritage’s North East Regional

Reinhard Nieke (second from leftstanding) and some of his hut

group at Harperley in 1945

Harperley PoW Camp

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Team to identify appropriate repair, refurbish-ment and management programmes, that shouldallow at least part of the site to be opened to thepublic. In view of these new developments,scheduling was felt to be an appropriatemanagement tool, and the site is now ascheduled monument – the first such camp to be protected in England.

Troubled pastsDealing with this site has been difficult, bothprofessionally and personally. Harperley was asignificant part of my father’s past. Hisexperiences as a PoW are well remembered –some frequently recounted, others locked away.Recollections of the actual camp are partial – hehas no memory of the theatre or wall paintings –in part because he worked hard to spend as littletime as possible there, returning only to eat andsleep. Some of his strongest memories of theperiod are of working in the local area. Althoughwe had heard rumours over the years of itssurvival, the camp itself was never a place heconsidered re-visiting. Sixty years on he issurprised by the degree of survival and is helpingus try to understand the site better.Thesebuildings provoke memories that might otherwisebe lost. Life as a PoW was not easy; nor was lifeas a German in post-war England.

Preserving this site will ensure that theexperiences of the thousands of PoWs, held atcamps like Harperley, are not forgotten asmemories fade.

Harperley has an important wartime story to tell,particularly important for the wide-rangingexperiences of the PoWs, guards and localcommunity. Many of these stories now need tobe drawn together and recorded.The strength oflocal knowledge and interest in the site shouldnot be forgotten, and a community-basedrecording project would be valuable. Overall asan educational resource, the camp has enormouspotential.We hope that Harperley now has asecure future and can stand as a memorial to thePoW experience in Britain. ■■

Margaret R NiekeInspector of Ancient Monuments

Monuments Protection Programme

R H Reinhard Nieke

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Harperley will be featured in the BBC’s ten-part‘Restoration’ series to be broadcast in Augustand September.The programme will includesome former PoWs visiting the camp and anorchestra playing in the theatre.

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PRINCIPLES OF DEFENCE

With few exceptions, there hasbeen little archaeologicalresearch about the trenchwarfare that figured soprominently in theatres of warduring the closing decades ofthe 19th and first half of the20th century. Field investigationon Salisbury Plain,Wiltshire –the largest military trainingarea in the country – hashighlighted the extent to whichtrenches were constructed aspart of training programmesbefore soldiers were sentoverseas.The investigation notonly highlights the remarkablesurvival of the evidence butalso demonstrates how theprinciples of defence wereused in the siting andconstruction of trench systems

Military trenches

The northern part of Salisbury Plain has beenused as a military training area since the end ofthe 19th century.This large expanse ofundulating downland, purchased by the Ministryof Defence during a period of agriculturaldepression when land prices were relatively low,was considered ideal for both training and large-scale manoeuvres. As a consequence, theevidence of over 100 years of military activity –rifle and anti-tank ranges, observation posts, gunemplacements, and impact areas – survives asearthworks (McOmish et al 2002).Trenches areparticularly widespread and range from simpletwo-man slit-trenches to more complex plannedsystems covering several hectares and appearingto date mainly from World War I.

TrenchesDespite their use by the Army since at least the18th century, trench systems on the Plain werenot recorded until 1902 when ‘three 4 foot deepS-shaped Boer trenches, filled with standingdummies, were fired at both by guns andhowitzers with fair effect’ (Anon 1902, 23).Thistype of trench was used by the Boers during theSouth African War (1899–1902) and wasconsidered far superior to those used by theBritish Army (Courtney 1900, 92); they were ineffect the precursors to those used during WorldWar I.

As trench warfare became established, a fullydeveloped system had a number of structuralelements. First, there was a front-line or firingtrench, with a support trench situated somedistance behind it. A reserve-line, that wasessentially the battalion reserve and may consistof either trenches or dugouts, was located 400 –600 yards to the rear (Anon 1997, 19). Each linecomprised either zig-zag lengths of trenches or,as in the case of some front lines, crenellatedbays, designed to give maximum protectionagainst enfilade fire and shellbursts.The lineswere connected by a series of communicationtrenches, with shelter bays positioned along theirlength with over-head cover. In addition, ‘saps’,dug from the front-line into ‘no man’s land’, wereoften used as observation or listening posts, asvantage-points, or as sally-ports for patrols.

Great attention to the principles of defence wastaken in siting trench systems within thelandscape. A ‘covered approach’ was essentialwhen approaching the rear communicationtrenches so that soldiers could enter the front-line unobserved. In the trench system on PerhamDown, for example, a long hedgerow and tree-belt provided cover, while on Chapperton Downthe approach from a hidden valley used aprominent prehistoric Celtic field lynchet foradditional protection. On the Bulford rifleranges, despite the ground being flat, full use wasmade of a prehistoric linear ditch and the Celticfield lynchets to conceal or blend the trenchesinto the landscape (Brown and Fieldforthcoming).

Some of the best-preserved trench systems occuron Beacon Hill near Bulford. Here a recentprogramme of scrub clearance has revealed aparticularly coherent pattern incorporating afront-line with bays, linked by sinuouscommunication trenches to the support-line.Further west, other systems snake across theslope using to best effect the natural profile ofthe hill.

Further workSalisbury Plain is by no means atypical sincemilitary earthworks survive on the majority oftraining areas in the country.They are also likelyto exist in other areas that were used temporarilyduring periods of national emergency.The totalresource is unquantified and, until recently,unrecognised, for when trench warfare is usuallyconsidered, thoughts immediately turn to theWestern Front and the plethora of trenches thatdominated the French and Belgian landscape.Archaeological investigation on the military estateon Salisbury Plain, coupled with furtherreconnaissance and detailed analytical survey willhelp to establish the extent of this important partof our national military heritage. ■■

Graham Brown and David FieldArchaeological Investigators, Swindon

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References

Anon, 1902 ‘Annual Report of the School of Gunnery’, unpublished MSS held in Badley Library, RoyalSchool of Artillery, Larkhill

Anon, 1997 British Trench Warfare 1917–1918. London: Imperial War Museum

Brown, G and Field, D forthcoming The archaeology of warfare:The military practice trenches on the SalisburyPlain Training Area

Courtney, E A W 1900 ‘Boer Trenches at Paardeberg’. Royal Engineers Journal 30, 92

McOmish, D, Field, D and Brown, G 2002 The Field Archaeology of the Salisbury Plain Training Area.London: English Heritage

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A trench system on Beacon Hill.The trenches here survive to adepth of c0.6m.The front-line,facing north, is shown as alength of crenellated bays withcentral ‘islands’ allowing troopsto move along unhindered.The small bulbous features inthe communication trenchesare the shelter bays. The longcommunication trench from thesupport trench is linked to aprehistoric linear ditch andhedgerow that providedadditional cover

28

AVIATION BUILDINGSAIRFIELDS AND

Various projects undertaken bythe Monuments Protection andThematic Listing Programmestogether constitute a nationalassessment of airfields andaviation architecture

A national assessment

Powered flight, and in particular its use formilitary purposes, has had a profound impactduring the 20th century on human events andthe modern landscape. Military airfieldsrepresent the most significant manifestation ofthat impact.They are typically extensive andcomplex sites, whose planners took into accountboth the functions of a technology-based serviceand the accommodation, ordered by rank, ofcommunities of flyers, technicians, administratorsand their families.They were built in greatnumbers: 301 by the end of 1918, most of whichwere subsequently abandoned; more than 100built in permanent fabric between 1923 and1939; and the country’s total of 150 expanded to740 – mostly in temporary materials and ondispersed sites – during World War II.

AssessmentGiven the character, number and diversity ofmilitary airfields, the strategy for protection hasfocused on the identification of the mostcomplete, historically important and stronglyrepresentative sites.The assessment of groupsand individual structures outside these key sitesrests on their intrinsic historical or architecturalimportance. A statistical analysis of what hassurvived, comparison with original populationsand a critical analysis of importance in atypological and national context, has beencompiled by Paul Francis, author of MilitaryAirfield Architecture and the acknowledgednational expert on the subject. Additionally,Colin Dobinson has undertaken archivalresearch, exploring certain themes relating toairfield planning and architecture, particularlyfrom 1923, which has enabled us to gain a freshoverview of the subject at a strategic level andunderstand the rationale and forces thatdetermined the typology, distribution anddevelopment of military sites.

Dobinson’s work on airfield defences,undertaken for the Monuments ProtectionProgramme, was also part of this wider surveyand formed the basis for an assessment ofsurviving defence structures in England, againundertaken by Paul Francis.This assessment,backed up with records collated by the Defenceof Britain Project, revealed that, for example, of

the 242 Picket Hamilton pneumatic pillboxesissued for airfield defence, fewer than 20 survive.Also, fewer than ten airfields originally defendedhave sufficient of their defence provisionsurviving in a coherent and legible form, and forat least some of their perimeter, to meritprotection through scheduling. At Perranporth inCornwall, all twelve of the original fighter penssurvive, along with their perimeter track, thebattle headquarters (from which defence of theairfield would have been coordinated), and agroup of pillboxes.This site has now beenscheduled.

Management optionsWhere there is a role for statutory protection, theform of protection selected is designed toencourage the type of management that will bestensure the site or structure’s long-term future.Airfield buildings are structures that fall mosteasily within the framework for listing, wherecontinuing or new use of built structures is bothdesirable and feasible. Earthworks and pillboxes(both concrete and hydraulic) associated withairfield defence in World War II, in addition tostructures such as fighter pens and bombdumps, can be most suitably managed asmonuments through the scheduling legislation.Sites of this nature, the most outstanding ofwhich can also be managed through conservationarea designation, demand specialist input into the

The iconic control tower atDavidstow Moor, Cornwall, one ofseveral that will be considered for

scheduling

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drafting of guidelines for management(Holborow, 32–3).These guidelines will clarifythe issues of maintenance and adaptation.

International contextAs befits the birthplace of powered flight, whichcelebrates its centenary year in 2003, America’sNational Parks Service has completed the mostadvanced work aimed at the protection ofhistoric aviation properties through registrationon the National Register of Historic Places.These have included the sites and structuresassociated with the early career of the Wrightbrothers and other pioneers, but also militarysites such as the six seaplane hangars of 1916–18at Pensecola Air Station in Florida, the trainingbase at Randolph Field in Texas, underdevelopment from 1928, and the World War IIbases on the Aleutian Islands off Alaska.

A recent European project, in which EnglishHeritage’s Listing Team has participated, wasinitiated in order to achieve a consistency ofapproach towards the evaluation of the civilairport terminals of the 1930s (ConservationBulletin 41, 24–5).The project has also providedinformation on the survival and architecturaldiversity of the bases built for other Europeanstates.This has enabled a sharper and morecritical focus to be brought on what has survivedin this country and has underpinned theprotection of key buildings and sites such asDeelen airfield in the Netherlands and the windtunnel at Meudon in France.

Aviation sites in EnglandThe thematic survey of aviation sites andstructures undertaken by English Heritage in1999–2000 has identified a number of key sitesand other sites and components which can bedescribed as having special interest or being of

national importance. Some examples of these keysites and components follow.

The survival of hangars of 1910 at Eastchurch,Kent, and Larkhill,Wiltshire, on the south ofSalisbury Plain – where both military and civilianflyers were trained – is especially important.More remarkable are the surviving structures atnearby Netheravon – developed as a prototypeflying base – and Upavon, both in Wiltshire.Thus far, only three other comparable groupingshave been identified elsewhere in Europe andnone in America or further afield, making thesesites of outstanding importance in aninternational context. Similarly, Duxford,Cambridgeshire, survives as the mostoutstanding multi-period site and fighter base inBritain and probably in Europe, with buildings ofboth inter-war expansion periods added to auniquely well-preserved suite of hangars,workshops and technical buildings of 1918.Thethematic survey has established that only ninesites in Britain (seven in England, plus Shotwickin north Wales and Montrose in Scotland) haveretained relatively complete hangar groupingsdating from World War I and earlier.

When the RAF was formed as the world’s firstindependent air force in Apri1 1918, and duringthe period of retrenchment that lasted from theArmistice until the early 1920s, its foundingfather and first Chief of Air Staff, General SirHugh Trenchard, concentrated upon developingits strategic role as an offensive bomber force.This principle of offensive deterrence continuedto guide the shape and direction of Britain’s airforce for the remainder of the inter-war period,throughout World War II and into the Cold Warperiod.Thus the importance of Bicester inOxfordshire – an exceptionally well-preservedbase under development from 1926 which hasretained much of its original grass airfield – again

Aerial view of RAF Bicester whichretains, better than any othermilitary airbase in Britain, thelayout and fabric relating to bothpre-1930s military aviation andthe development of Britain’sstrategic bomber force.The grassflying field still survives with its1939 boundaries largely intact

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pairs around the airfield and survive in a betterstate of preservation than elsewhere in Europe.The landscape at Kemble is a reminder that thecharacter and development of the flying field isfundamental to an understanding of militaryaviation’s infrastructure. Efforts are being madeto incorporate key examples into conservationareas where relevant and to set frameworks forfuture development within a soundunderstanding of their significance. Some 15landscapes have been identified as being ofparticular importance, from the World War Iairfield and its associated fabric at Old Sarum tothe fighter and bomber bases that embodied theconcept of dispersal pioneered at bases such asKemble.

The ability of airfields to disperse and shelteraircraft from attack and ensure serviceablelanding and take-off areas was first adopted in1939 by the RAF for its most vital fighter sectorairfields, whose perimeters were provided withfighter pens for parked aircraft. Of the key sectorstations remodelled for Fighter Command in1939– 40, Kenley, in Surrey, survives as auniquely complete landscape, now largely usedfor amenity purposes.The fighter pens and partsof the perimeter track are currently beingassessed for scheduling and the officers’ messand airmen’s institute – the former bearing thescars of the raids of August 1940, during theBattle of Britain – for listing at grade II.

Historical associationsThe Battle of Britain was one of the definingevents of World War II, some historians wouldargue of the 20th century, and was associatedwith a limited number of sites (Lake andSchofield 2000).The most famous – besidesDuxford – were concentrated in 11 Group,which bore the brunt of the Luftwaffe assault.

merits consideration within its broaderinternational context.

By the 1930s, the issue of airbase design hadbecome inextricably bound with that of nationalidentity, from the Moderne styles found inFinland and Italy to the self-consciouslytraditional style adopted for 1930s Germantraining bases. In Britain, and in contrast with themore stridently modern styles for civil terminalarchitecture, the planners for the post-1934expansion of the RAF were required to softenthe impact of new bases on the landscape bypoliticians mindful of public concerns over theissues of rearmament and the pace ofenvironmental change.The Air Ministry’s mainconsultant in these matters was the Royal FineArts Commission.The result, for the firstgeneration of bases constructed after 1934, was acurious blend of Garden City planning andarchitecture for married quarters, neo-Georgianpropriety for the barracks and other domesticbuildings, and a watered-down Moderne style forthe technical buildings. Hullavington,Wiltshire,now a conservation area, is in every respect thekey station representative of the improvedarchitectural quality of post–1934 expansion.Architects in Germany, France and Italy hadsince World War I pioneered the construction ofhangars in reinforced concrete, and protectionhas now been afforded to some of the best-preserved and most significant examples.The AirMinistry built on these precedents and took outpatents on the Junkers Corporation ‘Lamella’sheds for hangars on its reserve depots.Thesewere under development from 1936,spearheading the concept of dispersed airfieldplanning which became a characteristic featureof the World War II period. Kemble, on theWiltshire/Gloucestershire border, has the greatestrange of such structures, which are grouped in

Airfields andaviation buildings

The officer’s mess at Kenley, Surrey.This uniquely complete surviving

landscape, remodelled for FighterCommand in 1939–40, is now used

largely for amenity purposes

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Management and designationThe assessment of airfields and other militarysites by English Heritage has thus increasinglycome to reflect a unified approach tomanagement and designation.The listingproposals arising from the thematic survey ofmilitary aviation sites have been through a longprocess of evaluation and consultation,highlighting the importance of focusing on keyissues of historical importance and internationalcontext, in addition to formulating policies forthe sustainable and long-term management ofkey sites.The reports arising from this work arebeing issued to Sites and Monuments Records. ■■

Jeremy LakeInspector, Listing Team

Biggin Hill, Kent, where battle-scarred barracksand other buildings have been recommended forlisting, has already been designated as aconservation area. Further structures – rangingfrom the sector operations rooms at Debden,Essex, and Northolt, London, to 11 Group’sunderground headquarters at Uxbridge, London(preserved exactly as described by Churchill inhis famous account of September 1940) – will berecommended for protection, as will the fighterpens and defences at Biggin Hill and those at theremarkably well-preserved landscape at Debden.The importance of such landscapes astouchstones to the Battle was first raised by SirDouglas Bader, who made representationsagainst the development of the airfield atDuxford during the M11 Public Inquiry of the1970s.

During World War II, Britain’s entire layout ofmilitary airfields was involved in the war effort,there also being a diverse range of nationalitiesassociated with these sites. Some 15% of FighterCommand’s strength in the Battle of Britaincame from overseas pilots, Czechs and Polesmaking up the largest European element, andtraining units such as Bicester, Oxfordshire, tookin many thousands from overseas. However, thehighly dispersed nature of those sites erectedduring the conflict – built of temporary materialsand spread over many square miles of land –precludes structures on the great majority frombeing recommended for protection.

Exceptions include the former US Navy base atDunkeswell, Devon, a uniquely important siteassociated with the Battle of the Atlantic, andsome of the control towers. Particularly onairfields with distinguished operational histories,those towers survive as iconic structures in thelandscape, testament also to the enormous lossessustained by American and Commonwealthforces in the course of the Strategic BomberOffensive.The association of Scampton,Lincolnshire, with 617 Squadron’s raid on theRuhr dams in 1943 is an exception to the generalrule that the scale and diffused nature of thebombing campaign does not allow for a specialhistorical distinction to be applied to specificsites, in contrast to the Battle of Britain’sinvolvement of a relatively small number ofairfields. Consideration of the archaeology ofconflict has also now extended to the thousandsof crash sites, excavated under licence from theMinistry of Defence, which have been thesubject of fresh guidance from English Heritage(Holyoak, 34–5).

Reference

Lake J and Schofield J, 2000 Conservation and thebattle of Britain, in Addison P and Crang J (eds) TheBurning Blue: a new history of the Battle of Britain.London: Pimlico, 229–42

The seaplane hangars at Calshot,Hampshire, which date frombetween 1914 and 1918, havebeen listed at Grade II*.The site isnow an outdoor activities centre,and the great steel-framed hangarof 1918, shown here, has beenconverted into a multi-purposesports hall with velodrome, skislope, tennis courts and sportspitches

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AVIATION SITESHISTORIC MILITARY

Management guidance formilitary aviation sites has nowbeen published. Here theprinciples and the key pointsare described

Management guidance

England’s military aviation heritage is in theprocess of a comprehensive assessment byEnglish Heritage leading to recommendations forstatutory protection through listing andscheduling, as outlined in other articles in thisissue. In parallel with this process, the number ofconservation areas designated by local authoritieson airfields is increasing and now includes, inorder of designation, Hornchurch, Hullavington,Biggin Hill, Lee-on-Solent,Yatesbury and OldSarum.

Management guidelinesManagement guidelines can help owners tounderstand the importance of their sites and thepractical implications of designation.Theguidelines provide a framework for positive con-servation management, in line with the approachset out in Kate Clark’s Informed Conservation(English Heritage 2001).They are of particularrelevance to military aviation sites, many of whichwill be subject to a mixture of designations.

For property owners, property managers andtheir advisers, guidelines can explain the differenttypes of designation and the differences betweenlisting and scheduling.They can also help toanswer questions about acceptable parameters ofchange – for example, faced with a listed hangar,is it possible that consent might be granted tochange its cladding materials or to sub-divide theinterior space?

Guidelines can provide information on whom tocontact for advice and explain the differing rolesof the Department for Culture, Media and Sport,English Heritage and the local planning authority.Within English Heritage, Inspectors of AncientMonuments, Inspectors of Historic Buildings andHistoric Areas Advisers may all need to beinvolved.

On defence sites, the Government HistoricEstates Unit (GHEU) – formerly theGovernment Historic Buildings Advisory Unit(GHBAU) – has a role in providing informaladvice to property managers and liaising withEnglish Heritage’s other professional advisers.GHEU team members have visited many of theaviation sites affected by listing recommendations

with the listing inspector.Their combined adviceon architectural and conservation matters at anearly stage has helped to prevent damagingworks before buildings are listed.

RAF BicesterThe experience of meeting property managershas demonstrated an urgent need for site-specificguidance on the management of historic militaryairfield sites. A pilot version of this guidance wasdeveloped in 2000 for the former domestic site atRAF Bicester, now occupied by the DefenceLogistics Organisation.These guidelines weredeveloped at a series of meetings attended byGHBAU, English Heritage’s Listing Team,Defence Estates, the property manager andCherwell District Council.They have helped toguide development on this site during a period ofintensive change and re-use.

For example, the original Officer’s Mess(Building 16), recommended for listing at GradeII, has recently been adapted to provide newlaboratory accommodation. Discussion of thisproject at an early stage succeeded in minimisingits impact on the character of the building. It wasalso evident that many small-scale changes, suchas the poor quality of brickwork repairs andrepointing, were eroding the visual harmony ofthe site as a whole. Research was commissionedon the original mortars used at Bicester and asample panel executed to demonstrate an agreedapproach.The specification has been incorp-orated into the guidelines. Similarly, a researchcommission on the use of paint colour on theBicester site has helped to underpin advice on apalette of approved external paint colours.

Pictured left:Former RAF Bicester.

The consequence of failure tospecify matching bricks and an

appropriate mortar mix

Pictured right:Sample panel of pointing being

executed on one of the buildingson the Defence Logistics

Organisation site at former RAFBicester

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Generic guidanceFollowing the successful completion of theBicester guidelines, generic managementguidance for military aviation sites has beendeveloped by GHBAU in partnership withcolleagues in the Designation and Character-isation teams.This is applicable to sites laid outin the period up to 1945, including laterdevelopments on these sites in the period up tothe end of the Cold War in 1989.This genericguidance can be used as a template, tailored tothe circumstances of individual sites.

The guidance has been subject to wide consultation with outside bodies, includingDefence Estates and the Office of the DeputyPrime Minister. ■■

Will Holborow Historic Buildings Architect

Government Historic Estates Unit

To order this free publication, please see details onpage 63.

Summary of key points

considering alterations.With care, most airfieldbuildings can be adapted to new uses withoutharm to their essential character.

● Any decisions about the development of militaryaviation sites should be based on a properunderstanding of their special archaeological,architectural or historic significance. Managementguidelines can assist in defining the significance ofa site and in framing policies for alterations andrepairs, as well as any future development.

● On sites where coherent groups of historicbuildings survive, it is desirable to maintain thescale and density of the original development andthe visual connections between the originalbuildings.The ‘campus’ character of many airfieldsites derives from the open layout of the buildings,the consistent use of materials and the generousprovision of trees and grassed areas. Suchcohesiveness may warrant designation of aconservation area by the local planning authority.This should help to ensure that any developmentpreserves or enhances this special character.

● The landscaping of military aviation sites tends tohave a distinctive character due to the coordinatedand restrained approach to colour, signage andsurfacing materials.This character can easily beeroded by piecemeal changes. It is thereforedesirable – particularly in designated conservationareas – to adopt a consistent policy towards allaspects of landscaping.

● The architecture of military aviation sites ischaracterised by simplicity in detailing andconsistency in the use of materials. In historicareas the design of any new buildings orextensions should respect the prevailing character,although this approach should not excludecontemporary buildings that have been sensitivelydesigned.

● Military aviation sites have left a unique imprinton the English landscape and, along with othermilitary sites, serve as a reminder of the globalconflicts and fast-changing technology of the 20th century.Their historical, cultural andenvironmental significance needs to beunderstood and protected through carefulmanagement.

● English Heritage has carried out a thoroughreview of England’s 20th-century militaryheritage, including studies of airfields, airfielddefences and Cold War monuments. A thematicsurvey report of military aviation sites andstructures, first issued as a consultation documentin 2000, identified approximately 200 buildingsand structures deemed worthy of listing at 39separate sites. A small number of additional siteshave been identified as nationally importantfollowing English Heritage’s subsequentassessment of Cold War sites.

● Of the hundreds of military aviation sites thatwere in use in the period up to 1945,comparatively few survive in a recognisable form.Many of the latter have now passed intocommercial use and those that remain in militaryuse have often been adapted to new purposes.The adaptation of existing buildings and theconstruction of new buildings may be necessaryto ensure the vitality of these sites, whether incommercial or military use. Finding the rightbalance between change and preservation requiresa partnership between the owners and the variousstatutory agencies concerned.

● English Heritage recognises that some degree ofchange is inevitable to allow the most importantbuildings and sites to continue in operational use.All parties involved – including local authorities,building owners and their advisers – should showreasonable flexibility and imagination in

GENERIC MANAGEMENT GUIDELINES

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CRASH SITES

As part of the MonumentsProtection Programme, andfollowing consultation withaviation archaeology groupsand the Ministry of Defence,English Heritage has issuedadvice on the futuremanagement of militaryaircraft crash sites

Management guidance

Military monuments, particularly those relatingto 20th-century conflicts for which there is awealth of documentary sources, have sometimesbeen dismissed on the grounds that there is littlethey can add to what we already know. Paradox-ically, however, not only do these monumentsyield new information, but their value isenhanced precisely because they belong to therecent past, the events of which are still withinliving memory and stir strong emotions. Of allthe remains that English Heritage’s MonumentsProtection Programme (MPP) has dealt withsince it was established in 1986, military aircraftcrash sites are one of the most emotive andchallenging.The MPP has done much toincrease our understanding and management ofthe diverse elements forming the historic envir-onment but, as crash sites demonstrate, there arerarely simple solutions, particularly where theneeds of a disparate range of organisations andindividuals must be recognised.

Crash sitesMilitary aircraft crash sites combine twoelements: the aircraft themselves and traces oftheir crews, a jumble of remains that can tell usmuch about the mechanical but also the humanaspects of modern warfare.They are places ofloss. Documentary sources suggest that duringWorld War II alone some 11,000 aircraft crashedin or around the UK and around 100,000aircrew of all nationalities were killed flying fromUK airfields. Of the latter, roughly a fifth are stillofficially missing, many beneath the sea.

There are significant variations in the quality andextent of survival at crash sites, depending uponthe aircraft type (primarily its size and thematerials used in its construction), thecircumstances of its loss and the location of thecrash. Losses included those of the Royal AirForce, the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, theLuftwaffe, the US Army Air Force, the US Navyand the Regia Aeronautica. In terms ofdistribution,World War II crash sites wereclustered in and around south and east England.However, the English Midlands and westernmargins of the British Isles also saw intensive, ifless extensive activity in relation to training andanti-submarine operations over the Irish Sea andthe Atlantic. Aircraft in World War II were much

larger and heavier than their predecessors andcharacterised by the extensive use of lightweightmetals rather than wood and canvas. Air activityin World War II was also much more extensiveand intensive than in either World War I or theinter-war period. Most aircraft that crashed inthe lowlands left few small traces, due to acombination of the speed of impact and theextent to which remains were disturbed bycontemporary recovery operations, carried outeither for the purposes of salvage or intelligencegathering. Large but fragile portions of theaircraft, such as wings, tended to break off onimpact and were easily removed by recoveryteams while subsequent agricultural activity,development and in some cases amateurexcavation may have further reduced whatsurvives.What remains, usually engines andseverely compacted airframe and ancillarycomponents, will be buried at great depth,leaving only a small surface-scatter of twisted andburnt components.

MILITARY AIRCRAFT

By comparison, in upland areas inaccessibilityreduced the effectiveness of contemporarysalvage, with the result that many sites remainedremarkably intact into the immediate post-warera, some retaining large and easily recognisablepieces of wreckage. However, rising interest inaviation history over the past 30 years, thegrowth of leisure activities such as hill-walkingand the removal of debris for reasons ofappearance or health and safety have led to asevere depletion in the number of sites withsubstantial surface remains. Aircraft that crashedin or around the coast, or within inland lakes orrivers, tended to disintegrate less at impact andwere difficult to salvage at the time. Despite theeffects of tidal scouring or sports diving, they are

Remains of a crashed Heinkel 111on Lundy, Bristol Channel

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likely to have been subject to much lessdisturbance, although immersion in salt watercan significantly advance corrosion. Nonetheless,an almost complete Wellington bomber wasrecovered from Loch Ness in 1985 (nowdisplayed at Brooklands Museum), while in 1987a remarkably intact P51 Mustang fighter wasraised from the sea bed off Clacton.

Current legislation andmanagementOn land, high speed impacts, explosions and fireoften rendered aircrew remains fragmentary, andsuch were the frequency of losses and thedifficulties of recovery that identification reliedon the aircraft’s serial number or a few personalpossessions. In some cases, the depth to whichwreckage had penetrated, waterlogging,unburned or burning aviation fuel or simply lackof time meant that contemporary recoveries werenot as thorough as they might have been.Although an individual may have a known grave,further human remains might still exist at thecrash site. Increasingly, as aviation enthusiastsbegan to search for and excavate wreck sites inlarge numbers during the 1970s and 1980s, bothhuman remains and live ordnance wereinevitably uncovered.

Such difficulties resulted in legislation to controlrecovery, namely the 1986 Protection of MilitaryRemains Act, which makes it an offence todisturb the remains of any aircraft within the UKor its territorial waters without a licence from theMinistry of Defence. In respect of aircraft, it isMoD policy not to grant a licence if recordsindicate the likelihood of human remains beingpresent. As laudable as the aims of the Protectionof Military Remains Act are in protecting theinterests of relatives, excavators and the public,they do not, however, acknowledge the potentialimportance of the aircraft remains as a valuableresource in their own right.This is a significantomission, which the MPP survey set out toexamine.

The MPP survey and resultsThe survey and a new advice leaflet concentrateon the research potential of the aircraft, of whichit is estimated just under 300 different types of allnationalities were in use in the UK in the periodfrom 1912 to 1945. Of the 93 different aircrafttypes in use over the UK in the period from1937 to 1945, no complete examples of 21 ofthem are known to survive. Such a statistic ismade more surprising still by the fact that someof these types – the RAF’s Short Stirling,

Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, ArmstrongWhitworth Whirlwind, Avro Manchester and theVickers Warwick, or the Luftwaffe’s Dornier17/217 and Heinkel 177 – were either producedin large numbers or had particular historicalsignificance.The results of the survey are now onEnglish Heritage’s website, but it is clear that insome circumstances crash sites, particularlysubmerged sites, may offer an opportunity eitherto resurrect some of these ‘extinct’ types, or atthe very least to add significantly to ourknowledge of them.

As for many elements of the historicenvironment, the future conservation andmanagement of crash sites will be based onachieving an acceptable balance of interests. Inaddition to aviation enthusiasts engaged inaircraft excavations and recoveries, there isimmense popular interest in the air war.Naturally, crash sites also form a focus forveterans and families, and for the communitiesupon whom the losses made an indelibleimpression, in many cases becoming a part oflocal folklore.Whatever the historic orarchaeological merits of a wreck, the feelings ofrelatives must always be respected. But in thelight of the MPP survey, it is right that we shouldalso recognise the potential historic andarchaeological importance of the aircraftwreckage.The new guidance leaflet discussesmany of these issues in greater depth, andoutlines English Heritage’s recommendations forfuture management frameworks. ■■

Vince HolyoakRegional Policy Officer

East Midlands

To order this free publication, please see details onpage 63.

Further details of aircraft types, their constructiondetails and survival rates can be found atwww.english-heritage.org.uk/filestore/publications/pdf/free/Mil%20Air%20C%20Sites.pdf

A crashed Wellington bomber isrecovered from a beach on theIsle of Lewis

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DOCKYARD ARCHAEOLOGY

A recent assessment andcharacterisation of two keyRoyal Naval Bases will informthe future management ofthe yards

The Royal Naval Bases at Portsmouth and DevonportThe Royal Dockyards are among the most long-lived, extensive and coherent monuments to thehistory of the United Kingdom. Many of theindustrial, technological, military and socialchanges that occurred in the post-medieval andmodern periods are embedded within theirsurviving fabric.Whereas many individualbuildings within the Naval Bases had previouslybeen protected through scheduling, recentchanges in the strategy of conservation have ledto a new emphasis on listing to protect above-ground remains. In order that their approach becomprehensive, English Heritage sought toidentify below-ground remains and structuresother than buildings that either warrantedstatutory protection by scheduling or could bedefined as significant. It was also important thatthe remains and structures could be managedaccordingly within what are typically operationalbases. Consequently,Wessex Archaeology wascommissioned to carry out a wide-rangingassessment of the archaeology of the Royal NavalBases at Devonport and Portsmouth, to beaccompanied by management proposals.

ScopeThe archaeological assessment of each NavalBase – comprising the Dockyard, Old GunWharf, Priddy’s Hard, New Gunwharf andClarence Yard at Portsmouth, and South Yard,North Yard (Keyhaven), Morice Yard, St.Budeaux/Bull Point, the Royal WilliamVictualling Yard and Southdown at Plymouth –was based predominantly on early maps, chartsand other documents. Each ‘component’(building, structure or area) of the Naval Baseswas entered in a specially designed database, andits footprint digitised, to form a Geographical

Information System (GIS) that allows the user tofind details of a specific component or to querythe whole dataset by phase, monument type,class and so on.Totals of 1,801 and 1,814components were recorded for Portsmouth andDevonport respectively, together with cross-references to previous archaeologicalinvestigations, secondary sources, maps andphotographs. Cross-references were also made toother concurrent and related assessment projects,notably those looking at the buildings of theordnance yards.

Management zonesThe assessment was used to divide each dock-yard into management zones: 34 in Portsmouthand 56 in Devonport. Using a system analogousto the Monument Protection Programme’sassessment of single monument classes and builtinto the GIS, each management zone was subjectto a process of characterisation and discrim-ination in order to define its importance. Anappraisal was then carried out, which included awalkover survey, to understand the sensitivity ofeach zone.The combination of importance andsensitivity provided a guide to the most suitablemanagement option for each zone. In the light ofthis assessment, English Heritage developedspecific proposals for statutory protection. Sixareas in Portsmouth and five in Devonport weresubsequently identified for scheduling, and anexisting scheduled monument in Portsmouth islikely to have its boundaries revised.

Wider relevanceThe GIS created for the project is, however, offar wider value than informing designationdecisions. Scope to enhance the record of eachcomponent and an overall interpretative capacitywas built into the system, so that it could be usedby researchers and curators alike. In a subsequ-ent phase of work, proposals were developed tomake the entire system available over theInternet, to be accessed and updated by EnglishHeritage, local archaeological officers, the MODand Defence Estates, and the general public. ■■

Antony Firth,Wessex Archaeology

GIS screenshot of Keyham,Devonport, showing components ofthe 19th-century Steam Yard over

the 18th-century Magazine

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English Heritage’s projects on early ordnance and thesteam navy will be published in 2004.

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The Central Ammunition Depot at Corsham,since its creation immediately before World WarII, has been much more than just anunderground munitions store located in disusedstone quarries.The government and militarypresence has created a multi-layered landscapeabove and below ground with over 60 years ofdevelopment.The surface features includedefensive lines, railways, barracks, housing,laboratories, workshops and offices withattendant ventilation and lift shafts andcommunication aerials. Underground in theextensive former stone mines, there have beenmunitions depots, naval stores, aircraft engineand gun barrel factories, centres of regional andnational government, a RAF fighter commandcentre, as well as communications centres.Thequarries also had non-military uses in wartime,such as repositories for national art treasuresfrom the British Museum, the Victoria andAlbert Museum, the Banqueting House andWestminster Abbey, while in later years they havebeen used for commercial secure storage.Theabsorbing saga of government involvementaround Corsham has been chronicled in detail inN. J. McCamley’s Secret Underground Cities(1998) and Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers(2002), and much of the following detail is takenfrom these sources.

The move undergroundThe idea of bomb-proof shelters to protect menand stores is enshrined in much military defenceplanning since the advent of military explosives,but only with the threat of aerial bombardmentdid it become necessary to escape the confines ofdesigned fortresses.Thus, immediately prior toWorld War I with the apparent threat of Zeppelinraids, the Ministry of Munitions sought toprotect stockpiles of bulk high explosives bystoring them underground. Initially, existingmines and caves were used, such as a salt minenear Northwich adapted to house 1500 tons ofexplosives for north country filling factories andthe Chislehurst caves for the Woolwich Arsenal.Significantly for the present article, a small Bath-stone mine at The Ridge near Corsham wasconverted in 1915 for the storage of TNT andcordite.

Munitions depotsThe development of underground munitionsdepots in the inter-war years is marked byindecision on behalf of government ministriesand inter-service rivalry and argument. In 1934when re-armament was once again on theagenda following Hitler’s accession as Chancellorof Germany, the process gained somemomentum. In the summer of 1936, the WarOffice, having decided that the stone mines inthe Corsham area was the preferred location forits main underground ammunition depot,completed the purchase of Ridge,Tunnel andEastlays Quarries at a cost of £47,000. Fromthese rather modest beginnings was to developthe Central Ammunition Depot, Corsham, whichby 1943 encompassed some 125 acres ofsubterranean chambers containing 300,000 tonsof explosives and munitions. Its widely dispersedcomponents stretched from Limpley Stoke andMonkton Farleigh (one of the largest singlequarries) in the west and Westwood andBradford-on-Avon in the south to Corsham andGastard in the north and east.The total cost ofthe depot was over £4.5 million – a far cry fromthe £100,000 for six acres originally envisaged.The 50-acre Tunnel Quarry was directly servedby a standard gauge branch off the GreatWestern Railway main line at the eastern portalof Brunel’s Box Railway Tunnel.This branch,complete with underground platform and refugesidings, fed a narrow gauge railway system withdiesel locomotives, turntables, engine houses andworkshops serving the ammunition ‘districts’.

CORSHAM STONE MINESFormer military use and proposed development

The proposed development ofthe Barracks Hill military siteat Corsham by its presentoccupant, the DefenceCommunication ServicesAgency, has involved EnglishHeritage in photographicrecording of some of theunderground remains andadvising on the managementof both the surface andunderground structures

Tunnel Quarry Ammunition Depot,Corsham, 2001. General view of atypical ‘District’

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Underground factoriesThe onslaught of the German air offensive in1940 also caused the various supply ministries toseek protected sites for crucial industries such asthe manufacture of aircraft engines and weapons.Huge sums were spent constructing under-ground factories in new tunnels driven intohillsides such as at Drakelow near Kidderminsterand converting existing quarries as at Henley-on-Thames,Westwood, near Bradford-on-Avon, andat Corsham itself. Under pressure from LordBeaverbrook, the vast Spring Quarry, on theother side of Box Railway Tunnel from TunnelQuarry, was requisitioned late in 1940 andconverted by the Ministry of Air Production forfactory use at exorbitant cost to become ‘thelargest underground factory in the world’. It wasto be occupied by the Bristol Aircraft Company(BAC) for the production of Centaurus engineswhile a separate part was occupied by BSA forthe manufacture of gun barrels (including half ofthe country’s entire output of Hispano andPolsen barrels).

When Spring Quarry was in BAC occupancy, itschairman, Sir Reginald Verdon Smith,commissioned a professional artist, OlgaLehmann, to decorate some of the canteen areaswith vivid floor-to-ceiling murals. Over 40 ofthese survive in one of the canteen areas despite60 years of disregard and neglect.They areexecuted in a distinctive style very much of thepre-war period and mainly depict racing and

attendant show-ground themes interspersed withdrinking scenes, cricket matches and evenmissionary boiling!

The expenditure on the underground depots wasto be justified after the war by their continueduse as ammunition and naval stores for some 50years but the factories, as such, were anexpensive fiasco. By the time they finally openedearly in 1943, German bombing was no longerthe threat that it had been when they were firstconceived and they were less than satisfactory fortheir purpose.When they closed just two yearslater the bill for their construction had exceeded£20 million.

The RAF comes to CorshamAt the onset of World War II, RAF commandcentres were, whenever possible, locatedunderground. In the case of the RAF No. 10Fighter Command covering the West Country,this was accomplished in Brown’s Quarry, a spuroff Tunnel Quarry. At the same time, acommunications centre was created and,although the command centre itself has longsince been abandoned, the RAF communicationspresence has continued to this day.

Cold WarFor the next 50 years, however, the whole suiteof converted quarries achieved a valuable secondlife as home to a variety of Cold War uses, thechronology of which reflects the course of

Spring Quarry, Corsham, 2001.The canteens in the underground

factories were decorated withfloor-to-ceiling murals by Olga

Lehmann.They have onlysurvived in one of the former

canteens, re-used by the RAF fora variety of purposes with scant

regard to the murals

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strategic thinking throughout this period.Thus inthe 1950s, in addition to the burgeoning uses asnaval stores, the quarries housed radar andcommunication centres and, by the end of thedecade, the Emergency Government WarHeadquarters. Code-named originallySUBTERFUGE, this facility developed in theearly 1960s under the code-namesBURLINGTON (and finally TURNSTILE)into an office for the War Cabinet and Chiefs ofStaff to accommodate a standby staff of 1000,equipped with a lavish telephone exchange andbar.The Emergency Government WarHeadquarters had its final upgrading in the earlyyears of the Thatcher government but, with theend of the Cold War in 1989, these uses havebeen scaled down or abandoned.

The original raison d’etre for the militarypresence has long since gone.The last munitionswere shipped out or destroyed by the end of1962, and the stores function was finally wounddown in the 1990s. Much of the complex hasnow been mothballed or sold, though there is stilla significant RAF and military communicationspresence. Among the decaying evidence ofdisused offices and stores are poignant andsinister reminders of this fascinating but littleheralded chapter in our history.

Future developmentThe proposal that the Defence CommunicationServices Agency (DCSA) concentrate most of itssouthern England operations on the Basil HillBarracks site at Corsham has opened discussionson the future management of the historicelements of the site both above and belowground. In the late 1930s, the attempt to disguisethe real purpose of the surface buildingsproduced a group of high quality and historicallyinteresting buildings built to resemble a privateschool set in the Cotswold countryside.Whilethese will continue in sympathetic use and areeminently listable, the underground remains,some of which may be considered forscheduling, present much greater problems. Atpresent, at considerable cost, the largelyredundant but extensive underground workingsare ventilated and dehumidified. Should thiscease, the condition of the historic remains andespecially that of the wartime machinery andmurals will be at risk. DCSA is very much awareof this, is in close contact with English Heritageand has commissioned consultants to advise on awhole raft of options.The outcome is stilluncertain. ■■

Keith FalconerHead of Industrial Archaeology

Spring Quarry, Corsham, 2001.Shelves of mess kits survive in their

oil paper packaging with signsproviding sinister reminders of Cold

War hazards – GAS, BIO,ATOM

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THE COLD WAR

For more than 40 years, thestand-off between the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union –known as the Cold War –dominated the politicallandscape of the post-WorldWar II world. It brought theconstant threat that anescalating political crisis, oreven a faulty computer system,could lead to devastatingglobal nuclear war.A recentassessment by the MonumentsProtection Programme of thebleak earth, steel and concretestructures that remain fromthis era has sought to definewhat is important and what toretain

What to preserve and why

By the late 1980s, as a result of economicdisintegration and failed attempts to reform,communist governments across eastern Europefell in quick succession, represented mostspectacularly by the opening of the Berlin Wall inNovember 1989.The effects of the end of thistime of dangerous stability reverberated throughthe 1990s and continue to affect us today. AcrossEurope, there were wide-ranging reappraisals ofdefence needs, resulting in the scrapping ofenormous amounts of military equipment andclosure of defence installations. In Britain duringthe early 1990s, the Ministry of Defence, underthe banner slogans of Options for Change andFrontline First, began a massive disposalsprogramme, affecting over 100 major sites inEngland.

The Home Office also stood down its emergencygovernment bunkers and the Royal ObserverCorps, responsible for reporting the spread offallout should the country be attacked withnuclear weapons. At the same time, the UnitedStates was drastically scaling down its forces inEurope, resulting in the closure of many largeinstallations.These included the airbases atGreenham Common,West Berkshire, and thetwin bases at Bentwaters and Woodbridge inSuffolk, all of which had been extensivelymodernised during the 1970s and 1980s.Thesebases – covering many hundreds of hectares andcomprising many hundreds of structures – were

also home to thousands of people, and theirclosure effectively meant the loss of small towns.

Some of the sites destined for closure were ofclearly recognised historic significance, includingsome of the naval dockyards. More difficult werethose sites built specifically to wage the ColdWar, which had been closed and secretestablishments. One of the first challenges thatfaced English Heritage was to establish what hadbeen built. Some documentation was available inthe Public Record Office and for certain classesof monument this was identified and reported onby Colin Dobinson for the MonumentsProtection Programme.

In-house recording work was at first directed atCold War sites on the government’s disposal lists,as these were at immediate risk of stripping outand demolition. Ironically for many sites builtduring the 1970s and 1980s, fieldwork was themost effective way of gathering information, asthe official documents relating to theirconstruction and use were often closed to publicscrutiny under the ‘thirty year rule’. It was soonappreciated that sites on the disposals list wouldonly provide a very partial impression of the fullrange of defence sites built during the Cold War,and the project was extended to include sites soldoff over the preceding decades and still activebases.

Alconbury, Cambridgeshire,‘The Magic Mountain’. This

massive, double-storeyed, late-1980s bunker was built primarilyto process and analyse data from

high-altitude reconnaissanceaircraft. It represents the pinnacleof Cold War bunker architecture

and will be considered forscheduling

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AssessmentEnglish Heritage also recognised that thegovernment disposals and sales programmemight eventually result in the demolition of keyCold War installations. Fortuitously, the recordingproject had provided sufficient information toundertake an assessment of which were the mostsignificant Cold War sites and structures in thecountry.

The duration of the Cold War (1946–89)spanned a greater period of time than from theoutbreak of World War I in 1914 to the end ofWorld War II in 1945. During this time, changingdefence strategies were influenced by suchfactors as new technology, developing intel-ligence assessments of the threats posed to thecountry, and the ability of the economy to meetthe demands of the defence budget.These issuesaffected the types of sites and structures thatwere built during a given period of the Cold War.

During the late 1940s, defence plannersimagined a scenario not dissimilar to a decadeearlier, whereby aircraft coming from the eastmight attack the country, but instead of highexplosives they might be armed with atomicweapons.The defences planned to counter thisthreat followed the pattern of their wartimepredecessors, even down to the resurrection ofthe Civil Defence Corps and Home Guard.Radar stations were re-equipped, and in the early1950s their control rooms were placed inunderground protected bunkers. Anti-aircraftgun sites were also re-activated and in someinstances new sites built.

Not until the late 1950s was the country fullyequipped to fight the Cold War. By 1958 the jetbombers of the V-force were in operation,carrying the first British atomic bomb BlueDanube. It was also at that time that the firstBritish guided weapons came into service,including the surface-to-air missile Bloodhoundand the air-to-air missile Firestreak. All theseweapons were designed for the era of MutuallyAssured Destruction, a policy that sought todeter aggression by threatening to unleashdevastating nuclear retaliation in response to aSoviet attack on the West.

By the 1970s,Western policy had changed to one of Flexible Response, whereby any Sovietaggression would be met in kind.This policyrequired new structures that were capable ofwithstanding a pre-emptive attack by

conventional armaments or by nuclear, chemicalor biological weapons, to direct a retaliatoryattack against the East.This policy was reflectedby a massive infrastructure building programmeacross all North Atlantic Treaty Organisation(NATO) countries to place all of its key facilitieswithin heavily protected, or hardened, structures.The resulting, usually dull brown, sometimesburied, concrete structures are characteristic of1980s defence sites; illustrations of some of thesemassive constructions accompany this article.Probably the best-known structures of this dateare the shelters constructed at GreenhamCommon to house the transporters andcommand trailers for the ground-launched cruisemissile system.This site also came to worldwidenotice as the focus of protests against nuclearweapons during the 1980s.

The assessment process has followed the patternof other Monuments Protection Programmereports. It has sought to classify Cold Wardefence sites, to document their currentcondition and to identify surviving examples thatmight be worthy of conservation. For manyclasses of sites – for example, late-1950sBloodhound missile sites – only 12 sites werebuilt, while losses since their closure in the 1960shave resulted in the survival of less than ahandful that might be worthy of retention. Inassessing which sites and structures should be

Alconbury, Cambridgeshire. Rows ofdoors leading through ‘The Magic

Mountain’s’ decontaminationcentre reveals its grim purpose –

to operate in an environmentcontaminated with nuclear,

biological or chemical agents

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electronics and aeronautics.This policy isreflected in many unique and intriguing remainsscattered across the country, including thepagoda-like structures of the Atomic WeaponsEstablishment at Ordfordness, Suffolk, nowowned by the National Trust.

The assessment report was presented to EnglishHeritage and local authority staff at a seminarheld at the Public Record Office in December2001.The former Royal Observer Corps Groupheadquarters bunker at York, owned by EnglishHeritage, has been scheduled, as have the cruisemissile shelters at Greenham Common, and thepreparation of other listing and schedulingproposals is now underway.

Further workThe assessment report may be seen as astocktaking exercise and a summary of ourcurrent knowledge of Cold War structures.Already the report is enabling advice to be givenabout development proposals that affect manyCold War sites and decisions made about whichare the most significant structures. Nevertheless,as in all areas of historical research, it isrecognised that further work is needed. Some ofthe topics that require further work include post-war anti-aircraft sites, civil defence structures,military communications facilities andintelligence-gathering sites – a subjectsurrounded by much secrecy.

The importance and distinctiveness of Britain’sCold War remains, as part of a wider Europeanand global heritage, will become increasinglyapparent as comparative studies are undertakenoverseas. Based on the progress made in this newfield over the last decade, English Heritage isproposing to work with other agencies in Europeto ensure that adequate recognition is given tothese remains of our recent past. ■■

Wayne Cocroft Archaeological Investigator, Cambridge

The assessment report, Cold War Monuments: anassessment by the Monuments Protection Programme, isavailable on CD from English Heritage’s MonumentsProtection Programme, 23 Savile Row, London W1S 2ET

The results of English Heritage’s fieldworkprogramme to record the Cold War sites andstructures,Wayne D Cocroft and Roger J C Thomas’sCold War: Building for Nuclear Confrontation1946 –1989, have been published. For details, pleasesee page 64.

The Cold War

Alconbury, Cambridgeshire.Seemingly indestructible structures,

such as this hardened aircraftshelter, are just as vulnerable to

clearance as the more fragileremains of earlier eras

Greenham Common,WestBerkshire, part of the GAMAcomplex showing one of the

cruise missile shelters.This sitehad international significance

during the 1980s when itoccupied central place in NATOdefence policy and was also thefocus for the peace movement’sopposition to nuclear weapons.

This site has been scheduled as aCold War Monument

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put forward for protection, the report identifiedthose that had been central to British defence orNATO policy. Sites in this category includefacilities associated with the V-force, fundamentalto Britain’s nuclear deterrent policy from the late1950s to the late 1960s.

SelectionIn addition to selecting sites that reflect thechanging nature of the Cold War, the assessmentprocess has also chosen sites and structures thatcharacterise the British experience of the ColdWar. One distinctive feature of post-war Britishdefence policy has been the heavy commitmentto the independent capacity to keep at theforefront of all areas of military technology,including nuclear and guided weapons, defence

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IMAGES OF THE COLD WARCombat art

During English Heritage’srecording and assessment ofCold War sites, combat artwas recorded at severalbases.An assessment of thisartwork is leading to anunderstanding of theinspirational and socialvalues Cold War architectureholds for contemporaryartists and writers

Examples of folk art or casual doodling bysoldiers may be traced back many centuries,ranging from crude representations of shipsscratched on walls to exquisite pieces ofscrimshaw fashioned by Napoleonic prisoners ofwar.The personal, and later commercial,adaptation of discarded military items fromWorld War I, especially shell cases and bullets, isnow recognised as trench art. Probably morefamiliar to many people are the cartoons appliedto aircraft and flying jackets, especially byAmerican air force personnel during World WarII. Artwork ranging from unit insignia to risquépin-ups was also commonplace in many airfieldmesses and crew rooms.

Military artwork may be studied to offer insightsinto the culture of different armed forces.Withinmilitary environments, all activities and spacesare tightly regulated, and the application of anyartwork might be regarded as damage togovernment property.The type of image willdiffer depending on where it is found. In semi-public areas, where authorised visitors haveaccess, paintings are usually restricted to officialunit insignia or heroically realistic representationsof men and machines reflecting pride in the unit.In the technical areas, some images are clearlytraining aids. Access to parts of these areas wasusually highly restricted, and was often in theseareas that more unrestrained images were found;greater latitude was also permitted in crewmesses and barrack areas.

Conservation of wall artWall art was particularly prevalent in UnitedStates Air Force (USAF) bases during the 1980s.This resulted partly from official air force policy,which sought to reinforce unit cohesion throughhistory and the pride of belonging to a givenunit.This policy manifested itself in the re-introduction of World War II-style leather flyingjackets, the application of nose art to aircraft andless formally to crew areas on the ground.Theoften-aggressive ‘Street Gangsta’ cartoon stylesof many USAF images contrast with the morerestrained RAF artwork, often restricted to a unitbadge. A greater contrast still is found with theformulaic and politically ordained wall art foundin Warsaw Pact bases. In England, combat art

has been photographed by English Heritagephotographers at some of the key USAF bases ofthe Cold War. Among these are Upper Heyford,Oxfordshire, Bentwaters, Suffolk, Alconbury,Cambridgeshire, and Greenham Common,WestBerkshire. At Greenham, the artistic interven-tions of protestors include graffiti within the baseand painted fence posts and graffiti on the roadsoutside.

The conservation of wall art presents manychallenges; paintings on external surfaces areespecially prone to weathering and casualvandalism.The long-term stability of some of themedia used to execute the images, includingpaint, aerosol sprays and fibre tip pens, is alsounknown. If retention in place is not an option,in exceptional circumstances the image may bephysically removed, as happened recently toimages from a hangar at Greenham Common.This building is likely to be demolished and,following discussion with West Berkshire Counciland English Heritage, the paintings have nowbeen removed with their wall sections, for displayat nearby RAF Welford.

Given the many uncertainties about the survivalof wall art, English Heritage recommends thatexamples should at the very least be recordedusing medium or large format colour photo-graphy. Afterwards, in exceptional circumstances,removal to a secure location may be acceptable.

Inspirational value of Cold War sitesPerhaps more surprising than the artisticinterventions of servicemen is the inspirationalvalue of the sites on which they served, and theinfluence this has had on creating representationsof the Cold War. Subsequent to the closure of

Alconbury, Cambridgeshire, aHercules gunship painted on anexternal wall.This image wasapplied when the 352 SpecialOperations Group arrived in theearly 1990s

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some military bases, photographers, artists andwriters have used the architectural forms and therhetoric of apocalypse that they convey to inspireworks ranging from installation art tophotographs, photographic essays, poetry andmusic.

Perhaps best known is the Turner-nominatedWilson twins’ video sculpture GAMMA [sic],recorded and filmed at Greenham CommonAirbase, which investigates the themes of power,surveillance and paranoia through photographs,performance and installation art (Schjeldahl,1999). Greenham was also the inspiration forJohn Kippin’s photographic essay, Cold WarPastoral (2001), which documented the changinglandscape of Greenham as it reverted tocommon land, and Michael Symmons Roberts’book of poetry, Burning Babylon (2001). Mostrecently, the Cold War was the inspiration forYannis Kyriakides’ musical composition,‘ConSPIracy Cantata’, performed in The DebriefCentre or ‘Star Wars Building’ at BentwatersAirbase, Suffolk, as part of the 2002 AldeburghFestival.

Since the publication of English Heritage’sassessment of Cold War sites in December 2001,photographers are increasingly asking to see thereport for guidance on suitable subjects, whilesimilar work is taking place on former Sovietbases, with photographers recording the processand state of abandonment. Angus Boulton’sCood Bay Forst Zinna (2001), a video tour of adeserted Soviet base, was screened during theImperial War Museum’s ‘Moving Image and theArtist’ season.The potential also exists for closercollaboration between archaeological recordingand artistic interests.The possibility ofdocumenting the process of monumentalisationat Cold War sites – combining conventionalarchaeological recording, oral testimony and anartistic project – is being explored during English

Heritage’s survey of a 1950 missile test site atRAF Spadeadam, Cumbria.

Historic sites of all periods can provideinspiration for artists of all media.The sites of theCold War, however, have a particularly poignantvalue where events and fears are still within livingmemory. In 1998, the Commander of BritishForces on the Falkland Islands invited fouryoung artists to spend a month there, visiting thebattlefields and creating murals and an exhibitionspace for the so-called Millennium Mile, themile-long corridor at the Mount Pleasant Basethat connected the living quarters with otherfacilities (Ashcroft et al 2002).The aim of theproject was to improve signage and transformthe corridor through the artists’ depictions of thewar and its legacy.The results, which drawheavily on the conflict and its physical remains,were the subject of an exhibition in 2002 at theImperial War Museum, London.

Promoting understandingBoth contemporary combat art and the laterrepresentations of the Cold War, inspired by thefront-line bases, demonstrate the link betweenexperience and imaginative response. In trans-forming the redundant spaces of Cold Warmilitary bases, art can create a dialogue betweenthe past and the present. As seen in theMillennium Mile at Mount Pleasant, art can bean effective medium for interpreting past eventsin a challenging way. It can also be an eloquentexpression of opposing views – between East andWest, the military and political authorities, theprotest movement and the media. Artistic repre-sentation too plays a significant role in increasingpublic understanding of the physical remains ofthe Cold War.The longer-term cultural benefitsof a partnership between art, architecture andarchaeology could be immense. ■■

Wayne Cocroft Archaeological Investigator, Cambridge

John SchofieldHead of Military and Naval Evaluation

References

Ashcroft, R et al 2002 Traces of Conflict:The FalklandsRevisited 1982-2002. Imperial War Museum andUniversity of Dundee

Kippin, J 2001 Cold War Pastoral: GreenhamCommon. London: Black Dog Publishing Ltd

Schjeldahl, P 1999 Jane and Louise Wilson. London:Serpentine Gallery

Symmons Roberts, M 2001 Burning Babylon.London: Cape Poetry

Bentwaters, Suffolk,‘Death’ holds adepleted uranium round.Theimage is in spray paint in themunitions maintenance area

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THE ROC HQ ACOMBPresenting the recent past

The recent transfer to EnglishHeritage by the Departmentfor Culture, Media and Sportof Shelley House, the formerRCHM(E) York office, broughtwith it the additionalresponsibility for managing asemi-sunken, Cold War-periodRoyal Observer CorpsHeadquarters building

The Royal Observer Corps HeadquartersBuilding, opened in 1961 and fully active untilSeptember 1991, was built to replace a WorldWar II surface installation near York racecourseas part of the revision of the role of the RoyalObserver Corps – reporting nuclear explosionsand monitoring radioactive fallout.The site wasscheduled in May 2000 following a nationalassessment of Cold War monuments by theMonuments Protection Programme (Cocroft,40–2).

Its full title was the No. 20 Group RoyalObserver Corps Protected Headquarters. It wasone of 25 purpose-built structures, constructedbetween 1960 and 1965, 19 of which were inEngland. An extensive network of undergroundmonitoring posts had been constructed between1957 and 1965, organised into regional groups.These individual posts reported to a groupheadquarters that analysed the data and thenpassed that information to civilian and militaryauthorities. Most of Yorkshire formed No. 20Group.

The building consists of a two-storeyed brickand reinforced concrete structure with abasement. Internal dividing walls are of concreteblock-work; most of the structure is protectedwith an outer brick shell and three layers ofasphalt. Apart from the first-floor entrance block,commonly known as an ‘Aztec Temple’, thewhole structure was covered with earth to aminimum of 0.9m thick to provide someprotection against blast and radiation.

UseThe semi-sunken building was only staffed whenthe ROC was on alert; for most of the time asingle-storeyed brick building next to thestructure was used by the core full-time staff ofthree. During an alert, the semi-sunken buildingcould accommodate 40 to 60 people divided intothree watches. Facilities include male and femaledormitories (8 and 12 two-tier bunksrespectively), washrooms and lavatories, but thesleeping arrangements necessitated a ‘hot-bed’system whereby one person gets into bed whenanother gets out. It was the intention that in the

event of a nuclear attack the command centreswould be self-contained. For that reason, eachalso included a kitchen, canteen, generator room(diesel and electric), sewerage ejector plant, airfilters and stores. Unusually, most of these roomsat the Acomb site retain the original plant,fixtures and fittings.

The core of the building – its purpose – isdominated by the Operations Room with itsassociated wireless, teleprinter, and GPO (laterBT) equipment rooms.This area is of two floors.An upper floor was staffed by the post plottersand communications staff who received reportsfrom the underground monitoring posts. Byusing data from two or more posts, staff werethen able to locate and gauge the power ofnuclear detonations. A record of the projectednumber of deaths would also have been made.The lower floor contained the command tableand various charts that logged the total numberof nuclear bursts, the dose log, Europeansituation map and UK situation map (mappingthe spread of fall-out). Many of these rooms toostill contain their fixtures and fittings.

ManagementThe scheduling and donation of the commandbuilding has raised an interesting range ofmanagement problems. First of all, why scheduleit? The site is one of very few survivingcommand buildings and one of an even smallergroup of such buildings that still retains many ofits fixtures and fittings (coats still hang on thecoat hangers). Some features (such as one of theetched glass plotting maps) were moved to otherlocations but can be returned. Also it seemedimportant that English Heritage should beprepared to make a statement about thesignificance of such buildings and to extend thenotion of exemplary treatment, seen in thecontext of sites held in guardianship, to the 20thcentury.The site could provide the basis forrelevant Key Stage school work and addressissues not covered on most other EnglishHeritage sites, such as women’s history (many ofthe ROC staff and staff in related fields werewomen).

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Operations Room, showing theCommand Table (bottom centre),

tote boards (upper left) andsituation maps (centre).Two of

these maps are etched glass, oneof which was removed before

scheduling but will be returned.The Operations Room will be

open to the public on a limitedbasis and could inform relevantKey Stage school projects and

women’s studies

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The management of the site has been passed to atrust made up of two special interest groups,with a steering group including English Heritagestaff.The aim is for English Heritage’s YorkshireRegional Team to hand over to the trust a fullyconserved monument, complete withinterpretation and access strategy. Achieving thisraises its own issues: how should repair beconducted and using what materials? Shouldrepairs be made using a material that is known tofail, or should new materials be used that maythen reduce the authenticity of the building?Where fittings have been removed (light fittingsfor example) a decision has been taken to replacethem using ‘chunky’ industrial-type elements thatdo not stand out as replacements but do notpretend to be original. It would be possible to goto similar sites and recover examples of thosemissing elements, but this could be considered topush restoration too far.

AccessA particularly pressing problem is the difficultyof getting visitors – especially disabled visitors –into a subterranean building designed to ensure

difficult access.We believe it can be done usingthe emergency exit, giving access to thecommand room and staff areas, perhaps themost important parts of the building.Virtualaccess can then be provided to inaccessible areas.

The existing ventilation and air circulationsystems contain chemicals now consideredharmful, which raises questions about the use ofthe original machinery and the manner in whichreplacement machinery can be installed. Oneanswer would be to use such conflict as part ofthe interpretation by presenting this dilemma –and the solution – to visitors alongside the site’shistorical interpretation.

The intention is that the site should be open tothe public on a limited basis and made accessiblethrough Quick Time Virtual Reality on theInternet.The team believes that there is asignificant body of interest to make this apopular site and one that marks a new departurefor English Heritage. ■■

Keith EmerickInspector,Yorkshire Region

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OF OPPOSITIONTHE ARCHAEOLOGY

Greenham Common and Peace Camp, Nevada

Part of the history of theCold War is the opposition tonuclear armament and, insome countries, theexpansion of militaryholdings at the expense ofthe land’s traditional owners.Greenham Common andPeace Camp, Nevada,provided an opportunity toexplore this archaeology ofopposition, a new dimensionto our understanding of ColdWar legacies

There is a developing interest in the culturallegacies of the Cold War, which ended in 1989.From an archaeological perspective, however, asignificant legacy from the period has beenlargely ignored.Yet for anyone visiting,Greenham Common,West Berkshire – one ofthe Cold War’s front-line bases – there is astriking contrast between the stark andmonumental military architecture and regularplan form, and the now newly wooded peacecamps immediately beyond the fence.

Greenham CommonThe Greenham Common fence was the focus ofopposition during the latter stages of the ColdWar, when ground launched cruise missiles werestored at Greenham, and those opposed to itsdeployment lived permanently outside the base.Recent investigations at Greenham show that thearchaeological evidence for that oppositionremains legible.The cruise missile shelters withinthe so-called GAMA site remain as they were,robust and now empty, their vast doorspermanently open.The tattered fence betrays themany break-ins that took place over the years,though the peace camp itself appears only in theremains of painted fence posts and areas ofdisturbed earth, the traces of clearance thatfollowed many of the evictions.

Peace Camp, Nevada Much better preserved are the remains of PeaceCamp, the camp established outside the maingate to the Nevada Test Site, some 65 milesnorth-west of Las Vegas. A survey of the site,undertaken by the authors, recorded andinterpreted this archaeological record throughconventional archaeological means, but alsothrough oral testimony and archive searches.Theobjective was to assess this material record, todraw out the contrasts between it and what existsbeyond the fence, on the Test Site itself, andfinally, to document for the first time how thepeace movement manifested itself. Staff of theDesert Research Institute have been studying theCold War archaeology of the nuclear testingground for about ten years. Our work is acontinuation of that, though telling another sideof the story.

Peace Camp is located in the desert, beside themulti-lane highway leading north-west from LasVegas and opposite the Test Site’s main gate;access between the two is through two drainagetunnels and a vehicle underpass beneath thehighway. It was (and still is) at Peace Campwhere anti-nuclear activists from around theworld staged some of the largest civildisobedience actions in America. In 1988, anestimated 8,800 participants were involved in asingle protest event, some 2,067 of whom werearrested. From 1986 to 1994, governmentrecords document 536 American Peace Testdemonstrations near the Test Site involving37,488 participants, 15,740 of whom werearrested. During the mid- to late-1980s, PeaceCamp was permanently occupied; during thecurrent project, some of its former occupantswere interviewed.

Archaeology Given the remoteness of Peace Camp and thenumber of participants, it is not surprising thatthe traces of occupation remain.What wassurprising was the complexity of what remains:its diversity of form and the phasing within thesite. It appears that there were three peace campsin all.The first dates from the 1950s and isthought to have been a transit camp and meetingplace for those on peace marches to the Test Site.Locating and recording this site remains one ofthe project’s objectives, though we believe fromparticipants that this was a relatively small,conventional campsite, at most characterised byhearths and tent pads.

Peace symbols at Peace Camp,outlined in white quartz pebbles,outside (foreground) and within theNevada Test Site boundary

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The second, largest and best surviving camp liesin the area near the tunnels and was permanentlyoccupied through much of the late-1980s.Tracesinclude stone arrangements in the form ofgeomorphs, animals, birds (doves, for example)and peace signs and symbols, many reminiscentof Richard Long’s sculptures in landscape.Thereare also outlines of human figures.The site has adistinct plan form: some areas are clearly setaside for occupation (tent pads and hearths) andothers perhaps for communal and ceremonialactivity (display and artistic intervention).Without exception, the low ridges that cross thesite contain concentrations of signs and symbols,typically the peace symbol, often outlined inwhite quartz pebbles, and white doves. In onearea, a 370m-long path bordered by smallpebbles winds its way through the vegetation toreach one of these ridges. A stone circle dividedby pebbles into quadrants, with distinct groups ofofferings and objects in each, marks the locationfor a prayer pole where the path starts. Close tothe tunnels, the name ‘Peace Camp’ is spelt outwith stones.

The third camp was established around 1990,further to the east near the underpass.This is thepresent Peace Camp and includes both thehearths and tent pads of a campsite and stonearrangements and symbols. Some of these aretraditional peace signs, but there are also newforms, such as a large and elaborate floral design,outlined and decorated with stones of differentsizes and shapes. Here too is the form perhaps of

a tortoise, sacred to the Western ShoshoneIndians on whose ancestral land both this andthe Test Site lie.The role of the WesternShoshone in this peace movement, which is alsoinvolved in land rights issues, is most apparent atthis later camp. Sweat lodges exist for spiritualcleansing, as do ‘wickiups’, wicker tent-likeconstructions still built and used by theShoshone Indians as temporary structures.Thereare no artefacts to be found at any of these sites,except where they have been left as offerings.Respect for the land ensured that the clean upafter each occupation was very thorough. Onlythe stone arrangements, that had become part ofthe landscape, remain.

Finally, the material remains of the protestmovement – some very recent – are to be foundbeyond the underpass and along the line of thefence bordering the Test Site.These includepeace signs (some painted on the fence posts),small cairns (that are used across the site toindicate other significant places and to serve asnavigational aids) and small circular or ovatepebble enclosures around shrubs and cacti.

South-west of the second Peace Camp is what isknown to protestors as Pagoda Hill: a conical hilltopped with cairns. A protestor built these cairnsover several years, travelling there from PeaceCamp every day with a new boulder. On the sideof the hill is a sculpture of a pregnant femalefigure painted red.

The archaeology of opposition

Two of the authors recordingarchaeological features at

Peace Camp

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The entrance to the Test Site includes significantfeatures.Two adjacent pens (one for men, onefor women) were placed to detain those arrested;both are fenced enclosures with a single portablelavatory at the centre.There was also a cattlegrid, now infilled, that marked the entrance to theTest Site, a feature of significance both for theprotestors and the Sheriff’s department: anyonewho touched the grid was arrested.The sound ofa military vehicle driving across the grid servedalso as a prompt, in the silence of the desert, forhowls of opposition.These features, close to theTest Site, form part of the larger landscape ofopposition.

Presentation and understandingThis project has generated much interest.TheWestern Shoshone spiritual leader, CorbinHarney, conducted a sunrise ceremony duringthe project that was recorded on film.Thisceremony took place immediately outside theTest Site’s perimeter fence and provided theopportunity for us to meet former protestors.Corbin Harney later spoke on camera about thesignificance of Peace Camp, both to theAmerican Indian community and to humanity.The project also attracted media attention (seewww.lvrj.com – March 24, 2002 edition) and issupported by protestors and former inhabitantsof the camps.The project is also relevant to thecurrent debate about Yucca Mountain, 20 miles

from the Peace Camp at the western edge of theTest Site.This location was recently designatedas the high-level US nuclear waste repository. InMay 2002 during the annual Mother’s Daydemonstrations, protests against nuclear testingcombined with protests against this wasterepository. If this proposal is confirmed, then apermanently occupied peace camp here ornearer Yucca Mountain may become reality oncemore.

The project has given Cold War archaeology anew dimension, though further work remains tobe done. Interviews with former inhabitants,many from Las Vegas’s diverse religiouscommunity, may help with interpretation andmay also help to distinguish New Age symbolismfrom that of the Western Shoshone.

Work has begun on the Nevada Atomic TestingHistory Institute in Las Vegas, including amuseum of the Nevada Test Site and its role inAmerica’s nuclear testing programme. Followingthe work at Peace Camp, it is hoped thatalongside the displays on atmospheric testing andenvironmental management will be one on thepeace movement and the many events thatoccurred ‘beyond the fence’. ■■

John SchofieldHead of Military and Naval Evaluation

ProgrammesEnglish Heritage

Colleen BeckResearch Professor, Desert Research Institute,

Las Vegas

Harold DrollingerResearch Archaeologist, Desert Research

Institute, Las Vegas

Detail of the red lady ‘buried’ onPagoda Hill

The Peace Camp pathway thatleads 370m from an area ofoccupation to one of the low ridgeson which clusters of symbols aretypically found

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National Monuments RecordNews and events

Access to Archives is a nation-wide initiative tomake archives catalogues available over theInternet, and the NMR catalogues join archivesdata from 198 other repositories all overEngland.This means that searchers do not haveto know where archives are held in order toaccess data about them: a search on‘Stonehenge’, for example, reveals references inarchives held in 13 different repositories fromManchester to the Isle of Wight. It also enables‘virtual’ reunification of collections that havebeen split up: for example, part of the importantcollection of photographs taken by the Leicesterphotographer Alfred Newton is held in theLeicestershire Record Office and part by theNMR. Catalogues of both parts are nowavailable through Access to Archives, so a searchon ‘Charwelton Station’, Northamptonshire,reveals photographs of the station taken byNewton on the same occasion in 1901, somenow held in Leicestershire and some at theNMR.

For more information, please contact GillianSheldrick on 01793 414635 or emailgillian.sheldrick@english-heritage.org.uk

ViewFinder

On-line image resource forEngland’s history

The NMR has just launched ViewFinder, a newon-line picture resource, in partnership withOxfordshire County Council and with fundingfrom the New Opportunities Fund. It comprisesa searchable gallery of 20,000 historicphotographs supported by 60 ‘stories’ or photoessays that help to set the images in a widercontext.

Two collections are available on the site: theHenry W Taunt Collection and ‘England atWork’. Henry Taunt was an Oxford-basedphotographer active from 1860 to 1922. He wasespecially interested in Oxford, the RiverThames, and customs and traditions. Inpartnership with Oxfordshire County Council,which owns part of the collection, all 14,000 ofTaunt’s surviving photographs have been madeavailable. By contrast, ‘England at Work’ is athematic selection of 5,000 photographs from the

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An employee of the Great CentralRailway sticking up a poster for

the County Show outside thewaiting room at CharweltonStation, Northamptonshire.

Photographed by Alfred Newton & Son

The NMR is the public archive of EnglishHeritage. It includes around 10 million archiveitems (photographs, drawings, reports and digitaldata) relating to England’s historic environment.

On the webAccess to Archives

NMR archive catalogues on the web

Catalogue entries for nearly 200,000photographs and other archive items held in theNMR are now available over the Internet. InNovember 2002, catalogues for 132 collectionswere mounted on the Access to Archives site atwww.a2a.pro.gov.uk.These include major

collections such as the Nigel Temple collection ofpostcards of parks and gardens, the work ofmajor 20th-century photographers HallamAshley and York & Sons, the Jackson Stops salesparticulars collection and many smallerphotographic collections.Though the imagesthemselves do not appear on the site (though thismay change in the future), users can now searchfor any words contained in the cataloguedescriptions, including place names, subjects andpeople.The catalogues available at the momentcover just a small proportion of the 10 millionitems held in the NMR, but additional catalogueswill be added at a later date.

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NMR’s extensive collections to illustrate Englishworking life since the Industrial Revolution. Itsremit is the whole country and the whole timespan of photography from 1850 to the present.

These two collections are a first step in makingthe NMR’s photographic archive collectionavailable to everyone via the Internet. Morecollections will be added to ViewFinder as theybecome available.

Launched on 6 March 2003, ViewFinder hasalready attracted considerable interest. In thewords of two visitors:

The concept of the project is really fantastic.I have been looking at the site and tellingfamily members to look also. It is this sort ofthing that allows me to justify spendingmoney on a broadband connection!

This is an amazing project and a goodexample of the Internet providing originaladded value. Congratulations to all of you.

Please visit the site at www.english-heritage.org.uk/viewfinder

Images of England

Images of England, fundedjointly by English Heritageand the Heritage LotteryFund, aims to create a‘point in time’photographic record ofEngland’s 370,000 listedbuildings. Eachphotograph, taken by a

volunteer photographer, is matched with its listdescription and displayed on the Images ofEngland website. Currently there are over 70,000images available on the site, with more beingadded on a regular basis.

In addition to country houses, castles andchurches, there are some more unusual listedstructures such as lavatories, lamp posts andpigsties.The Images of England website provides akey resource for conservation officers, heritageprofessionals, teachers and students as well asensuring that future generations can enjoy theheritage that surrounds us today.

For more information on the project, please visitwww.imagesofengland.org.uk or contactAlexandra Saxon on 01793 414779 or emailalexandra.saxon@english-heritage.org.uk

photoLondon

NMR takes the lead in a pioneeringregional web project

The photoLondon website www.photolondon.org.uk was officially launched at a press event atWestminster City Hall on 3 October 2003.TheNMR has led the way in establishing this cross-sectoral project to promote Greater London’spublic photographic collections. Opened by theLord Mayor of Westminster, Frances Blois, withguests from funding bodies, founding institutionsand the media, this was a highly successful event.Our guest speaker, English Heritage’sCommissioner Loyd Grossman, said:

I’m delighted to lend my support to thephotoLondon project.This invaluable toolunveils a smorgasbord of delights for lovers of London and of photography.

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Five-rise locks and overflowchannel, Leeds and LiverpoolCanal, Bingley,West Yorkshire.Taken as part of the Images ofEngland project

A block of red-hot steel ishammered to reduce impurities atBath Steel Works, Sheffield.Photographed in 2001 for a studyof the Sheffield Metal Trades

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National MonumentsRecord

English Heritage CommissionerLoyd Grossman speaking at the

launch of photoLondon

The River Thames at Maidenhead,photographed in 1883 by Henry

Taunt.A set of eel bucks (fishtraps) can be seen next to the

boathouse in the foreground, withMaidenhead Bridge in the distance

As lead body, the English Heritage NMR hasinitiated this ground-breaking collaborationbetween London’s libraries, museums, recordoffices and national institutions that holdphotographs of Greater London.The site offersusers an electronic gateway to 60 publiccollections that collectively hold over 20 millionimages of London, and it provides interestingexhibitions and features on the history ofphotography. For peers and partners, it offers avehicle to aid communication and shareexpertise.

Westminster Council’s cabinet member forLeisure and Lifelong Learning, CouncillorCatherine Longworth, said:

The photoLondon website is fascinatingand very easy to use. Anyone with access to the Internet can now easily discover where to find images of London fromthroughout the photographic age.

StandardsIt’s MAGIC!

Multi-Agency Geographic Information forthe Countryside

MAGIC was the winner of the GeographicInformation Systems category of the IM2002awards, sponsored by the Ordnance Survey andthe Association of Geographic InformationCentral Government, at IGGI (the Inter-

governmental Group on GeographicInformation) in 2002.

MAGIC is a one-stop shop for informationabout rural land-based schemes and definitiverural designation boundaries.This information isavailable in one place for the first time atwww.magic.gov.uk. At the formal launch on 25July 2002, the Rt Hon Alun Michael, Minister ofState for Rural Affairs, highlighted theimportance of projects such as MAGIC inenabling delivery of environmental information.

Over 50 individual data sets are available,grouped into six broad categories:● Joint Character Areas, such as Countryside

Character Areas● Classifications of Countryside, such as

DEFRA Agricultural Land Classification● Rural Designations, including English

Heritage data sets such as ScheduledMonuments and Protected Wreck Sites

● Rural Schemes, such as CountrysideStewardship agreements

● Administrative Boundaries, includingdepartmental and regional structures

● Habitat Inventories, such as AncientWoodland.

The project has been funded by Invest to Save, acentral government budget created to helpgovernment departments work together ininnovative ways. Led by DEFRA’s GeographicInformation Unit, its partners include theForestry Commission, the Office of the DeputyPrime Minister (formerly the DTLR), theCountryside Agency, the Environment Agency,English Nature and English Heritage.There areplans to widen the partnership base to othergovernment departments and agencies as well asto provide access to the Information Society.

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English Heritage contributes to the project at anumber of different levels. As a member of theProject Board, it is responsible for guiding thedirection and management of the project. It hasalso supplied data sets – Scheduled Monuments,Parks and Gardens,World Heritage Sites,Protected Wreck Sites and Historic Battlefields –and has participated in the development andevaluation of the system.

Jeff West, English Heritage’s Policy Director, hasemphasised the benefits to English Heritage,including casework and advisory services, inhaving access to MAGIC as a knowledge baseand in being able to share information withothers.The future direction of the project isunder discussion, and it is hoped that theinformation base will be expanded to includeListed Buildings and also other data sets fromthe NMR.

For further information about MAGIC, pleasecontact the NMR Data Services on 01793414883 or at dsu.info@english-heritage.org.uk

The Heritage Illustrated Thesaurus

The Heritage Illustrated Thesaurus (HITITE) wasdeveloped by English Heritage in partnershipwith Adlib Information Systems Ltd as aEuropean Commission-funded project.

Through the use of direct questions and visualrepresentations, the search mechanism presentsheritage terminology in an easy-to-use way. Aprototype web-based visual search mechanismhas been produced that allows users to explorethesaurus terminology (in this case, theThesaurus of Monument Types) through the‘visualisation’ of a monument’s characteristics,while at the same time providing conventionalword search facilities.The Heritage IllustratedThesaurus meets the expectations of Internetusers by prompting them to answer a short seriesof questions based upon their perception of amonument’s form and function (shape, size,number of storeys, location).The answers givento these questions create a query that retrieves aselection of thesaurus terms that the user mightneed, each illustrated to help identify themonument type. Once chosen, the term can thenbe used to search further resources.

During the testing programme, the prototypewas demonstrated to a range of potential usersencompassing all ages and levels of expertise.

The overwhelming approval and enthusiasmexpressed by the participants indicates that theHeritage Illustrated Thesaurus has the potential tosatisfy a large and varied audience within theheritage community and beyond.

At an end-of-project review held by theEuropean Commission in Luxembourg inFebruary 2003, the Project was judged to havesuccessfully proved that the concept of accessingheritage terminology through the use of visualcues was a practical contribution to theInformation Society.

For more information and to view the prototype,please visit: www.heritage-thesauri.org.uk

OutreachNMR Outreach offers a varied programme ofworkshops, tours, lectures, weekly classes andevents designed to help participants make thebest use of NMR resources for work, research orpersonal interest.

Short introductory tours to the NationalMonuments Record Centre in Swindon areavailable, and for those wishing to explore theresources in more detail, study days areorganised on a number of different themes. Allworkshops start at 10am and finish by 4.30pm.

NMR resources for local history

Thursday 10 JulyThursday 20 November

NMR resources for archaeological desk-based assessments

Evaluate a site of proposed development usingair photographs, archaeological data, surveys andother resources from the NMR.Thursday 9 October

Using air photographs and maps for localhistory (in conjunction with OxfordUniversity Department for ContinuingEducation)

This ten-week course will explore how evidencefrom air photographs may be combined withmap and non-spatial data from a range ofsources to bring together the two essentialelements of local history: people and place.10 weeks,Wednesdays 2-4pm, startingSeptember/October

For further details, please contact Jane Golding:Tel 01793 414735; Fax 01793 414606;jane.golding@english-heritage.org.uk

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Bastions,Trenches andPalisadesMilitary links with parks and gardens

Links between the military anddesigned ornamentallandscapes are surprisinglycommon and varied: thisarticle explores theseconnections in the context ofparks and gardens included inthe national Register of Parksand Gardens of specialhistoric interest

Early defensive structures have offered aframework at some sites for later ornamentaldesign.The Town Walks of Dorchester, forexample, have their origin in the elaboratedefences of the Roman town of Durnovaria.These earthworks came into use again during theCivil War and then were adapted around 1712 toform the series of public walks that remain in usetoday. Similarly, the early-18th-century garden ofThe Moot, at Downton,Wiltshire, uses as itsbase the substantial earthworks of a 12th-centurymotte-and-bailey castle.

More commonly, traces of military activitywithin historic gardens or parks impose uponand make no concession to the design of theunderlying landscape. A line of World War IIdragon’s teeth, for instance, marches through themid-17th-century pleasure grounds of TheDeepdene, Surrey, while at Clumber Park,Nottinghamshire, linear earthworks across themid-18th-century park mark the work of anexperimental army trench-cutting machine.Elsewhere in the park, rectilinear earthworksaccompanied by rows of silver birch (colonisersof newly turned ground) mark extensive areasthat were used for ammunition storage duringWorld War II.

Major country gardens‘War is the normal occupation of man.War - andgardening’,Winston Churchill said to SiegfriedSassoon1 and, indeed, a good number of militaryleaders have been equally closely, and oftensimultaneously, involved in warfare and in the

development of beautiful gardens. Chartwell inKent, Churchill’s home from 1922 until his deathin 1965, is a case in point. Immediately afteracquiring the estate, Churchill called in thearchitect Philip Tilden not only to enlarge thehouse but also to lay out the structure of thegarden in which Churchill was to maintain aclose and lifelong interest.

Churchill’s ancestor, John Churchill, 1st Duke ofMarlborough, had received a somewhat moremagnificent garden from a grateful Queen Annein 1705 as part of her gift of Blenheim Palace,Oxfordshire, to honour his victory against theFrench forces at Blenheim, Bavaria.The greatformal landscape was laid out with military prec-ision by John Vanbrugh, himself on and off anarmy man, and the Royal Gardener, Henry Wise.

Similarly, the Hampshire estate of Stratfieldsayewas the 1st Duke of Wellington’s reward for hisdefeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in June 1815, andhe developed the existing pleasure groundsparticularly through enhancement of theornamental planting.

Plenty of other fine landscapes have beenfinanced by the business of war, such as thestriking Cragside in Northumberland. Here,during the second half of the 19th century,William George, Baron Armstrong, inventor andproprietor of the Elswick Engine-works (acompany famous for its ordnance), developedvery extensive pleasure grounds focused on arocky gorge and planted with an outstandingcollection.

Mock naval battlesDuring the mid-18th-century classical revival, anumber of parkland landscape owners built largelakes not only for their ornamental qualities butto provide a stage for mock naval battles. AtNewstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, for example,the 5th Lord Byron began work in 1749 onenlarging the lake to make room for his smallnavy, a fleet manned by professional sailors withsupport from estate staff. About the same time,the 2nd Duke of Kingston enlarged his lake atThoresby, Nottinghamshire, in order to presentsuch ‘naumachiae’2.

D-Day Memorial Garden, Grade II,Clarence Esplanade, Southsea,Hampshire, 2001. Exterior detailof memorial stone unveiled in1948 by Field Marshall ViscountMontgomery of Alamein.Withinscriptions:1940France and the Low Countrieshaving been overrun welaboured alone to obstruct ourcoasts with such blocks as thisagainst invasion by the enemiesof freedomand 1944Yet from this very beach in thecompany of powerful alliesmany thousands of our menembarked on the greatadventure of liberating Europeand achieved their objective

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The tradition continues. In Peasholm Park,Scarborough, North Yorkshire – an early-20th-century public park – a mock sea battle has beenfought twice-weekly each summer since the late1920s, except for a short break during theausterities of World War II.

Military manpower used formajor landscaping schemes

At Virginia Water, Surrey, the real armyempowered the sailing of the mock navy. GeorgeII had the two-mile-long lake excavated so thathe could direct naval battles there and, under theoversight of the Duke of Cumberland, Ranger ofWindsor Park since 1746, all the constructionlabour was by Cumberland’s own men, the 23rdRegiment of Foot.

The peacetime army has contributed to many ofour historic parks and gardens, undertaking thespadework needed to create these prestigioussettings of country houses. At Stowe, Bucking-hamshire, for example, Baron Cobham, one ofMarlborough’s chief commanders, bought inarmy labour from his old regiments to undertakethe early-18th-century landscaping work.

Celebrations in the town parksThe town park has proved a popular place forthe celebration of military achievements. Manylarge statues of military heroes stand in theseparks, symbols of civic pride and patriotism. Afew cannons can still be seen on display,municipal parks having once been seen as theideal showcase for such trophies of victory.TheRussian cannons, captured at Sebastopol anddonated to the City of Nottingham in 1859,remain in The Arboretum and are incorporatedinto the Chinese Bell Tower, constructed in 1862to house a bell captured at Canton and alsopresented to the City.

MemorialsIn the early-16th century,The Hoe, Plymouth,was already a popular public resort, where ‘thetownsmen pass their time of leisure in walking,bowling and other pleasant pastimes’3. It washere in 1588 that Sir Francis Drake played hisfamous bowling game, awaiting the arrival of theships of the Spanish Armada.When the site wasdeveloped more formally in the 19th century as apark and parade ground, a statue of Drake,erected in 1883, became the first of a significantgroup of public monuments and memorials to beerected.

Elsewhere across the country, parks have offeredan appropriate setting for remembrance of thedead. Included among the numerous militarymemorials within registered town parks are: the1904 South African War Memorial erected inCannon Hill Park, Birmingham, in memory ofthe 521 soldiers from the town who lost theirlives; the monument at the centre of Queen’sPark, Crewe, unveiled in 1903 in recognition ofthe sacrifice of the men of Crewe who alsofought and died in the Boer War; the World War ICity War Memorial facing the park gate inNorthernhay and Rougemont Gardens, Exeter,Devon; and the Queen’s Park War Memorial inBolton, Greater Manchester, designed tocommemorate the 1,060 members of the 5thbattalion of the Loyal North LancashireRegiment who fell in both World Wars.

The Register of Parks and Gardens includes anumber of historic cemeteries, the majority ofwhich contain at least one war memorial. Mostlythese are to British dead, but there are exceptionssuch as the memorial in Southampton OldCemetery, Hampshire, to Belgian soldiers ofWorld War I. At some cemeteries, discrete areashave been set aside for war graves, such as themilitary section at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey,sub-divided into national zones includingAmerican, Canadian,Turkish, Dutch andFrench.

One of the most moving of registered cemeterylandscapes is the American Cemetery,Cambridgeshire, the only permanent AmericanWorld War II cemetery in Britain. Dedicated in

Part of the D-Day MemorialGarden. Statue of Field MarshallViscount Montgomery of Alameinunveiled in 1997, which faces thememorial stone and EnglishChannel beyond (see opposite)

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1956, this site – with its powerful architecture andstunning design – shows just how intimate thelink between the arts of war and peace can be.

Landscapes at militarypropertiesThe present Ministry of Defence (MoD) isresponsible, through ownership, for a number ofregistered landscapes. A few are purpose-builtproperties, but most have passed from private tomilitary ownership.

The Officers’Terrace, Chatham Docks, Kent, isa row of twelve houses built in the 1720s as partof the dockyards and owned by the navy until the1980s. Each house in the terrace has a walledgarden, and there is an impressive amount ofsurviving early-18th-century garden layouts.

The Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar, Hampshire,was opened in 1753 as the first large navalhospital, and it remains in use, owned and run bythe Royal Navy. Overlooking the Solent to thesouth-east, the hospital is set within spaciouspark-like grounds.The series of walledenclosures laid out around the main buildingsinclude gardens for the use of patients andornamental airing courts intended, whenconstructed in the early- and mid-19th century,for use by the mentally ill.

No longer in MoD ownership, the Royal VictoriaCountry Park, Southampton, Hampshire, wasoriginally the setting for the Royal VictoriaMilitary Hospital.This was the largest of themilitary hospitals, set in a 109-acre siteoverlooking Southampton Water. Opened in1863 to care for the large numbers of injuredreturning from the Crimean War, but demolishedin 1966, the hospital was set within groundscomprising formal terraces surrounded byparkland, probably laid out by the locally-basedlandscape designer and nurseryman,WilliamBridgwater Page.

The landscapes in MoD ownership which havebeen acquired vary greatly in date and style.Chicksands Priory, Bedfordshire, for example, issurrounded by parkland developed by the

Osborne family primarily in the mid-18th andearly-19th centuries.The landscaping aroundBentley Priory, Harrow, Greater London, is ofparticular note because, during the second halfof the 18th century, the owner, the Hon JohnJames Hamilton, was a friend and correspondentof Sir Uvedale Price with whom he discussedlandscape improvements. Subsequently,WilliamSawrey Gilpin was called in to advise.

The mansion and an area of surrounding land,including the early-19th-century garden terraces,is currently owned by the RAF. The RAF alsohas a base at Halton House, Buckinghamshire,which is surrounded by the late-19th-centuryformal gardens laid out for Baron Alfred deRothschild around his then new country house.The gardens and pleasure grounds of MinleyManor, Hampshire, the property of the RoyalEngineers, are of similar date: laid out in the lastdecades of the 19th century, these were the workof nurseryman James H Veitch. Slightly later arethe formal gardens – laid out in 1920 to thedesign of the landscape gardener Edward White – which surround Frimley Park, Surrey,and are in turn surrounded by 19th-centurypleasure grounds and parkland.These groundsnow provide part of an Army Cadets trainingcentre. Also registered and in MoD ownershipare Amport House, Hampshire, and, in part,Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire.

Not only, then, do gardens and war share acommon terminology – bastion, trench, palisadeto give the three most obvious terms – but otherstrands link these two radically differentactivities, giving yet another indication of howdesigned landscapes pervade so many aspectsof our lives. ■■

Harriet JordanHead of Register of Parks and Gardens

Bastions,Trenchesand Palisades

American Military Cemetery,Grade II, Madingley,

Cambridgeshire 1992

1 September 1918, in Siegfried Sassoon, Siegfried’sJourney 1916–20 (1945 ed.,79), quoted in Brown,J 1999 The Pursuit of Paradise. London:HarperCollins

2 New Arcadian Journal 39/40 Naumachia (1995)

3 Westcote quoted in Worth, R N 1890 History ofPlymouth

This article is based on research carried outby Jenny Charnick, landscape student,Gardens and Landscape Team. An article onthe history of the development of publicparks will appear in the next issue.

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Legal developments

Judgement was handed down by the High Courton 9 April 2003 on a case that will be of interest toall practitioners.The case of R (on theapplication of Sullivan) –v– Warwick DC &Others (as yet unreported) concerned proposalsfor the re-development of the Regent Hotel inLeamington Spa.The Regent Hotel is a Grade II*listed building dating from 1819, the work of C SSmith of Warwick for a Mr John Williams.Constructed in Flemish bond with painted stuccofacades, it is believed to be the second oldestpurpose-built hotel in England and the oldest of itstype to survive. It became known as the RegentHotel when, shortly after it opened, the PrinceRegent, the future King George IV, stayed thereand gave permission for the name change.

Mr Justice Pitchford (the judge in the case)described it thus: ‘The principal range on the eastside of The Parade, fronting westwards, is a largefour-storey rectangular block. Bays at each end ofthe block are stepped slightly forward. Its mainelevations are clad in stucco, a feature familiar inLeamington Spa. Rear wings project eastwardsfrom the northern and southern ends of theprincipal range to form, to the rear, a courtyard,since cluttered with a variety of modern additions...The south wing ..., listed as “rear range of fourlower storeys, seven first floor windows”, is thesubject of controversy. It is contemporary with theprincipal range but subordinate to it inarchitectural quality and status. Its four storeysreach the same height as the first three storeys inthe principal range.’

The case concerned proposals to re-develop theRegent Hotel.The proposals involved the‘demolition’ (post-Shimizu, of course, we must usethe word ‘demolition’ relating to part of a buildingwith some care!) of the southern wing of the hoteland its re-use for restaurant and bars on theground floor and hotel use on the remainingfloors. A new shopping street with residentialabove was proposed which ran to the rear of thehotel. English Heritage was consulted on the case,which was referred to its Historic BuiltEnvironment Advisory Committee (HBEAC).HBEAC was content with the proposals and noobjection was raised with Warwick DistrictCouncil.The Council subsequently grantedplanning permission and listed building consentfor the proposals. The decision to grant thoseconsents was the subject of the judicial reviewproceedings brought by Mr Sullivan on behalf oflocal residents groups who objected to theproposals and wished to see the hotel retained inits original form and run as a traditional hotel.

The argument put forward by those opposed tothe scheme was that the loss of the southern wingto the hotel constituted the demolition of a‘significant part’ of the listed building and thattherefore, by virtue of paragraph 3.15A of PPG15,the tests in paragraph 3.19 of PPG15 –particularly the requirement to market theproperty before carrying out works – weretriggered.The objectors contended that‘significant’ meant architecturally or historicallysignificant. English Heritage argued that it meantvolumetrically significant – a significant proportionof the building – and had advised the localplanning authority accordingly.

The judge’s decision was that ‘significant’ didencompass architectural/historical significance andthat therefore Warwick DC had been misdirectedby English Heritage’s advice in relation toparagraph 3.19. However, he decided not to quashthe decisions because he concluded that ifWarwick DC had been properly directed inrespect of paragraph 3.19 it would have reachedthe same conclusion, so there was no point inremitting the matter back to it for reconsideration.It is not entirely clear how the judge came to hisdecision not to quash, but he may have beeninfluenced by evidence put forward by WarwickDC and English Heritage. English Heritageargued that if the true construction of‘significance’ were that contended for by MrSullivan (architectural or historic significance) thesame result would be reached. English Heritage’sview was that the southern wing was notarchitecturally significant. As the judge observed inhis opening remarks (above) the southern wingwas ‘subordinate to [the principal range] inarchitectural quality and status’.

While the judgement is good news forpractitioners – who on occasion may wish to arguefor the retention of a small but architecturallysignificant part of a building – and brings welcomeclarification, the judgement is not without itsproblems. For one thing, the judgement could beseen as leading to, in my opinion, the absurdsituation where an owner of a listed house isrequired to put it on the market because he wantsto remove a historically significant fireplace orcornice. For another, who decides whether thepart of the building is significant? Presumably, thelocal planning authority, but PPG15 doesn’t saythat, so if the developer’s expert disagrees, anappeal may be the only way to resolve the issue. ■■

Nigel HewitsonLegal Director

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Designation ReviewThe DCMS and English Heritage Review ofHeritage Protection was announced by theSecretary of State in November 2002.The aim isto improve and re-focus the way in whichEngland’s historic environment receives statutoryprotection.

There are several reasons to carry out such areview now. First, there are at present separatesystems for designating monuments, buildings ofhistoric importance or architectural merit,gardens, battlefields, ecclesiastical buildings andwrecks.The DCMS policy statement, A Force forour Future (2002), identified the need to examinethese systems.

Second, the Office of the Deputy Prime Ministeris revising PPG15 and 16 in addition to carryingout a review of consent regimes. Legislation nowbefore Parliament will achieve major reform ofthe land use planning system. Heritageprotection needs to operate effectively alongsidethe new arrangements.This affects in particularthe role of the historic environment inregeneration and redevelopment in both urbanand rural contexts.

Third, in recent years there has been growinginterest in the context and setting of the historicenvironment as a whole, rather than just thecomponent parts. For major complex sites, themodern approach of conservation plans andmanagement agreements covering areas ratherthan single buildings needs to be fully reflected inthe designation regimes.

Fourth, following the quinquennial review ofEnglish Heritage, work is already well advancedto improve processes in English Heritage and todirect resources to programmes and projects inareas of regeneration and redevelopment.Thiswork, including pilot projects to test differentprotection methods, will continue alongside theHeritage Protection Review.

The review has three phases. Up to the end ofMay, the DCMS and English Heritage will havesought views and ideas from all stakeholders –developers, local authorities, other governmentdepartments, archaeologists, architects, heritageexperts, owners of listed buildings and manyothers. Afterwards, the DCMS will issue aConsultation Paper in July setting out the main

changes the Government is minded to make.Finally, having listened to the response, theGovernment plans to publish a White Paper earlyin 2004.

Review of grants strategyEnglish Heritage is reviewing its grants strategyto ensure that it is focused on A Force for OurFuture and State of the Historic EnvironmentReport (SHER) priorities and is supported bymodernised procedures.This will includeregionally-based strategies for the delivery ofboth advice and grants casework. Strategies forthe nine regions will be published as consultationdrafts in the autumn.

In order to allow for the implementation ofchanges to grant priorities and procedures, anygrant applications received after 30 September2003 will not be processed until the new systemis in place and may not receive a decision until atleast April 2004.

Directory of funds forhistoric buildingslaunched on the InternetThe Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF), withthe support of English Heritage and Cadw, haslaunched a unique and comprehensive onlineguide to the funding available for rescuing andrestoring historic buildings.The guide, Funds forHistoric Buildings, can be accessed free of chargeat www.ffhb.org.uk

Looking after historic buildings costs money.Thewebsite details over 140 sources of funding andwill be the first port of call for people seekingfunds for vital restoration and regenerationprojects in England and Wales. A search functionenables users to find the sources of funds mostlikely to apply to them.The website also providesinvaluable practical information and includeseasy-to-read sections on topics such as how tomake funding applications, fundraising fromindividuals and companies, and where to getadvice on restoration work.

The AHF can be contacted on 020 7925 0199;ahf@ahfund.org; and www.ahfund.org.uk

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Project APPEARAccessibility Projects. SustainablePreservation and Enhancement ofurban subsoil Archaeological Remains

The APPEAR Project is a three-year, EU-fundedresearch project, led by In Situ (Centre forArchaeological Research) and the University ofLiège in Belgium and carried out in partnershipwith a number of organisations, includingEnglish Heritage, that are involved in urbanplanning and archaeology in six Europeancountries.

It forms part of the European Commission’sFifth Framework Programme for Energy,Environment and Sustainable Development, KeyAction 4 – The City of Tomorrow and CulturalHeritage, Action 4.2.3: to foster the integration ofcultural heritage in the urban setting.

The research focuses on accessibility projects,schemes that make urban subsoil archaeologicalremains accessible in situ to the public.

The project was inspired by the case of theremains of the foundations of the gothicCathedral of St Lambert in Liège, which weredestroyed at the beginning of the 19th century.The excavated site – which also includesprehistoric, Roman and early medieval remains –has been the focus of a number of initiatives overthe years to preserve and open to the publicthose parts not destroyed by the building of a carpark and other nearby urban improvementworks.These programmes have been fraughtwith difficulties and have led to a series of delaysin the opening of the site. A review of practiceelsewhere in Europe led to the realisation thatthese problems were relatively common andprompted In Situ and the University of Liège toput forward the project proposal.

Over the last few decades, inhabitants ofEuropean cities and towns have shown a growingawareness of, and interest in, their archaeologicalremains as a means of identifying with theircultural heritage. At the same time, increasedurban planning, the exponential growth of townsand technological advances in urbandevelopment have led to conflicting priorities interms of the preservation of the subsoil heritage.

The lack, however, of a proven referenceframework to facilitate dealing with the complexissues often faced by those concerned with thedecision-making process has sometimes led tomissed opportunities or the application ofinappropriate solutions to the problems

associated with the integration of archaeologyinto the social and economic fabric of urbancentres.

The APPEAR project seeks to redress this bydeveloping practical solutions and advice forthose working on accessibility projects. It willadopt a multi-disciplinary approach by involvingrepresentatives from all stakeholder groups,including architects, archaeologists, historians,curators, developers and planners. An extremelyimportant group it also intends to target is thepublic who in the past have often not beeninvolved in the process and whose views have notbeen taken into account.

Through the close collaboration of the variousparticipants, step-by-step guidelines will beproduced for use by all parties involved in theprocess of instigating and managing theseprojects.The resulting practical system will allowa universal approach, but it will also be flexibleand adaptable to local conditions.

The end product will consist of two elements:

The APPEAR Guide: this will allow users to:

● make coherent and well-founded choicesconcerning the conservation, integration,enhancement and exploitation of urbanarchaeological sites

● defend these choices based on tried and testedmethods and indicators, and on noteworthyexamples

● identify, put into place and carry out theoperations induced by these choices.

The Existing Practices Database: thisdatabase will contain examples of successful andunsuccessful accessibility projects. It will beadded to throughout the life of the project andbeyond, providing a dynamic aid to decision-making. It will be available on the APPEARwebsite that will be developed within the first fewmonths of the project.

The aim of the APPEAR project is to provideclear procedures for use by all those involved inaccessibility projects for urban archaeologicalsites, in order to ensure their full integrationwithin the sustainable urban developmentprogramme and to allow the public maximumbenefit and enjoyment from their heritage.

For further details, please contact Valerie Wilsonat English Heritage:Tel 01793 414745; Fax01793 714770; valerie.wilson@english-heritage.org.uk

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Regional prioritiesEnglish Heritage has produced a plan for each ofthe nine regions outlining priorities for the nexttwo years. If you would like copies of any ofthem, please contact Customer Services on 0870333 1181 or visit www.english-heritage.org.uk

Green Heritage SitesA new Green Flag Award

English Heritage is sponsoring a new Green FlagAward for Green Heritage Sites to promote thevalue of, and best practice in, the care andupkeep of parks and green spaces that are oflocal or national historic interest.The GreenHeritage Site forms part of the Green Flagnational standard adopted by the Office of theDeputy Prime Minister.

This award aspires to give voice to publicexpectations about what parks can and shouldoffer. It aims to set standards for managementand to promote the value of parks and greenspaces as social places as well as places forwalking, play, informal sports and for contactwith the natural world.The Green Flag Awardhas now become the benchmark against whichthe quality of public parks and green spaces canbe measured. It also recognises the diversity andvalue of green space to the local community,including: town and country parks, formalgardens, nature reserves, cemeteries andcrematoria, water parks, open space, millenniumgreens, doorstep greens and community-rungreen spaces. For more information, please visitwww.civictrust.org.uk

AIHV 2003The British Section of the InternationalAssociation for the History of Glass (AIHV) willhost the 16th Congress of the AIHV in London,7–13 September 2003.The AIHV exists topromote the study and enjoyment of all aspectsof glass from antiquity to the modern period andholds a congress every three years. Itsmembership includes archaeologists, arthistorians, artists, collectors, museum curators,scientists and researchers from over 30 countries.At the Congress, based at Imperial College, therewill be a full programme of lectures, two postersessions, the opportunities to visit collectionsboth in London and elsewhere in the south-eastof England and a full social programme. It willbe followed by a post-congress tour to the south-west of England. Everyone interested in glass iswarmly invited to take part.

Further details can be obtained from The General Secretary AIHV, 16 Lady BayRoad,West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 5BJ.Alternatively, please visit the website of theorganising committee www.historyofglass.org.uk where you can find full details ofthe congress. More details of the AIHV can befound on www.aihv.org

Notes

Building conservationmasterclasses

WEST DEAN COLLEGENear Chichester,West Sussex

A collaboration in specialist training between WestDean College, English Heritage, and the Weald &Downland Open Air Museum, sponsored by the

Radcliffe Trust

Each course is an intensive combination oflectures, demonstrations and practical

exercises.All courses are £515 Residential and £410 non-residential.

For further information, please contactPatricia Jackson,West Dean College,West Dean, Chichester, PO18 0QZ;

Tel 01243 818294/811301;pat.jackson@westdean.org.uk orliz.campbell@westdean.org.uk;

www.westdean.org.uk

Bouldnor Battery on the Isle ofWight, scheduled in the 1960s.The national importance of this

site was confirmed by theMonuments Protection

Programme’s assessment ofcoastal batteries

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Publications availablefrom English Heritage

MONUMENTS OFWAR SERIESBy Colin Dobinson, in association with Methuen

Building RadarBuilding Radar is the first detailed study of thepatterning and design of Britain’s early warningradar stations of World War II. This book goesback to the summer of 1940, when the Battle ofBritain was won, Hitler’s invasion plans wereshelved and Britain survived to fight the longerwar. Many things secured victory in the air war,but none was more important than radar. Fewthemes in Britain’s war have been as muchdiscussed as radar in the domestic air campaignsof 1940–1.Yet less is known of radar’s longerwartime evolution as a system – as a growingpattern of places; as a new focus for the talents ofengineers, designers and builders; and as adefence project whose diversity and breadth haveleft a distinctive and lasting impression on theBritish landscape. (2003)

PRICE £25ISBN 0 413 7722 92PRODUCT CODE 50684

352 pages, line drawings, b/w photographs, hardback

British BattlesIn association with HarperCollins Guest and Guest,1997PRICE £12.99ISBN 0 00470 968 3PRODUCT CODE 05800

War in BritainIn association with HarperCollins Newark,2000PRICE £19.99ISBN 000 472284 1PRODUCT CODE 50331

UNPRICEDPUBLICATIONSThe following publications may be obtained from EnglishHeritage, Customer Services Department,PO Box 569, Swindon,Wiltshire SN2 2YP; Tel 0870 3331181; customers@english-heritage.org.uk

Human Bones from Archaeological Sites:Centre for Archaeology guidlines for producingassessment documents and analytical reportsPRODUCT CODE 50723

Military Aircraft Crash Sites:Archaeological guidance on their significanceand future managementPRODUCT CODE 50704

Historic Military Aviation Sites:Conservation management guidancePRODUCT CODE 50771

Coastal defence and thehistoric environmentPRODUCT CODE 50756

AA CommandBritain’s anti-aircraft defences of theSecond World War

Drawing upon a wealth of original documents andfirst-hand accounts, AA Command describes thehistory and development of Britain’s anti-aircraftdefences in the Battle of Britain, in the Blitz andduring the Luftwaffe’s intensive campaignsagainst cities and coastal resorts. (2001)

PRICE £25ISBN 0 413 7654 07PRODUCT CODE 50359

Fields of DeceptionBritain’s bombing decoys of World War II

Drawing on a wealth of new research, this bookpresents the first detailed study of Britain’sbombing decoys, both at war – through theirdesign, patterning and operation – and at peace,through their fragmentary survival as enigmaticfeatures in the landscape. (2000)

PRICE £25ISBN 0 413 74570 8PRODUCT CODE 50332

GENERAL BOOKS ON MILITARY HISTORY

Publications may be orderedfrom English Heritage PostalSales, c/o Gillards,Trident Works,Marsh Lane,Temple Cloud,Bristol BS39 5AZ;Tel 01761 452 966;Fax 01761 453 408;ehsales@gillards.comPlease make all cheques payablein sterling to English Heritageand include postage and packing:£2.50 for orders up to £25;£3.95 for orders up to £50;£5.00 for orders over £50.20% of total order for surfacemail overseas (airmail ratesavailable on request). In the UKand EU please allow up to 14days for delivery.Publications may also be orderedfrom www.english-heritage.org.uk

64

ISSN 0753-8674Product Code 50797Conservation Bulletinappears 4 monthly.Editor:Karen Dornkaren.dorn@english-heritage.org.ukEditorial Address:English Heritage, 23 Savile Row,London W1S 2ETTel 020 7973 3000Mailing List:Tel 020 793 3150mailinglist@english-heritage.org.ukProduced by: JW Offset Ltd© English Heritage 2003

English Heritage is theGovernment’s lead body forthe historic environment

To order a publication, pleasesee details on page 63

New Publicationsfrom English Heritage

Cold WarBuilding for Nuclear Confrontation 1946–1989by Wayne D Cocroft and Roger J C Thomasedited by P S Barnwell

In the early 1950s, thehistorian ProfessorWilliam Hoskins, inhis pioneering workThe making of theEnglish Landscape,lamented what he sawas the devastation ofthe countryside byscientists, the militaryand politicians. Hesaw his world asdominated by ‘the

obscene shape of the atom-bomber, laying a traillike a filthy slug upon Constable’s andGainsborough’s sky. England of the Nissen hut, the‘pre-fab’, and the electric fence, of the high barbedwire around some unmentionable devilment’. Ageneration later, this book reveals what lay behindthe fence and how these sites are now, indereliction, a new aspect of the complex landscapehistory of Britain.

PRICE £24.99ISBN 1 873592 69 8PRODUCT CODE 50725

300 pages, 75 colour plates, 349 b/w illustrations,softback, 276 x 219mm

York MinsterAn architectural history c 1220–1500by Sarah Brown

York Minster is oneof England’s greatestGothic buildings andthe repository of thelargest singlecollection of medievalstained glass inBritain, most of whichremains in situ. Thiscathedral of thenorthern province,which every yearattracts thousands of

pilgrims and visitors, was built over a period ofmore than 300 years. This book charts the

building’s construction and development, whichwas by no means smooth and uninterrupted.Progress was checked by financial constraint,Scottish wars, the effects of plague, politicalupheaval, structural crisis, local rebellion andsometimes the indifference of the archbishop andMinister clergy. For many years at a time theliturgy was performed against a backdrop ofscaffolding and half-built masonry. This analysis ofthe Minster is based on the architectural recordingof the building begun in the early 1970s by theformer Royal Commission on the HistoricalMonuments of England.

PRICE £65ISBN 1 873592 68 XPRODUCT CODE 50674

348 pages, 30 colour plates, over 350 b/w illustrationsand 8 plans, hardback, 276 x 219mm

Conserving the Painted PastDeveloping approaches to wall paintingconservationedited by Robert Gowing and Adrian Heritage

An internationalconference organisedby English Heritageon standards andpractice of wall paintsconservation. Theevent was devised totake stock of recentscientificdevelopments and toensure the higheststandards of practicein the newmillennium. Thesepostprints will be of

interest to wall painting conservators, architects,surveyors, engineers, art historians and scientistsas well as local authority conservation officers,conservation funding bodies, students and all thoseconcerned with the welfare of the historicenvironment.

In association with James and James (Science Publishers Ltd)

PRICE £40ISBN 1 902916 11 5PRODUCT CODE 50338

164 pages, 60 colour plates, 168 b/w illustrations,softback, 297 x 210mm