New project rolls back the centuries
A new project which charts the progress of Warwickshire over 500 years through historical maps and aerial photographs has just been completed by the county council’s Historic Environment Record.
The Historic Landscape Characterisation Project (HLC) aims to examine how the County has changed over time and attempts to answer why Warwickshire looks the way it does.
The Warwickshire HLC project began in May 2006 and in that time it has mapped over 18,000 individual Historic Landscape Character areas covering over 209,000 hectares in Warwickshire, Solihull and some parts of Coventry and Birmingham.
It is hoped that information collected during the project will prove useful to a variety of people; from members of the public and researchers interested in the history of their local area to commercial organisations and local authorities who can use the information to help inform planning and management decisions.
Two online ‘Toolkits’, also funded by English Heritage, will be launched this autumn to help people use HLC data and provide them with ideas about how to get the most from the information.
Ben Wallace, Landscape Archaeologist at the Historic Environment Record (HER), said: “Information from the HLC enables people to begin to research their local history from scratch. No expertise or previous experience is required and with over 300 medieval settlements recorded in Warwickshire there is sure to be plenty of history in everybody’s locality.”
A report with more information about the project including detailed analysis of the results together with maps and photographs is available online at: http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/hlc
Alternatively, paper copies of the report and access to the digital maps and data can be found at the Historic Environment Record. Call 01926 412734 for further details.