Evolution of the landscapes of Great Britain

Lecturer: Julian Swindell

Great Britain: 10,000 BC

Great Britain: 10,000 BC

Great Britain: 10,000 BC

Great Britain: 10,000 BC

Great Britain: 10,000 BC

• The ice age was just ending

Great Britain: 10,000 BC

• The ice age was just ending• The land was scraped clean

Great Britain: 10,000 BC

• The ice age was just ending• The land was scraped clean• All that existed was a rocky surface,

scored by torrents of glacial melt water

Great Britain: 10,000 BC

• The ice age was just ending• The land was scraped clean• All that existed was a rocky surface,

scored by torrents of glacial melt water

• Sea levels rose and Great Britain became an island

What came next?

What came next?

What came next?

What came next?

What came next?• Temperatures rose, trees grew

What came next?• Temperatures rose, trees grew• Wildwood, 10,000 – 5,000 BC

What came next?• Temperatures rose, trees grew• Wildwood, 10,000 – 5,000 BC• Temperate rain forests covered

Britain

What came next?• Temperatures rose, trees grew• Wildwood, 10,000 – 5,000 BC• Temperate rain forests covered

Britain• Modern people arrived

What came next?• Temperatures rose, trees grew• Wildwood, 10,000 – 5,000 BC• Temperate rain forests covered

Britain• Modern people arrived• They started to farm…

The landscape as it was before people altered it

After Rackham 1997 p 34

The English landscape as it is now

English Nature Natural Areas

• England’s landscape is fragmented into a patchwork of land cover and land use types

• What we think of a essentially a “natural” landscape is almost entirely the result of human activity

• Farming was the first big change, then urbanisation

What drives change in the landscape?

• The fundamental internal drivers of the landscape change could be:– Geology: The rocks that build the land– Climate: The rain, the wind, the heat, the

cold– Geomorphology: The shape of the land– Ecology: life and all its interactions

• The major external driver is human activity

Human influence: farming

• Most of humanity moved from a hunter gatherer economy to an agricultural one in the stone age, starting about 5,000 years ago, and continues…

• Hunter gatherers are believed to have lived in an ecological relationship to the landscape and to have had only small impacts on it. This idea is challenged…

• Agriculture arose in four places, Mesopotamia, China, Mesoamerica and Papua New Guinea

• Farmers intentionally alter the landscape to increase its crop and animal production capacity.

• This leads to the rural landscape

Types of contemporary rural landscape

• Woodland, wood pasture, parkland• Grassland and heathland• Moorland• Wetland• Farmland

Woodland

• Wildwood is woodland completely untouched by people, no clearance, no removal of timber, no planting of trees. There is none left in GB

• Ancient woodland is land which has been continuously wooded for known history, but it has all been affected by human activity.

• Managed woodland will have been cleared, coppiced, pollarded, planted, grazed by livestock. The vast majority of British woodland is managed plantation.

Wood pasture and park land

• Where woodland and livestock are raised together, the predominant landscape is wood pasture

• The traditional term forest really refers to wood pasture rather than dense woodland

• Wood pasture can take the form of – Open woodland: New Forest

and Epping Forest– Park land: primarily grazed

grassland with isolated standard trees: almost any English country house

Grassland

• Few areas of “natural grassland” in England– Most grassland is

pasture or crop (called a ley locally)

– Grassland is maintained by cutting or browsing (sometimes burning), which produce different plant communities and landscapes

Tropical guinea grass cut for animal fodder,Now being considered as a bio-mass fuel in the UK

Grazed Cotswold pastures and common land

Moorland

• Wet and acid soil• Moorland supports

heather but is dominated by sphagnum moss, which holds water and does not decay when submerged

• Moors are a product of rain. Plant remains in wet soil do not rot but build up into peat. Great areas of the north of GB and Ireland are covered in Blanket bog, unbroken miles of peat moor.

Heath

• Heath: cleared, non-acidic, dry land which develops a heather/bracken plant community– Will be invaded by trees– Often maintained by

burning– Very threatened

landscape

These photographs show heathland around Poole Harbour in Dorset, which has to be actively maintained by tree clearance and controlled burning to prevent it reverting to forest

Wetland

• Waterlogged land• Highly variable in

extent and location• Critically affected by

water level• Crucial to flood

control and coastal protection

• Probably the richest habitat in temperate climates

• Can provide the richest farmland in the country…

East Anglia

Vietnam

India

Rivers

• Amongst the oldest features of the landscape, a product of a landscape’s internal drivers, geology, climate and geomorphology

• Nearly all cities and towns were sited on rivers for water and transport

Ardeche, France

Fraser, Canada

Mekong, Vietnam

The farming landscape

• Permanent crops: trees, vines

• Annual crops: grains, tubers

• Livestock: grazing and fodder

Landscape with buildings: the beginning of urbanism

• Buildings have always been in the countryside

• When they come together, they create a new landscape

Growth of villages and towns

• When buildings come together, they are more than just a group of buildings

• The spaces between become just as important as the buildings themselves

• They become villages and towns

Cities; the ultimate human landscape?

• Eventually, towns becomes cities, entirely artificial landscapes, built by people

• In 2007 it was estimated that over 50% of the World’s population lives in cities, the first time in history

Urban landscape ~ ”townscape”

• Cities consist of buildings and the spaces between them

• Their interaction creates “townscape”• Architectural design considers

• Architectural style• Scale• Materials• Street furniture• Interaction between building and context

• Cities also require systems to provide resources which are delivered from the rural landscape– Food, water, energy …

Urban design: management of landuse

• Town and country planning acts– Development control– Aims to conserve a finite resource: land

• Conservation movements– Importance of history– Cherished landscapes

The final edge to the landscape, the Sea

• Defines the shape of maritime countries

• Erodes cliffs, deposits sand banks

• Controls temperature

• Provides the rain• Used as a sink for

all of humanity’s waste

English Channel

Indian Ocean

And finally

• Sustainable landscapes– The conservation of the landscape in the present

so that it may be enjoyed in the future• Sustainability is at the core of

everything you will study at the RAC

• "..development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" Brundtland report 1987 “Our Common Future”