South Yorkshire Historic Environment Characterisation Project

The South Yorkshire Historic Environment Characterisation project was undertaken by South Yorkshire Archaeology Service (SYAS), with funding from English Heritage. The project aimed to map and record the Historic Character of the districts of Barnsley, Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster, which make up the former county of South Yorkshire. The project is a further development upon the HLC studies that have been undertaken across the country since 1992. Rather than just work on the rural landscape, the HEC project worked on rural and urban areas simultaneously. The project aimed to better understand the formation processes within South Yorkshire and to document and better understand the character of the existing landscape. The project also aimed to develop a flexible tool that could be used to facilitate informed decision making by planners and developers so that managed change takes place within the urban and rural landscapes.