Shropshire Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC)

This report provides technical details of the methodology and results of a three year study of the historic landscape character of Shropshire (including the Borough of Telford and Wrekin). This work formed part of English Heritage's national programme of Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) and was carried out in partnership between Shropshire County Council (now Shropshire Council) and English Heritage. The aim of the Shropshire Historic Landscape Characterisation Project, as set out in the original project design (see Appendix 1), was to "...to improve understanding of the historic and archaeological character of the whole landscape of Shropshire, with particular regard to the visibility of time-depth in the landscape and to the historic processes that have created the landscape". This was achieved by developing a desk-based, attribute led methodology, whereby the landscape was characterised in relation to nine broad Attribute Groups. When analysed, the data thus collected enabled the definition of fifty eight Current Historic Landscape Character (HLC) Types and forty six Previous HLC Types. Definitions of each of the Types are provided in Section 3. From the outset the intention was to use the HLC to review and revise the pre-existing Landscape Character Assessment for the county. The Shropshire HLC methodology was therefore designed to be compatible with that of the LCA. Section 4 describes how the results of HLC were subsequently integrated with the LCA, thus enabling the definition of a series of Landscape Types. The final section of the report reviews the work on the applications of HLC that Shropshire County Council has conducted since the initiation of the HLC project. Further details are also provided in the Appendices at the end of the report.