Peter Friend - Southern England

Scale and size in landscapes are important considerations that we will return to frequently. The landscapes that we shall be discussing are generally kilometres to tens of kilometres across, and they are often best examined from the air, or by using computer-based maps with exaggerated vertical scale.

Southern England contains many famous and well-loved natural landscapes, ranging from the Chalk Downs, with their unique flora and fauna, to the rocky promontories and bays of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. In total topographic contrast, the Fens of East Anglia are regarded by some as representing an extreme absence of any scenery at all, but their remarkable flatness is of interest because they are the result of recent sea-level rise, and of engineering on a remarkable scale. These different landscapes are produced by a wide variety of events and processes; exploring these is the theme of this book.

As we have already seen, landscapes have often been extensively modified by people. The early clearance of woodland and the construction of field boundaries have profoundly changed the scenery and, more recently, the construction of buildings, roads, railways, canals and airports has almost completely covered some areas of Southern England. Figure 2 shows night-time lighting in cities, towns and oil platforms, giving a vivid impression of the present extent and distribution of the larger settlements. It is surprising how varied the population density is, even in crowded Britain. Using the figures for 2002, the population density of the UK overall is 244 people per square kilometre, but this conceals a huge variation: 8 people per square kilometre in the Highland Region of Scotland, 143 for Cornwall, 149 for Norfolk and an amazing 13,609 for Kensington and Chelsea in London.

The main focus of this book is the pattern of large scenic features that have resulted from natural episodes that predate human influence. It is not usually difficult to distinguish the natural from the man-made, and the study of the natural can often explain many aspects of the way our ancestors lived in the landscape. It is possible to uncover the reasons why people have chosen to settle with their families in certain places, why villages have grown by the clustering of houses in particular locations, and why some villages have then grown further and turned into towns and eventually cities. Even the roads, railways and airfields have clearly grown using the valley floors, river crossings, better-drained slopes and plateaus that are part of the natural scenery.

FIG 2.Satellite image over Britain showing artificial lighting at night. (Copyright Planetary Visions Ltd/Science Photo Library)

There is a further enjoyment that people find in landscapes and scenery that is more difficult to understand. Is it just the physical challenge that causes people to walk and climb to the tops of hills, mountains and other viewpoints? Why do people enjoy the work of landscape painters and photographers? Why do so many tourists in cars choose to take ‘scenic’ excursions rather than the shortest routes, and why is the preservation of ‘unspoilt’ or wilderness areas now such a popular cause? It is difficult to understand the various emotions involved, and trying too hard to analyse them may be missing the point. So it seems best to hope simply that this book will help to satisfy some people’s curiosity, and at the same time add to their enjoyment of our natural landscapes.

The detailed discussions of most of the rest of this book have involved dividing Southern England into a number of Areas that form the ‘building blocks’ for the coverage of Southern England (Fig. 3). Each Area is based on a double-page spread of the size used in many of the larger road atlases available for Britain. In this case I have used the Collins Road Atlas, Britain. This means that total coverage of Southern England is provided, and it is easy for the reader to navigate from place to place. At the beginning of each Area description, a location map of the Area and its neighbours is provided. Ordnance Survey (OS) National Grid References are provided for the edges of the Area, in km east and north of the arbitrary OS Grid origin some 80 km west of the Scilly Isles.

FIG 3.Division of Southern England into Regions and Areas.

For convenient reference the Areas – numbered 1 to 16 – are grouped into five Regions. Each Region forms a chapter and starts with a general introduction:

Even the Area building blocks are relatively large, with arbitrary boundaries, and it has generally been helpful to discuss smaller areas within and across these boundaries that are based on natural features of the scenery (Fig. 4). I have called these smaller areas Landscapes,because they are characterised by distinctive features, usually reflecting aspects of the bedrock or distinctive events in their evolution.

These Landscapes correspond closely to area divisions of England that were defined by the Government Countryside Agency (www.countryside.gov.uk). This scheme divides England into 159 ‘character areas’ on the basis of natural features of the scenery along with aspects of its human settlement, past and future development, land use and vegetation and wildlife, so they are likely to be familiar divisions to many readers of the New Naturalist series. Other Government agencies (particularly the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) that administer the funding of land management use the same character area division.

FIG 4.Examples of the three levels of division adopted in the treatment of Southern England.

Maps displaying patterns of elevation of the countryside above sea level are an important part of the discussions. The elevation data on the maps in this book have been compiled and made available as part of the LANDMAP project, which provides a computer-based digital survey of Britain for research and educational use. LANDMAP Digital Elevation Maps (DEMs) are based on satellite radar survey measurements which divide the land surface into a grid of 25 m by 25 m pixels. The average height of each pixel is then measured to produce a terrain model with a vertical accuracy of about ± 5 m. A standard colour shading scale is used to represent heights, ranging from greens for the lowest ground, through yellows and browns, to greys for the highest ground. It is best to use the full range of colours for each map, no matter what numerical range of heights is involved. This makes it possible to convey the fine detail of slopes etc., whether the map is for the Fens or the high moors. To make it possible to compare between maps using this colour scheme, we have quoted the maximum elevation reached in each Area on each map.