Heritage

As its title suggests, HEATH (Heathland: Environment, Agriculture, Tourism and Heritage) recognises the importance of the historic and economic aspects of heathlands as being equally as important as its ecological significance.

The HEATH project is funding a series of reports focusing on the project areas:

Rapid 'Management Assessments' will be carried out for all the project areas to briefly summarise and map the historic environment, its history, archaeological sites and features. Each report will highlight areas of sensitivity, guide vegetation clearance and identify opportunities for public access and interpretation.

For the Goonhilly Downs, Lizard Downs, Crousa Downs, Polcoverack, Main Dale and Golgotham project areas (all on the Lizard) 'Archaeological Assessments' will be carried out to establish and identify historic environment features to guide future management, access and interpretation. These are more detailed reports than the Management Assessments and include fieldwork. The reports will cover the archaeological sites in greater depth and will create an historical narrative summarising the landscape and its features.

English Heritage are also funding two further substantial reports, one, Goon, Hal, Cliff and Croft, the story of west Cornwall’s roughground, presenting and reviewing evidence for the long-term history of land use of the rough ground in west Cornwall. The second will be a Best Practice Report intended to provide useful guidance for the management of the well-preserved and very important archaeological sites found in the rough ground sites. The intention is that these will be published by the summer of 2007.

The work is currently in progress and details of how to obtain copies of all these reports will available on the Historic Environment Service, Cornwall County Council website in the near future (see link).  

There will also be historic environment input into a series of outreach programmes organised by the HEATH team aimed at the local community, a range of partners, private land owners, land managers, and other interested groups. 

For further information please contact the Historic Environment Services on (+44) 01872 323474.