All rural places and buildings are a reflection of how people have lived, worked, thought and related to each other throughout history. They form an integral part of landscape. Rural landscapes are characterised by a mixture of distinctive settlement patterns which have developed as a result of the unique combination of physical and cultural influences that make one place distinct and recognisable from another. Patterns of settlement display an enormous variation and buildings relate not only to each other but also to the shape and extent of their building plots, routeways, fields and other features in the landscape. Work on settlements has shown that these distinctions have their roots in the medieval period (Roberts and Wrathmell, 2000 and 2002), and work on farmsteads has indicated that their layouts and the dates and types of their buildings are related to local variations in farmed landscapes (Lake and Edwards, 2006).
The following Research Framework aims to guide professionals working with whole landscapes, as well as local researchers, to step back and consider both how landscape can enrich our understanding of buildings and places and how buildings and places can enrich our understanding of landscape. It aims to promote a broader layer of understanding to building research which can then be followed by more detailed recording and research if required.
Placing Buildings in their Landscape Context
The historic character of England’s landscape results from the way that people since the medieval period and earlier have lived within and used the land and its resources. Rural settlement – the villages, hamlets, farmsteads and houses that we call home and visit – is at the core of our everyday lives, connecting us to each other, and to our shared sense of history, and providing a base from which we view and enjoy the wider landscape.
Although all landscapes display a variety of different settlement types, most areas are associated with a dominant settlement character. In England the two most dominant historic settlement patterns are dispersed settlement and nucleated settlement. Many nucleated and dispersed settlements are linear or row plan (they form a long line), following a historic routeway and smaller roads that branch off these main routes, others grew around an area of pasture (a green) for common grazing.
Maps show how an area has developed over time, the most easily available being Ordnance Survey maps, dating from the 1880s for Worcestershire, and tithe maps dating from the 1840s. Considering the recorded date of earlier buildings – especially those dated from the 17th century and earlier – and where they are located, is also a useful way of mapping the historic development of an area, complementing the evidence provided by settlement patterns, routeways, fields and woodland. In areas of planned or regular enclosure, early recorded buildings may relate to earlier phases of land use and/or enclosure which have been largely over-written by later change.
Early buildings are generally much sparser in distribution in those areas of England where settlement in the medieval period was dominated by nucleated villages and extensive communally-farmed fields, and where patterns of wealth were less evenly spread and more hierarchical in structure. The growth of nucleated settlement was often driven by affluent landowners wishing to champion their influence, on a landscape and community, and open up markets, from which to increase profits.
Key Questions
WORCSB_LAND01: Do houses and other buildings in your area mostly cluster in a village or are they scattered across smaller settlements and farmsteads?
WORCSB_LAND05: Are early recorded houses and other buildings sited around public open space (such as a green, recreation land or common land used by the public), a church or market place?
WORCSB_LAND07: Are early recorded houses and other buildings arranged in a regular (indicating a high degree of planning) or irregular (suggesting haphazard or unplanned growth) pattern?
WORCSB_LAND15: How has the density and setting of buildings changed over time, including their relationship to routeways and open spaces, including gardens?
WORCSB_LAND19: What do the date, scale, alignment of buildings (including houses not associated with mapped farmsteads) reveal about the development of nucleated settlement before the late 19th century? Many farmhouses, for example, were aligned to face main routeways, as was the case in high-status town houses, and occupied several amalgamated plots.
WORCSB_LAND20: : Is the gradual enclosure and privatisation of open land, from the 15th and 16th centuries, reflected in the relocation of traditional farmsteads away from settlement cores and into the newly enclosed fields?
While the majority of buildings within our settlements are domestic, some buildings, and the plots they sit within, facilitate a range of industries, businesses and activities from farming, market gardening, orcharding and craft industries to places of worship, commerce and community. Trade and manufacturing made an enormous contribution to rural communities from as early as the medieval period. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, which brought about cultural, social and economic revolution in the techniques of making things, further transformed Britain’s economy, enabled by the development of an extensive transport network. Although specialised commercial areas and buildings developed early, and the numbers of shops grew substantially in the 17th and 18th centuries, few buildings pre-dating the 19th century survive in rural locations.
WORCSB_LAND21: What does the function of buildings and their dates reveal about how places functioned over time, including the development and/or decline of local agriculture, commerce and industry?
WORCSB_LAND22: What do buildings reveal about the growth and/or decline of significant local industries and their relationship with local, regional and even inter-national markets?
WORCSB_LAND23: Were buildings constructed for a specific function or have they been adapted from earlier buildings to meet the changing social and economic needs of a community?
WORCSB_LAND26: Are buildings of different functions, grouped together in specialized areas or more isolated from each other? Are they located in the centre of the settlement, on its edge or distant from it?
WORCSB_LAND27: Are there examples of buildings of different dates/functions which are becoming increasingly rare within local, regional and national landscapes? For example military buildings, field barns and 19th and 20th century allotment buildings, used for shelter and storing tools?
WORCSB_LAND28: Do buildings have significant ecological value or can they provide new potential opportunities for nesting birds, roosting bats and invertebrates?
Rural buildings can be incredibly diverse in their architectural style and design, with even later buildings often having a greater variety of designs and materials than first appreciated. The date and form of buildings can provide an indication of conformity to national fashions as well as the persistence of local trends and adaptation to local circumstances as well as patterns of investment – i.e. the dates of buildings can reveal peaks in prosperity and economic activity, reflect lack of investment in agriculture or industry or a desire to maintain a historic link with the past or sweep away what has been inherited.
WORCSB_LAND31: In what ways does development reflect changes in the accessibility and affordability of buildings materials and constructional techniques?
The location and orientation of the houses suggest how their owners saw themselves and how they wanted themselves to be seen, which may have changed over time – for example, a house re-fronted to look away from its working farmyard into its own driveway or garden, with a prospect over the wider landscape, may reflect the burgeoning wealth and status its owner or tenant.
Key Questions
WORCSB_LAND36: What do the types and dates of development tell us about how households and communities organised themselves over time? Think about changing attitudes to housing, education, health and worship.
WORCSB_LAND37: How do buildings reflect the changing size and structure of households over time?
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01/04/2021
WORCSB_LAND38: How do buildings reflect the changing occupations, affluence and aspirations of their inhabitants?
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Date accepted:
01/04/2021
WORCSB_LAND39: What can buildings tell you about changing attitudes to national and local investment in public housing, education and health?
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01/04/2021
WORCSB_LAND40: How do buildings reflect changing ways of worship and community life?
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01/04/2021
WORCSB_LAND41: To what extent have landed states shaped the provision of model villages, local farms, houses, factories, schools and other community buildings?
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01/04/2021
WORCSB_LAND42: To what extent is social mobility and the massive increase in home ownership, since the mid-20th century reflected in the density and setting of domestic buildings?
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01/04/2021
WORCSB_LAND43: How do buildings reflect changing attitudes to private space both within society and in the context of planning?
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Date accepted:
01/04/2021
WORCSB_LAND44: How do patterns of building reflect England’s transition, during the 19th century, from a largely rural economy to a largely industrial economy?
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01/04/2021
WORCSB_LAND45: How do patterns of building reflect cycles of prosperity and recession and periods of war and peace?
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01/04/2021
WORCSB_LAND46: Which buildings have particular significance as prominent landmarks or special associations with local history, individuals or families?
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Date accepted:
01/04/2021
Market Gardening ‘Hovels’
At one time, most of the population around Evesham and Pershore in Worcestershire were employed in market gardening or a related industry. A wide variety of vegetables, fruit, herbs and cut flowers grown by independent growers were sold at markets up and down the country from the mid-19th to mid-20th century. As all gardeners know, a shed is essential for storing equipment, produce and providing shelter. Market gardening was no exception: rows of timber, corrugated iron and occasionally brick built structures once lined the ends of their grounds. Generally built to market gardeners’ own design and requirements, each was unique in both design and function. Some doubled up as temporary accommodation for hired hands, some were used for keeping racing pigeons or brewing homemade alcohol and one even served as a monthly barber’s shop! Locally known as ‘hovels’ (or ‘ovels), these distinctive small buildings once dotted the landscape and were significant social hubs, as well as practical buildings. Hovels are a distinctive and unique aspect of market gardening in the Vale of Evesham, as they do not appear to have been built in other market gardening regions. Since the rise of commercial horticulture and gradual decline of market gardening during the latter half of the 20th century, these small buildings have been slowly disappearing through abandonment and change of land use.
Key Questions
WORCSB_LAND47: When were hovels built and how long did they typically remain in use? Do different construction styles differ in date? And are brick hovels the earliest surviving examples?
WORCSB_LAND49: Understand the reasons behind the distribution of hovels – does this follow differences in the type of crops grown, soils, land ownership, collection methods or other factors?
Hathaway , E and J. Lake. 2017. Synthesis of Rural Buildings in their Setting: Project Report, Case Study and Research Questions. Worcestershire County Council and Historic England report.
Lake, J and B. Edwards, ‘Farmsteads and Landscape: Towards an Integrated View’, Landscapes, 7.1 (2006), 1-36.
O’Hare, N. 2021. An overview of market gardening hovels in the Vale of Evesham.
Roberts, B.K. and S. Wrathmell. 2000. An Atlas of Rural Settlement in England, English Heritage, London.
Roberts, B.K. and S. Wrathmell. 2002. Region and Place: A study of English rural settlement, English Heritage, London.
Part of the Research Frameworks Network