Introduction#

Informing the Future of the Past: Guidelines for Historic Environment Records (second edition)#

Edited by Paul Gilman and Martin Newman

Published by English Heritage at the National Monuments Record Centre, Kemble, Drive, Swindon, SN2 2GZ.

ISBN forthcoming

©English Heritage 2007

All figures unless specified are © English Heritage. Applications for the Reproduction of images should be made to the National Monuments Record.

We gratefully acknowledge permission from the following organisations to reproduce information and illustrations:

Aberdeenshire Council, figures 57 & 58; Archaeology Data Service, figures 19 & 27; Buckinghamshire County Council, figure 56; Central Counties Air Operations Unit, figure 11; Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust, figure 35; Cornwall County Council, figures: 48, 49 & 52; Essex County Council, figures: 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 39, 44, 45 & 55; exeGesIS SDM Ltd. figures: 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26 & 53; Hampshire County Council, figurer 42; Hertfordshire County Council, figures: 51 & 55; Historic Scotland, figure 68; Land Management Information System, figure 54; National Trust, figure 26; North Yorkshire County Council, figurers 23 & 24; Peterborough City Council, figure 59; Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland, figures: 50, 66, 67 & 68; Somerset County Council, figures: 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65 & 69; University of St Andrews, figures: 36, 37 & 38; West of Scotland Archaeology Service, figures 28 & 29; Worcestershire County Council, figures: 11, 12, 13, 30, 31, 32, 33 & 34.

Figures 11, 12, 13, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 42, 44, 45, 48, 49 , 50 , 51, 52, 55, 56, 57,58, 59 62, 66, 67, 68 & 69 are based on OS maps with the permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of Her Majesty's Stationary Office ©Crown copyright. All Rights reserved. Figures 32, 33 & 34 are based on British Geological Survey (BGS) data by Worcestershire County Council, BGS Digital License 2001/125. 2007. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. OS licence numbers for each organisation basing a figure on an OS map are given in the caption for the image.

English Heritage is the Government's Statutory adviser on all aspects of the historic environment. The National Monuments Record is the public archive of English Heritage.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book will be available from the British Library

All rights Reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or translated in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. HER Managers may photocopy this document or store an electronic copy for use within the HER.

Front cover designed by Agnes Bell. Website designed by Bruce Howard.

Cover: Moel Arthur Iron Age hillfort, Flintshire, ©Clywd Powys Archaeological Trust 84-c-0274; Fire in Park Quadrant, Glasgow in 2006, ©Crown Copyright: RCAHMS DP 009620; Shipwreck on coastline, Saltwick Bay, North Yorkshire, ©English Heritage Photo Library K020590; Archaeology, Ashby De La Zouch Castle, Leicestershire, © English Heritage Photo Library N060476.


List of Figures#

Figure no.Caption
Section A
1The HER 'wheel' drives and is powered by an integrated approach to conservation and understanding of the historic environment
2Designated wreck sites (February 2005)
3HERs and other records
Section B
4Information management cycle
5The logo for the Forum on Information Standards in Heritage
6The logo of MIDAS, the national data standard for the content of historic environment records.
7The logo for the INSCRIPTION terminology standard web pages
8A sample screenshot from the INSCRIPTION web page
9The FISH web site www.fish-forum.info is the starting point for finding out about data standards for the historic environment
Section C
10The event-monument-source data model
11Throckmorton known archaeological sites prior to the 2001 Foot and Mouth epidemic
12Placename evidence from 1774 Throckmorton Enclosure map
13Throckmorton events undertaken as part of Foot and Mouth mitigation
14Relationships between monument records.
15The monument record for the chapter house at Waltham Abbey displayed in exeGesIS SDM Ltd's SMR software.
16Indexing monument records using the Thesaurus of Monument Types and other terminology lists in exeGesiS SDM Ltd's SMR software.
17Creating links between a monument record and associated people and events in exeGesIS SDM Ltd's SMR software.
18A report showing a monument record in the Essex Heritage Conservation Record.
19Example of a project summary page from the OASIS form
20How an event may be recorded in an HER database
21A typical source recorded in exeGesIS SDM Ltd's HBSMR software
22Consultation and conservation advice
23A typical consultation record from the North Yorkshire County Council HER showing the details tab.
24A typical consultation record from the North Yorkshire County Council HER showing the consultation Stages tab and the link to the related event record.
25Monument management process
26Successive monument monitoring reports as recorded in the National Trust SMR
Section D
27ADS web page – Excavation Index
28WoSAS Events 1: An example of an archaeological evaluation specified to trench level, derived from contractor supplied data.
29WoSAS Events 2: The event record for the heart of medieval Glasgow showing numerous events as points and polygons.
30Elmley Castle Tithe map displaying apportionment details for land use
313D historic reconstruction of Elmley Castle using the digital tithe map
32Date ranges of Worcestershire's Quaternary geology
33Type sites selected for the Worcestershire Palaeolithic HER
34HER data overlain on terrace deposits displayed by period
35Maes Mochnant Standing Stone, Powys.
36NoSAS members surveying at Loch Hourn
37Clyne Heritage Society members working at an eroding structure on the beach at Brora, Sutherland.
38Unst Heritage Society surveying an eroding prehistoric mound in Shetland
Section E
39Using three dimensional modelling in GIS to examine sites in their landscape setting
40Representing the location of a heritage object within a 'virtual space'.
41Representing the approximate location of a heritage object as a fuzzy boundary.
42A GIS generated map showing Bronze Age barrows over Landscape Types and rivers in Hampshire
43Relationships between HER text databases and GIS in text
44A GIS layer showing the use of polygons to show the extent of the early 19th-century defences at Chelmsford.
45Great Chesterford scheduled area
46Examples of layers in a GIS
47A new GIS layer: archaeological sites on arable land
48The first HLC in England – carried out in Cornwall
49A selected area of the HLC for Cornwall
50HLAMAP – HLA as applied in Scotland (from the RCAHMS website).
51A screen capture from GIS - Illustrating the more detailed HLC study of field boundaries in an area just north of Harlow, which is one of the mineral study areas in Hertfordshire. The thick grey lines represent modern OS mapping of surviving boundaries, whereas the various superimposed coloured lines reflect different periods of historic mapping, such as Estate, Tithe and Enclosure maps. This illustrates the degree of boundary loss and change through the past two centuries. This will enable dating of surviving field boundaries or sections thereof for future land management.
52Urban HLC as applied in St Austell Cornwall
53A screen capture of the HBSMR Help manual – this approach embeds the HLC within the HER.
54Entry Level Scheme for CAP reforms
55HLC Sensitivity Zones Map from the LCS-M11 Study
56Illustrating some of the outputs from the MKSM study
57HLA overlay showing a Designed Landscape.
58SMR overlay showing same Designed Landscape as an archaeological site.
Section F
59The distribution of certain categories of HER information is often more readily understood when seen in the context of ancient topography, such as this interpretative map of part of the Neolithic fenland environment.
60Some of the publicity material produced for the HER outreach Programme.
61Professor Mick Aston, Somerset's first County Archaeologist, launching the website at the County Museum, Taunton Castle on 30th September 2003.
62An example of the map page of the website, showing Bronze Age barrows in the parish of Priddy, Somerset.
63One of the one day drop in exhibition/demonstrations of the online Historic Environment Record
64Rachel Shaw, Education Consultant giving a talk on using the HER website to local school children, many of whom were far more adept at picking it up than most of the adults.
65Taking a local school on an historic walk around their village based on HER information. This is the starting point of a planned local studies project for next term.
66Sample NMRS record viewed through CANMORE
67Site selection using a web-GIS browser: the RCAHMS CANMAP
68Completed search on PASTMAP with map report on selected records.
69Example Record Page from Somerset HER.

List of Panels#

Panel no.Caption
Section A
1The national legislative and policy framework for HERs
Section B
2A self assessment checklist of standards for HER services
3Examples of the use of fields to record archaeological science data
4Tools for indexing and retrieval: 1. Wordlists
5Tools for Indexing and retrieval: 2. Thesauri
6Elements of the Dublin Core
7Disaster plan template
Section C
8Example of type and phase monument recording
9Example of additional attributes for monument recording
Section E
10Potential Modelling for HLC
Section F
11Model policy statement, access to buildings, facilities, services and information
12Example of an assessment of disabled access (Buckinghamshire HER)
13Example of a breakdown of reason for interest in HER Information

Acknowledgements#

This desk manual is the result of a partnership between the Archaeology Data Service (ADS), English Heritage, Historic Scotland, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) and the Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers (ALGAO UK). The desk-manual project was managed by Bruce Howard, Martin Newman (as co-editor), and Matthew Stiff of English Heritage. Paul Gilman of Essex County Council acted as co-editor and ALGAO consultant, supported by Alison Bennett, and especially Caroline Ingle of Essex County Council who did most of the detailed editorial work, checking of web addresses, references and so forth. Special thanks are also due to Nick Davis, Rod Fitzgerald, Phil Garner and Lucy Richardson from the National Monuments Record for proof reading. The project steering committee was chaired by Dave Barrett (Derbyshire County Council), and its membership included Chris Martin (Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust), Rebecca Jones (RCAHMS), Catherine Hardman (ADS), Stuart Jeffrey (ADS), Peter McKeague (RCAHMS), Carol Swanson (West of Scotland Archaeology Service) and David Thomas (RCAHMW).

The first version of this manual was edited by Kate Fernie and Paul Gilman, with the following contributors: Kenneth Aitchison (Institute of Field Archaeologists), Tony Austin, Damian Robinson and William Kilbride (Archaeology Data Service), Alison Bennett and Caroline Ingle (Essex County Council), Rob Bourn (Babtie Group), Duncan Brown, Phil Carlisle, Kate Fernie, Bob Hook, Neil Lang, Gillian Sheldrick, Robin Taylor and Laurel Tilbury (English Heritage), Tony Hurley and Alison Tinniswood (Hertfordshire County Council), Emma Jones (Warwickshire County Council), Peter Rowe (Tees Archaeology) and Nigel Pratt (then of the National Trust). For the second edition, the contributors were: Ruth Atkinson (Humber Archaeology Partnership), Talya Bagwell (Somerset County Council), Kim Biddulph (Buckinghamshire County Council), Victoria Bryant, Neil Lockett and Deborah Overton, (Worcestershire County Council), Kieran Byrne, Edmund Lee (English Heritage), Quinton Carroll (Cambridgeshire County Council), Jill Collens (Cheshire County Council), Paul Cuming (Kent County Council), Tom Dawson (University of St Andrews), Lynn Dyson-Bruce (Essex County Council), Gail Falkingham (North Yorkshire County Council), Isobel Holroyd (British and Irish Archaeological Bibliography), Susan Lisk (Oxfordshire County Council), Bruce Mann (Aberdeenshire Council), Dorothy M. Maxwell (Highland Council), Robert Mowat (RCHAMS), Ben Robinson (Peterborough City Council), Jeff Spencer (Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust), David Wheatley (University of Southampton).

IFP 2 was peer reviewed by Louise Austin (Cambria Archaeology (Dyfed Archaeological Trust Ltd.)), Kate Geary (Institute of Field Archaeologists), Bruce Mann (Aberdeenshire Council), Sarah Poppy (Cambridgeshire County Council), Hedley Swain (Museum of London), Nigel Pratt (Hampshire County Council), and Professor Ian Ralston (University of Edinburgh). The steering committee wishes to extend its thanks to the peer reviewers and to all those who have been involved the project. The committee commends this desk manual to professional staff working in local authorities, students, volunteers, and project staff.

Dave Barrett, Derbyshire County Council, Chair of the IFP2 Steering Committee.