National Heritage Protection Plan 4A3 Cornish ports and harbours; assessing heritage significance, threats, protection and opportunities (4A3.204) Project Number: 6306 Date of Issue: January 2013 Contents 1 Project name 2 Summary description of project 3 Background 4 Aims and objectives 5 Business case and interfaces 6 Methodology Stage 1 Assessment of whole resource Stage 2 Assessment of selected ports and harbours Stage 3 Collation of results and reporting Stage 4 Securing protection outcomes 7 Project scope 8 Management, monitoring and reporting arrangements 9 Timescale and Budget 10 Form of Tender 11 Copyright 12 Selection Process 13 Further information 14 References Appendix 1 Historic Character Types derived from draft EH HLC Thesaurus Appendix 2 Provisional list of Cornish and Scillonian ports and harbours 2 1 Project name: Cornish ports and harbours; assessing heritage significance, threats, protection and opportunities. 2 Summary description of project This project aims to improve understanding of a range of aspects of Cornish and Scillonian ports and harbours in order to help a range of agents (owners, users, planners, advisers, statutory and non-statutory agencies, etc) make more fully considered decisions. As such it aims to produce tangible, practical benefits for the historic environment of these important but vulnerable places. The project’s objectives include establishment of effective methodologies for assessing fabric, significance and character of English ports and harbours generally by using the study of those of Cornwall and Scilly as a pilot. Consequently it will always have an eye on nationwide patterns, variety and processes, and any existing studies of those, while it concentrates on the ports and harbours of Cornwall in particular. With regard to the latter it sets out to achieve the following. • Improve understanding of the historic, archaeological and architectural significance of the ports and harbours of Cornwall and Scilly • Draw together understanding of the range of forces for change acting upon Cornwall’s ports and harbours and consider the predictable effects of these on the resource as a whole and on the selection subjected to individual study. • Consider the general or typical condition of the ports and harbours of Cornwall and Scilly, and also consider the actual condition of the selection that will be subjected to individual study, identifying heritage at risk as appropriate. • Assess the ways that elements of ports and harbours (both fabric and character) are typically or specifically vulnerable to those forces for change, so as to concentrate attention on actions required to alleviate such vulnerability. • Consider the extent to which some of those forces for change present opportunities that will benefit the historic environment of ports and harbours. • Establish means of assessing the significance of historic ports and harbours by first considering the factors that affect established ways of judging historic, archaeological and architectural value (e.g. via the ways set out in Conservation Principles; English Heritage 2008, or those that underpin national and local designation processes). It will then set these against the various other ways that other stakeholders also assess the value of these places (economically, socially, ecologically, aesthetically, etc) so that consideration of protection is as nuanced as it can realistically be. • Critically review current levels of protection of the resource, including designation, management, policy, strategy, and make structured recommendations for any appropriate strengthening of protection (with input on designation from English Heritage’s Designation West team). • Produce material that will inform practical management and targeted protection and conclude by setting in train a range of protection outcomes. 3 3 Background Ports and harbours, in Cornwall, Scilly and elsewhere in England make a major contribution to local character and distinctiveness, forming significant landscape features and reflecting the varied history, use and development of maritime settlements, their hinterlands and the sea. They typically include ranges of substantial and varied specialised buildings, structures, equipment, earthworks and spaces. Being at the interface of land and sea (whether that is open or within estuaries), they are, or in some cases were, important hubs that reveal much about both historic and current terrestrial and maritime activities. As the points where individuals and groups occasionally or routinely either cast off into or returned from the uncertain world of the sea, their histories are often unusually colourful. Indeed, the economic value and importance of ports and harbours is in part currently derived from their contribution to Cornwall and Scilly’s tourism industry. As many ports and harbours are still in active use and so continue to develop and require maintenance in the face of natural and anthropogenic forces for change (see below), they form an especially dynamic part of the coastal historic environment resource. Range within the resource In Cornwall and Scilly, and elsewhere in England, there is great variety in ports and harbours. Some are fairly simple, serving single purposes, but many became the focus of several or numerous activities, including those listed below, and their great variety in scale, form and components reflects this. • Fishing (itself a multifarious activity) • Exporting and importing, or more local transportation, of materials, including: o industrial o commercial o agricultural o horticultural • Victualling naval and mercantile vessels • Building, making and repairing ships, boats and related materials (ropes, sails, engines, etc) • Pleasure (inshore and offshore sailing, boating, swimming, bathing, promenading, eating, relaxing, etc) • Ferrying • Serving and servicing maritime activities and infrastructures (lighthousing, coastguarding, etc) • Defence and aggression Chronologies also range widely, from probable prehistoric landing places at or near distinctive promontories, medieval coastal harbours and seasonal fishing centres and the apparently equally early tiny quays serving medieval farming hamlets on Cornwall’s creeks, to the numerous post-medieval and modern constructions that made industry 4 and commerce viable. The list of Cornish and Scillonian ports and harbours in Appendix 2 includes many small-scale, but probably relatively early port and harbour sites, such as 8 ‘havens’ (mainly in the north), 30 ‘coves’ (north and south-west) and 73 ‘porths’ (throughout, including 30 on Scilly). The latter place-name element, ‘porth’, is the Cornish for harbour or cove, sometimes transformed into ‘port’ as in Port Isaac, ‘per’ as in Percolan or ‘pol’ as in Polperro. All those minor sites have some evidence for use as a landing (often a road or lane leading down to the shore) and archaeological remains (quays, building plats, etc) are either known or likely. The late Professor Harold Fox instigated study of similar sites in neighbouring Devon (Fox 2001). Some of the forces for change discussed below may be expected to threaten such remains. Forces for change affecting ports and harbours Most port and harbour structures were designed and built to withstand the pressures of use and the forces of nature, and most contain within them the evidence of both routine maintenance and more or less radical change. Ports and harbours in Cornwall, Scilly and elsewhere continue to be affected by changes in both use and activity levels (i.e. by neglect as well as development) and changes wrought by natural forces, including those that accompany climate change. Anthropogenic forces for change in Cornwall and Scilly currently include the following: • Expansion, intensification or change of use: o docks (Falmouth, Fowey, Par, etc), o ferry termini (Penzance, St Mary’s, Torpoint, Caffa Mill, etc), o fishing (Newlyn, Mevagissey, East Looe, Cadgwith, etc), o pleasure provision (Perranporth, St Ives, Newquay, Bude, Sennen, Portscatho, Looe etc) o utilisation as hubs or part of the infrastructure of maritime renewable energy generation • Changes in method and scale of use, for example shifts of fishing to deep sea trawling, of warehousing to containerisation, of ferries to ro-ro, of small fishing boats to larger ones, etc • Changes in function, with numerous examples of switches of ports, harbours and their associated settlements to: o maritime leisure activities (yachting, swimming, diving, surfing etc) o serving tourism, including much that involves enjoyment of the heritage values of ports and harbours (Polperro, Portloe, Mousehole, St Ives, etc) o primarily non-maritime residential use • Repair and restoration of elements of complexes. It might be noted that, as in much modern management of historic structures, the use of modern techniques and materials can be variably appropriate and effective, creating in some cases threats to both character and fabric. • Settlement expansion, including onto the ‘brownfield’ areas of yards, wharves, 5 works, etc (as at Hayle, Portreath, Falmouth, Penzance, Saltash) • Other forms of successional use of buildings, structures (cellars, warehouses, lifeboat houses, capstan houses, etc) and spaces • Developmental responses to climate change (strengthening of structures, placement of material to diffuse the force of waves, etc) • Reduction or cessation of use leading to: o neglect o abandonment o dismantlement Natural forces acting on the physical remains of ports and harbours include: •