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THE CLWYD POWYS ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRUST Montgomeryshire LANDMAP Historic Landscape Aspect Technical Report CPAT Report No 804 CPAT Report No 804 Montgomeryshire LANDMAP Historic Landscape Aspect Technical Report W J Britnell and C H R Martin May 2006 Report for Powys County Council The Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust 7a Church Street, Welshpool, Powys, SY21 7DL tel (01938) 553670, fax (01938) 552179 email [email protected] web www.cpat.org.uk EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Historic Landscape Aspect of the Montgomeryshire LANDMAP identified 102 separate aspect areas, ranging in size from 0.27 to 129.99 square kilometres and representing 12 different landscape patterns, at Level 3 in the current LANDMAP Information System handbook. The patterns represented are Irregular fieldscape (40 areas), Regular fieldscape (12 areas), Other fieldscape (6 areas), Woodland (7 areas), Marginal land (11 areas), Water & wetland (1 area), Nucleated settlement (14 areas), Non-nucleated settlement (1 area), Extractive industry (1 area), Processing/manufacturing (3 area), Designed landscape (1 area) and Recreational (1 area). Historic Landscape aspect areas were identified using a number of digital and paper data sources, verified by rapid field visiting and drawn as a digital map against a 1:10,000 OS map background attached to a database of supporting information. These digital elements and this Technical Report contain the results of the Montgomeryshire LANDMAP study and were submitted to Powys County Council and the Countryside Council for Wales on completion of the project. Montgomeryshire’s historic landscape has evolved over the course of many millennia and shows considerable variety within one of Wales’ largest historical counties. Particularly dominant are the various forms of fieldscape even in the upland areas to the west of the county where even here very little land has been is left unenclosed. Irregular fieldscapes are dominant and generally appear to include more anciently enclosed land, cleared by a process of piecemeal encroachment from prehistoric times (Neolithic to Iron Age) onwards. Much of central and eastern Montgomeryshire lies under such fieldscapes. A variety of historical processes are included within the category of Regular fieldscapes that largely relate to the later Medieval and Post-Medieval periods. These include firstly areas of strip fields which appear to result from the enclosure and amalgamation of Medieval open field strips associated with a number of the larger medieval settlements; and secondly, patterns of regularly shaped, straight-sided fields which appear to represent 17th to 19th century enclosure of areas of common grazing in the lowlands and on the hill margins, and the later demarcation of fertile valley bottoms for arable and dairy farming. Although a proportion of the northern and western uplands of the county survive as moorland and unenclosed Marginal land, significant areas also lie under coniferous forestry plantations. A number of Designed landscapes have also been identified surrounding country houses and estates as well as the managed catchment area of the Lake Vyrnwy Reservoir. The county includes an number of important smaller settlements of Medieval, or potentially earlier, origin that are considered to be generally too small to be classed as aspect areas in their own right. These have generally been considered to form an element of one or other of the fieldscape patterns described above. Nucleated settlements of medieval origin predominate, with only one example of another type, the relatively modern linear development at Four Crosses, being apparent. Of these nucleated settlements only Newtown, Welshpool, Llanidloes and Machynlleth have achieved any size in the modern era, although even these are based on planned boroughs laid out 13th century. CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 HISTORIC LANDSCAPE BACKGROUND 2 3 METHODOLOGY 21 4 SUMMARY OF HISTORIC LANDSCAPE ASPECT AREAS 24 5 REFERENCES 30 Annex A SUMMARY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PERIODS 32 Annex B BASE-LEVEL POLYGONAL DATA: DESCRIPTION AND SOURCES 33 Annex C SUMMARY LIST OF HISTORIC LANDSCAPE ASPECT AREAS 21 Montgomeryshire LANDMAP: Historic Landscape Aspect, Technical Report 1. INTRODUCTION The Montgomeryshire LANDMAP forms part of an ongoing pan-Wales project of landscape assessment. The area studied extends over the whole of this present Shire region of Powys, which is approximately the same as the historical Welsh county of Montgomeryshire. It occupies some 2175 square kilometres of mid-Wales. The Historic Landscape Aspect work, the subject of this report, was undertaken by The Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT) on behalf Powys County Council and the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW). CPAT Report 804, May 2006, version 1 – printed 12/06/06, page 1 Montgomeryshire LANDMAP: Historic Landscape Aspect, Technical Report 2. HISTORIC LANDSCAPE BACKGROUND Historical and archaeological aspects of the landscape History and archaeology form important visual components of the present-day landscape of Montgomeryshire, illustrating many aspects of human activity since the end of the last glaciation. There are many diverse sources of evidence that tell us about how the landscape of Montgomeryshire came into being. In addition to the prominent field monuments that are visible in the landscape, information is also to be gleaned from historic buildings, parks and gardens, industrial sites, and transport history, as well as from historic documents and maps. Other important sources include environmental and vegetation history provided by the study of pollen and plant remains, the evidence of settlement and land use obtained by an analysis of settlement and field patterns, and buried archaeological sites revealed by aerial reconnaissance or geophysical survey. We are still very much at an early stage in beginning to identify the forces that helped to create Montgomeryshire’s distinctive landscape. Relatively little analytical fieldwork has yet been undertaken in many areas of Montgomeryshire, for example, and much undoubtedly also still remains to be learnt from an analysis of early cartographic and historical sources. Outline history The following provides a brief outline of some of the processes that have been influential in the creation of Montgomeryshire’s historic landscape. (See also summary of historical and archaeological periods in Annex A, and a selected bibliography and other sources in section 5 of this report. Parts of the following text are freely adapted from a number of reports and publications by CPAT, including Britnell 1999a-d; Britnell and Martin 1999 and 2000, Jones, Walters and Frost 2005.) Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic The first humans to visit Montgomeryshire following the last glaciation are likely to have been nomadic late Upper Palaeolithic hunters from the south and east of Britain setting up temporary camps in pursuit of migrating herds of horse and reindeer as well as smaller mammals, birds and fish. Little direct evidence of human activity has yet been found in the county during this cool climatic phase, but a barbed bone point forming part of a typical hunting spear of this period, found at Porth-y- waun in the lower Tanat Valley, just across the border with Shropshire, and dating to about 12000 BC, presents the earliest clear evidence of human activity in the region. More permanent settlers, depending upon hunting, fishing, and gathering wild fruits, are likely to have started coming to the region during the Mesolithic period, from about 8000 BC onwards, during the gradual amelioration of climatic conditions. Recent studies of ancient pollens preserved in waterlogged sites in several parts of the county are beginning to reveal the kind of environment exploited by these early settlers. From about this time the landscape would have been fairly densely covered with birch woodland, with some pine and elm in probably all but the more mountainous areas. The presence of hazel, willow and initially some juniper pollen suggest areas of scrub. This, together with areas of grassland, would have provided grazing for herds of wild ox and red deer which are likely to have been hunted for food. From a date of about 6800 BC there was a notable expansion of oak woodland, and from about 5500 BC a rise in the proportion of alder, accompanying a gradual decline in birch and hazel and the virtual disappearance of pine. This corresponded with a climatic phase that had changed to being slightly warmer than that of today, which was to last until about 3500 BC. Radiocarbon dating of plant and animal remains, as in later prehistoric periods, provides the essential chronological framework for understanding these climatic and environmental changes and the associated evidence of human activity. CPAT Report 804, May 2006, version 1 – printed 12/06/06, page 2 Montgomeryshire LANDMAP: Historic Landscape Aspect, Technical Report Settlements of the Mesolithic period in the county still await discovery, but some activity, albeit on a limited scale, is clearly represented by the discovery of small flint points (microliths) belonging to hunting and fishing implements. Examples characteristic of the later Mesolithic period, after about 6000 BC, have been found at a small number of both upland and lowland sites in the south and east of the county, as for example near north of Llansilin, on the edge of the Vyrnwy valley, on the Breiddin Hills, in the Vale of Montgomery, in the upper Severn valley and in the Clywedog valley. Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age The period between about 4000–2500 BC was one of dramatic change that witnessed the gradual eclipse of the early hunter-gatherer economies in favour of arable farming and pastoralism throughout the greater part of western Europe. Agricultural techniques were gradually adopted and adapted to suit local conditions. Native forests began to be cleared to provide arable land for the cultivation of cereals and legumes, and for the creation of pasture for herds of domesticated sheep and cattle. New tools of Neolithic type were adopted, including polished axes, adzes and chisels of polished flint and stone, which were used for tree-felling and carpentry.