Part One: Landscape Character Descriptions 6. Needwood and South Derbyshire Claylands Landscape Character Types • Settled Plateau Farmlands .......... 6.4 • Estate Farmlands ...................... 6.17 • Settled Farmlands ....................... 6.8 • Riverside Meadows .................. 6.22 • Sandstone Slopes and Heaths .. 6.13 Needwood and South Derbyshire Claylands Character Area 68 Part 1 - 6.1 Needwood and South Derbyshire Claylands CHARACTER AREA 68 A settled, pastoral landscape on gently rolling lowlands. Landscape Character Types • Settled Plateau Farmlands • Sandstone Slopes and Heaths • Riverside Meadows • Settled Farmlands • Estate Farmlands "... and where at every turn he came upon some fine old country-seat nestled in the valley or crowning the slopes, some homestead with its long length of barn and its cluster of golden ricks, some grey steeple looking out from a pretty confusion of trees.... And directly below them the eye rested on a more advanced line of hanging woods, divided by bright patches of pasture or furrowed crops..." (p16 George Eliot ‘Adam Bede') Introduction Derby have expanded through the western and southern limits of post-war development, the this area within the county. landscape retains a deeply rural Located in the south-west of the character. county, the Needwood and South Natural Influences Derbyshire Claylands comprise two distinct areas separated by the Physical Influences The predominant land-use is River Dove, which also forms the pasture, mainly for dairy farming, administrative boundary between Within Derbyshire, this character with some arable cropping where Derbyshire and Staffordshire. The area is defined by an underlying topography allows, particularly in distinctive wooded landscape of geology of Mercia Mudstones, with Settled Plateau Pastures. Within Needwood lies exclusively within Sherwood Sandstone to the north, Derbyshire, unlike the Needwood Staffordshire. overlain in the north and west by a area, woodland is not a prominent thin covering of glacial drift. characteristic, although there is a The remainder of this Character Differential erosion by numerous strong sense of enclosure Area within Derbyshire is rolling narrow streams, draining from the pertaining to the patchwork of lowland over glacial till and Mercia Peak Fringe, has created a gently fields enclosed by hedgerows with Mudstones that were amenable to undulating to rolling landform with mature hedgerow trees. Although early settlement and farming. In the glacial drift defining the more much of the pasture has now been contrast to the Needwood area, upstanding Settled Plateau improved, there are still remnants of there is less woodland and more Farmlands. unimproved pasture and meadows. settlement with small villages and Some older hedgerows are scattered farmsteads and cottages. The wide valley and Riverside species-rich. Ridge and furrow and the Meadows of the River Dove define earthworks of deserted villages suggest the area was once more densely settled. Land-use is typically dairy farming with some arable, set within a framework of hedgerows and mature hedgerow trees. Woodlands are few but locally occurring parkland, such as that at Kedleston Hall, makes a significant contribution to the overall character of the area. Small red brick villages and estate farms are distinctive features and, although some settlements west of Needwood and South Derbyshire Claylands Character Area 68 Part 1 - 6.2 Where the underlying geology is surviving ridge and furrow of the The predominant building material defined by sandstone in Sandstone former open fields. Settlement also within the villages is red brick and, Slopes and Heaths, locally spread onto commons and heaths with the exception of villages like occurring heathland with gorse and in the late post-medieval period, Brailsford, they have remained heather is still to be found, though most notably at Hulland Ward with relatively small and loose-knit in mostly confined to the steepest its typical wayside cottages and character. More important buildings, slopes or road verges. straight roads. like churches and the manor house, may be constructed in the local Historic parks, like Kedleston, make Enclosure of the landscape began sandstone. Some very occasional a locally significant contribution to early and areas were already examples survive of half-timbered the ecological value of Estate enclosed by the early 17th century. Elizabethan buildings, most notably Farmlands through the presence of The winding and often sunken Somersal Herbert Hall. veteran parkland trees and the country lanes bounded by plump presence of plantation woodland. mixed species hedgerows are, in part, a product of the long history of Human Influences enclosure and add to the rural character and sense of antiquity on Evidence of early activity is this landscape. In contrast, within generally rare. However, Iron Age the former commons and heathland and Roman settlement suggest the associated with Settled Plateau area was more extensively settled in Farmlands and Sandstone Slopes the pre-medieval period than and Heaths, roads are often straight Somersal Herbert Hall previously believed. and direct with uniform width verges. Winding country lanes bounded by The agricultural quality of the land hedgerows provide a sense of would always have attracted settlers Later, country house parks were enclosure, particularly where the and the present pattern of developed at Osmaston, Sudbury lanes have become sunken within settlement was established in the and most notably at Kedleston. the minor valley sides. Anglo-Saxon period, as indicated Kedleston Hall, set within the Estate by the place name evidence and the Farmlands landscape, remains Other Considerations number of villages already present today as one of the finest examples by the time of the Domesday Book. of a Georgian set-piece, the hall • The Lowland Derbyshire BAP and park both being designed by Following the Norman Conquest, Robert Adam. extensive tracts of land were set aside for royal hunting forests. Duffield Frith is a good example extending over a large area and encompassing a number of deer parks including those at Mansell and Ravensdale Park near Muggington. Park pale (bank and ditch enclosure boundary), earthen bank gateways, deer courses and other historic landscape features survive to give these former park landscapes a distinctive character. They also incorporate remaining fragments of heathland, particularly within Sandstone Slopes and Heaths at the northern extremity of the area. In the Settled Farmlands, the density of settlement in the Middle Ages was greater than it is today, as indicated by the surviving earthworks of deserted and shrunken villages, such as Hungry Bentley and Muggington, and the Winding country lane Needwood and South Derbyshire Claylands Character Area 68 Part 1 - 6.3 Needwood and South Derbyshire Claylands LANDSCAPE TYPE: SETTLED PLATEAU FARMLANDS A medium scale pastoral landscape on gently rolling upland plateaux. A sense of elevation with extensive views filtered by scattered hedgerow trees and small woodlands. Common/Brailsford areas in the Key Characteristics east. • A gently rolling upland plateau extending onto ridge tops Ecology • Slowly permeable, seasonally waterlogged soils over glacial till • Pastoral farming with some cropping Much of this landscape type is • Marl pits forming small ponds intensively farmed as permanent • Densely scattered boundary trees and occasional small woodland pasture or for cereals. The improved blocks grassland and cultivated fields have • Small to medium fields surrounded by hedgerows little ecological interest. Where • Parkland estates drainage is impeded, patches of wet • Areas of former common land with clusters of red brick and grassland with rushes occur. Small fragments of degraded rush Staffordshire blue clay tile roofed cottages communities are found in damp • Scattered red brick and Staffordshire blue clay tile roofed patches and hollows. farmsteads and estate farms • Extensive views over lower ground Terrestrial corridors in the form of hedgerows and small blocks of Geology and Landform throughout this landscape are slowly broadleaved woodland persist but permeable, seasonally waterlogged, these are declining due to This plateau landscape is strongly fine loam over clayey soils. The agricultural intensification and field influenced by the underlying gentle relief associated with this amalgamation, most noticeably in geology with reddish till (glacial landscape type ensures that there is the Shirley Common/Brailsford drift) overlaying Palaeozoic and little run-off, so the slowly permeable areas. Mesozoic Sandstone and Shales for soils are waterlogged for long the most part. This occurs as a periods in the winter and are then Where the underlying sandstone is series of "fingers" or narrow ridges inaccessible to stock and machinery. closer to the surface, there are extending southwards from the significant patches of bracken in higher plateau between the gentle This is moderately good mixed hedgerows and along road verges. valleys of the Spinneyford Brook, farmland although dairying and The network of lanes around Bradley Wyaston Brook and Cubley Brook. improved grassland and leys is particularly rich in bracken. dominate. Autumn sown crops of The many marl pits support valuable Soils and Land-Use wheat, barley and oil-seed rape are found throughout this type, but base-rich wetland communities. principally in the Bradley and Shirley Older pastures, particularly if