PART 4: Landscape Character Assessment of Exmoor
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Exmoor Landscape Character Assessment 2017 PART 4: Landscape Character Assessment of Exmoor 59 Consultation Draft, May 2017 Fiona Fyfe Associates Exmoor Landscape Character Assessment 2017 PART 4: LANDSCAPE CHARACTER ASSESSMENT OF EXMOOR Landscape Character Types and Areas Landscape Character Assessment 4.1 Exmoor’s Landscape Character Types and Areas Landscape Character Type (LCT) Landscape Character Area (LCA) A: High Coastal Heaths A1: Holdstone Down and Trentishoe A2: Valley of Rocks A3: The Foreland A4: North Hill B: High Wooded Coast Combes and Cleaves B1: Heddon’s Mouth B2: Woody Bay B3: Lyn B4: Culbone - Horner B5: Bossington B6: Culver Cliff C: Low Farmed Coast and Marsh C1: Porlock D: Open Moorland D1: Northern D2: Southern D3: Winsford Hill D4: Haddon Hill E: Farmed and Settled Vale E1 Porlock – Dunster - Minehead F: Enclosed Farmed Hills with Commons F1: Northern F2: Southern F3: Eastern G: Incised Wooded Valleys G1: Bray G2: Mole G3: Barle G4: Exe G5: Haddeo G6: Avill H: Plantation (with Heathland) Hills H1: Croydon and Grabbist I: Wooded and Farmed Hills with Combes I1: The Brendons 60 Fiona Fyfe Associates Consultation Draft, May 2017 Exmoor Landscape Character Assessment 2017 PART 4: LANDSCAPE CHARACTER ASSESSMENT OF EXMOOR Landscape Character Types and Areas Map 5: Landscape Character Types and Areas within Exmoor National Park 61 Consultation Draft, May 2017 Fiona Fyfe Associates Exmoor Landscape Character Assessment 2017 PART 4: LANDSCAPE CHARACTER ASSESSMENT OF EXMOOR Landscape Character Types and Areas Landscape Character Types Landscape Character Types are distinct types of landscape that are relatively homogenous in character. They are generic in nature in that they may occur in different areas...but wherever they occur they share broadly similar combinations of geology, topography, drainage patterns, vegetation, historical land use, and settlement pattern1. 4.1.1 As shown in Map 5 and the accompanying table, Exmoor contains an intricate and unique mix of distinctive landscape types including moorland, farmland and woodland. The 2007 Exmoor Landscape Character Assessment identified, mapped and described nine distinctive Landscape Character Types (LCTs) within Exmoor National Park. 4.1.2 The remainder of Part 4 contains a series of profiles which describe each of the Landscape Character Types in detail, including descriptions of the Landscape Character Areas within them. Each of the nine Landscape Character Type profiles contains the following sections: • Summary description • Location map • Key characteristics • Natural landscape features • Historic landscape features and the built environment • Landscape perceptions and cultural associations • Natural Assets and ecosystem services • Landscape Character Areas within the Landscape Character Type • Seascape Character Areas associated with the Landscape Character Type • Strength of landscape character and landscape condition • Forces for change and landscape sensitivities • Landscape management recommendations • Specific planning guidelines Landscape Character Areas Landscape Character Areas are single unique areas which are the discrete geographical areas of a particular landscape type. Each area has its own individual character and identity, even though it shares the same generic characteristics with other types2. 4.1.3 The nine LCTs were subdivided into unique Landscape Character Areas (LCAs), each with a distinctive sense of place. These divisions have worked well in practice and therefore are being retained in this update. The only boundary change resulting from this update was the splitting of LCT F into three LCAs when it was formerly two very large ones, creating twenty-seven LCAs in total, as shown on Map 5, and in the accompanying table. 1 An Approach to Landscape Character Assessment (Natural England, 2014) p.54. 2 An Approach to Landscape Character Assessment (Natural England, 2014) p. 54. 62 Fiona Fyfe Associates Consultation Draft, May 2017 Exmoor Landscape Character Assessment 2017 PART 4: LANDSCAPE CHARACTER ASSESSMENT OF EXMOOR Landscape Character Types and Areas Beech Hedge, Exmoor by Rosina Woodthorpe, Image ©Rosina Woodthorpe 63 Consultation Draft, May 2017 Fiona Fyfe Associates Exmoor Landscape Character Assessment 2017 PART 4: LANDSCAPE CHARACTER ASSESSMENT OF EXMOOR High Coastal Heaths Landscape Character Type A Landscape Character Type A: High Coastal Heaths Holdstone Down and Elwill Bay coast, looking towards Heddon’s Mouth from Great Hangman Summary Description This relatively small Landscape Character Type (LCT) is located along the northern coast of Exmoor. Although it is not continuous, it extends from the western edge of the National Park at Wild Pear Beach to the eastern end above Minehead. It comprises high, rocky cliffs capped with coastal heath and grassland. It is interspersed along the coast by the High Wooded Coast, Combes and Cleaves LCT, and Low Farmed Coast and Marsh LCT, and is backed inland by the Enclosed Farmed Hills with Commons LCT and the Farmed and Settled Vale LCT. Settlement is limited to occasional houses on Trentishoe Down, and there are few other buildings, although the archaeology is rich and varied. This strikingly beautiful landscape is one of the few places in England where heather moorland meets the sea, and therefore has a very strong sense of place. The purple of the heather and yellow of the gorse gives way to the rugged coastline of high, steep, rocky cliffs. This is a dramatic, open and expansive landscape with big skies, creating a sense of exhilaration. There are long views along the coast and out to sea across the Bristol Channel to South Wales. The sweeping views inland are dominated by patchwork fields with wooded valleys and a backdrop of smooth moors. There are four Landscape Character Areas (LCAs) within this LCT, each representing a separate area of coastal heath. This Landscape Character Type (LCT) is also within six Seascape Character Areas (SCAs) identified in the Seascape Character Assessment. 64 Fiona Fyfe Associates Consultation Draft, May 2017 Exmoor Landscape Character Assessment 2017 PART 4: LANDSCAPE CHARACTER ASSESSMENT OF EXMOOR High Coastal Heaths Landscape Character Type A Key Characteristics of the High Coastal Heaths • Underlying geology of purple, grey, • An open elevated landscape –the few green and reddish-brown Devonian scattered dwellings alongside the road sandstones and mudstones, visible in at Trentishoe Down are the only the colourful cliffs. settlement. • A distinctive landform of undulating • Stunning views from the LCT out to sea plateaux, rounded moorland hills and and inland. The LCT is visible in many steep, rugged coastal cliffs. views from the northern part of the National Park and forms the setting for • A largely inaccessible rocky coastline the North Devon Coast AONB. Coastal with hogs-back cliffs, small rocky bays, features (such as Hurlstone Point) are wave-cut platforms, coastal waterfalls, important landmarks, as are distinctive scree slopes and rocky outcrops. landforms such as Castle Rock. • Primary land cover of coastal heath, • A strong sense of elevation and containing a mosaic of heather moor, exposure to the elements due to the gorse, coastal grassland and scrub steep cliffs fronting the sea. The habitats. inaccessible nature of the cliffs creates a • An open landscape with few trees. sense of solitude. • Occasional stone walls or fences, but • Vivid and striking colours, particularly in generally this is an unenclosed spring and summer when the heather landscape. and gorse are in flower. • A rich historic landscape with extensive • The South West Coast Path provides archaeological sites from prehistoric, footpath access to the slopes and cliffs, Roman, and medieval periods, as well as and offers far-reaching coastal views. WW2 archaeology, and the Victorian • Cultural associations with the Romantic cricket pitch in the Valley of the Rocks. Poets. 65 Consultation Draft, May 2017 Fiona Fyfe Associates Exmoor Landscape Character Assessment 2017 PART 4: LANDSCAPE CHARACTER ASSESSMENT OF EXMOOR High Coastal Heaths Landscape Character Type A Natural Landscape Features Ranging in elevation from 0-442m AOD, this landscape type has a strong and dramatic landform comprising steep and rugged hogs-back coastal cliffs (with coves and combes) that give rise to inland areas of gently undulating moorland plateau and smooth, rounded hills. There are also craggy rock outcrops, particularly around the Valley of Rocks. The coastal cliffs create an impressive coastline, with the scalloped cliff faces revealing the varied colours of the landscape’s underlying geology, ranging from red, to purple, to brown to grey. Exposures of Devonian, Carboniferous and Quaternary rocks revealed in the cliffs can be viewed from the coast path. At the foot of the cliffs are wave-cut platforms, sea caves and rocky bays with hidden, often inaccessible, beaches. There are impressive scree slopes in the Combes around the Foreland. At the Valley of Rocks, some of the oldest and most fossil-rich Devonian rocks in North Devon are visible. The dry valley with its flat stony floor and towering rocks above is thought to exhibit the results of peri-glacial processes such as frost shattering, but its origins are not fully understood. Rich semi-natural heather moorland comprises the majority of land cover within the LCT, interspersed with gorse and bracken (bracken being dominant on the coastal slopes). Parts of the coastal cliffs have only been recently accessed by climbers, so some