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Landscape with Prehistoric Hill Figure: Planning Policy, the White Horse, and Uffington

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Landscape with Prehistoric Hill Figure: Planning Policy, the White Horse, and Uffington Landscape with Prehistoric Hill Figure: Planning Policy, the White Horse, and Uffington Dr Evelyne Godfrey, Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden, [email protected] Uffington in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England, is the N site of the eponymous Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age transition chalk hill figure (left, images from Miles et al. 2003). There is a Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, southern England surrounding complex of Neolithic to Roman remains. Since 2011, the local Planning Authority has failed to adopt a Local Plan; 10025 m m without this, the District Council argue they are powerless to challenge developers' applications, even when building destroys or damages the natural or historic environment. The District Council is White Horse White Horse proposing in its 2014 Draft Local Plan to allow building of several thousand houses on greenbelt and on the North Wessex Downs UFFINGTON IA Hillfort ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’, which overlaps the Ridgeway IA Hillfort (a prehistoric E-W thoroughfare of southern England) and its Area location (after map of Tingle 1991). The Ridgeway route follows edge of chalk uplands extensive archaeological complex. The lack of a Local Plan, combined with an economically-motivated "presumption in favour of development" in current English planning policy, has left the district open to applications that would previously have been refused. Permission has already been granted to build a housing estate on the medieval common land of the village of Uffington, a site that has seen the same agricultural use for the past thousand years. Earlier Roman and Iron Age activity has been identified on the Common site. There was a Roman villa ca. 2 miles SW; ca. 1 mile SE, finds and place-name evidence (Fawler = Anglo-Saxon “false floor”, i.e. mosaic, according to Gelling 1973) suggest another Roman villa. The modern settlement area was established ca. 950 AD (Gelling 1979). In 2013, Uffington consisted of 324 households; as such it is classed as a Larger Village by the District Council, who have suggested it is suitable for expansion by ca. 236 houses (i.e. a 72% increase in households, with no infrastructure proposed) over the next 17 years. Around 1 mile NW of the Common site, an IA settlement with many pits, ditches, and roundhouses was identified by crop marks, magnetometer survey, and limited excavation. This lies just outside of the modern village area, in direct line of sight of the White Horse and IA hillfort. This site, like the medieval common, is not protected by any heritage asset designation. The IA hillfort on White Horse Hill typically shows no habitation, and may have served as the refuge/meeting place for the IA settlement of Uffington. The prehistoric White Horse-burial mounds-Ridgeway Route-IA hillfort-and contemporary IA settlement in the village below form an exceptional, perhaps unique heritage landscape. The maps to the right (1947 OS map and Anglo-Saxon Charter boundaries after Hooke 1987) show how significant heritage sites are spread across the parishes of Uffington, Woolstone, and Compton Beauchamp. Only a selection are highlighted; Uffington alone has 107 HER entries. Railway line The European Landscape Convention (ELC) should be integrated Old Canal Iron Age settlement site of Uffington: ca. 25 into mainstream planning policy, but this does not appear to be the roundhouses, many 10-15 m diameter, were seen in oblique aerial photographs in 1997 (left, with practice in England. Uffington provides an ideal test-case for approximate scale) and geophysics plot (right, from implementation of the ELC, and promotion of truly sustainable Cooper & Smith 2004) from the 2002 investigation. The field has been included in aerial photograph development that mitigates damage to our common patrimony. In series on average every 5 years since 1942. Faint crop marks first appeared in 1995, were clear in addition, it is proposed that Uffington seek UNESCO World Heritage 1997, but no longer visible in 1999. Excavation Site status, as this introduces recognised planning constraints to confirmed Early to Middle Iron Age habitation (Hardy 2003), contemporary with the active use of provide the un-built upon landscape with a heritage asset the hillfort. 100 m Both images ©English Heritage designation. Currently just discrete structures within the landscape References Cooper, J. and Smith, S. (2004) The White Horse and the Village of Uffington, (Local Heritage Initiative) - e.g. the hillfort and chalk Horse figure itself, and the 1970 Gelling, M. (1979) Early Charters of the Thames Valley (Leicester University Press) Gelling, M. (1973-76) The Place-names of Berkshire: Pt. 1-3 (Cambridge University Press) Conservation Area in the modern settlement - are to some extent Hardy, A. (2003) Uffington Village Project 2002: archaeological interim report, unpublished report, Oxford Archaeology Hooke, D. (1987) "Anglo-Saxon Estates in the Vale of the White Horse", Oxoniensia vol. 52, pp 129-143 safeguarded. However, significant sites, and the “intangible cultural Miles, D., Palmer, S., Lock, G., Gosden, C., Cromarty, A.M. (2003) Uffington White Horse and its Landscape: Investigations 1989-95, Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph 18 (Oxford Archaeology and OUSA) heritage” of the rural environment, are not protected. Tingle, M. (1991) The Vale of the White Horse Survey (British Archaeological Reports, British Series 218) .
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