7. Industrial and Modern Resource

Chapter 7: Industrial Period Resource Assessment Chapter 7 The Industrial and Modern Period Resource Assessment by Robina McNeil and Richard Newman With contributions by Mark Brennand, Eleanor Casella, Bernard Champness, CBA North West Industrial Archaeology Panel, David Cranstone, Peter Davey, Chris Dunn, Andrew Fielding, David George, Elizabeth Huckerby, Christine Longworth, Ian Miller, Mike Morris, Michael Nevell, Caron Newman, North West Medieval Pottery Research Group, Sue Stallibrass, Ruth Hurst Vose, Kevin Wilde, Ian Whyte and Sarah Woodcock. Introduction Implicit in any archaeological study of this period is the need to balance the archaeological investigation The cultural developments of the 16th and 17th centu- of material culture with many other disciplines that ries laid the foundations for the radical changes to bear on our understanding of the recent past. The society and the environment that commenced in the wealth of archive and documentary sources available 18th century. The world’s first Industrial Revolution for constructing historical narratives in the Post- produced unprecedented social and environmental Medieval period offer rich opportunities for cross- change and North West England was at the epicentre disciplinary working. At the same time historical ar- of the resultant transformation. Foremost amongst chaeology is increasingly in the foreground of new these changes was a radical development of the com- theoretical approaches (Nevell 2006) that bring to- munications infrastructure, including wholly new gether economic and sociological analysis, anthropol- forms of transportation (Fig 7.1), the growth of exist- ogy and geography. ing manufacturing and trading towns and the creation of new ones. The period saw the emergence of Environment Liverpool as an international port and trading me- tropolis, while Manchester grew as a powerhouse for The 18th to 20th centuries witnessed widespread innovation in production, manufacture and transpor- changes within the landscape of the North West, and tation. The cultural impact of industrialisation was most of the region was affected in some way by de- not confined to technological and infrastructural velopments in agricultural practice, land management change and the growth of industrial and commercial and increased industrialisation. The physical appear- towns. It also produced specialisation in farming, ance of the landscape was transformed as pro- greater land reclamation, the growth of leisure towns grammes of land reclamation, enclosure, woodland and an unprecedented plethora of manufactured removal and planting were undertaken, and the urban goods both fuelling and meeting the demand of ris- centres underwent dramatic growth. Environmental ing consumption (Barker & Cranstone 2004; New- degradation caused by industrial activity increased man 2001). Above all industrial economies trans- throughout the period. formed a rural society into an urban one with more The final phase of the Little Ice Age in the 18th and people in the North West living in towns than in the first half of the 19th century was less cool but seems countryside by the later 19th century. The wider im- to have been distinctly wetter. Coastal erosion ap- pact of industrialisation in transforming traditional pears to have been especially destructive during this communities and customary practices as well as the period with increased storminess, and several settle- industrialisation of the countryside and changing re- ments around Morecambe Bay are considered to lationships between rural and urban communities are have been lost to the sea at this time. Optical Stimu- key themes for the period (Walker & Nevell 2003; lated Luminescence dating of deposits on the Nevell & Walker 2004a; Newman 2004). Formby foreshore in Merseyside have revealed a ma- Archaeology North West Vol 8 (issue 18 for 2006) 165 The Archaeology of North West England Fig 7.1 Northwich Viaduct, opened in 1869, crossing the Rivers Dane and the Weaver Navigation (Cheshire County Council). jor erosion event in the 18th century when surface ties from the 1820s and by the intensification of deposits were removed to reveal underlying sedi- drainage to improve agricultural land. ments (Pye et al 1995). The period was also character- ised by some massive flash floods in upland catch- Agriculture ments and has been studied in detail for the North Pennines and the Howgills (Harvey et al 1981; Har- Previous reviews of archaeology and its research vey & Chiverrell 2004), but little work has been car- agenda in parts of the North West have not exam- ried out in the Lake District. This period also saw the ined the potential of the 18th and 19th centuries be- peak of lead mining and other extractive activities in yond the realm of industrial archaeology. The Archae- the northern uplands, leading to a variety of associ- ology of Lancashire (R Newman 1996b) exemplifies this ated problem. These included valley infill with min- approach. A review of the archaeology of northern ing waste; floods due to the bursting of dams provid- England (Brooks et al 2002), which included Cum- ing water for power and washing minerals; damage to bria, similarly gave no consideration of the 18th cen- lowland pastures and the poisoning of livestock and tury and later beyond the realm of industrial archae- fish by the process of hushing; and the deposition of ology (Linsley 2002). Yet agricultural change was material with high heavy metal content in surround- both a driver behind the rise of an industrial society ing lowland areas. The sequence and amount of pol- and subsequently was driven by industrialisation. In lution from the growth of industrial processes can be recent years significant programmes of work have ascertained through analysis of river silts and upland been undertaken in the North West that have exam- peats but, as yet, such studies have largely been un- ined some of the processes of agrarian landscape dertaken outside the region (Macklin et al 1992; change in the 18th to 19th centuries especially. These Coulthard & Macklin 2001; Mighall et al in press). have included the English Heritage sponsored North Watercourse pollution from human sewage and other West Wetlands Survey, which catalogued the history organic waste products became increasingly signifi- of wetland reclamation in the period and Whyte’s cant in urban areas during the 19th century, with con- recent review of parliamentary enclosure in the re- sequences for human health. gion (2003). During the period, rivers were heavily canalised In the 18th and 19th centuries one of the greatest and new water courses were created, affecting the forces for landscape change in the countryside was nature of alluviation and sedimentation in river val- parliamentary enclosure. In the North West this oc- leys and estuaries. These were further affected by the curred from the 1750s until the end of the 19th cen- construction of reservoirs to serve urban communi- tury. Some 483,000 acres were affected in the region, 166 Archaeology North West Vol 8 (issue 18 for 2006) Chapter 7: Industrial Period Resource Assessment about 80% of which were in Cumbria (Whyte 2003). local variation according to scale and terrain. The The impact of parliamentary enclosure has been fields are often large, regular, and square or rectangu- mapped in Cumbria and to a lesser extent in Lanca- lar where possible. Field boundaries, within a speci- shire (Ede with Darlington 2002) as part of those fied enclosure area, are of a markedly uniform char- counties’ HLCs. Unlike midland and southern Eng- acter whether walls (Fig 7.3) or hedges, with few land, most of the land enclosed by Act of Parliament hedgerow trees but some substantial plantations, of- in the North West was rough pasture held as com- ten to provide shelter belts. Access roads are straight, mon grazing between manorial tenants. In Cheshire though sometimes with sharp right-angled bends, the only example of parliamentary enclosure of open and often very wide. Characteristic features include fields was 126 acres enclosed at St Mary’s on the Hill public quarries for walling and constructing roads, in 1805-7 (Phillips 2002a, 54). Aside from upland public limekilns, culverts and bridges, watering places pasture, much of the land affected by parliamentary for cattle, and turbaries for peat cutting and in one enclosure in the region was lowland common pasture instance at Hutton Roof (C), a public coal mine (I as in the central Eden Valley (C) or peat moss as in Whyte pers comm). Though comparatively well the Fylde (L) and the Lyth Valley (C). Some of this documented, and an important and widespread fea- completed earlier processes of reclamation as in Con- ture of our upland and lowland marginal landscapes, gleton Moss (Ch) (Leah et al 1997, 156). In the Fylde the apparent homogeneity of landscapes of parlia- too parliamentary enclosure was only one element in mentary enclosure is deceptive. The transformation the reclamation of the mosslands, and its characteris- of upland and marginal landscapes did not necessar- tic landscapes are often very similar to those pro- ily obliterate all traces of earlier land use and their duced by enclosure and reclamation brought about uniformity at a broad level hides great diversity at a without recourse to an Act of Parliament (Middleton local level for example in wall and hedge construc- 1995; Ede with Darlington 2002, 106-112). The larg- tion between different enclosure areas. Such land- est single area of parliamentary enclosure in Cheshire scapes are starting to show their age and are now at was of the former Delamere Forest, where 7652 risk from changes in agricultural regime. acres were divided between claimants in 1819 Aside from parliamentary enclosure and wetland (Phillips 2002a, 54). reclamation, (Fig 7.2) perhaps the greatest impact on Parliamentary enclosure landscapes in the North the rural landscape during the Post-Medieval period West, especially in the uplands, are distinguished by a in the North West was the creation of new and the number of common physical characteristics, with extension of existing woodland areas.

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