Unesco Operational Guidelines

The Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention aim to facilitate the implementation of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage by setting forth the procedure for: a) the inscription of properties on the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger; b) the protection and conservation of World Heritage properties; c) the granting of International Assistance under the World Heritage Fund; and d) the mobilization of national and international support in favour of the Convention.

2. The Operational Guidelines are periodically revised to reflect the decisions of the World Heritage Committee.

With respect to Buffer Zones The Operational Guidelines state:

Buffer zones 103. Wherever necessary for the proper protection of the property, an adequate buffer zone should be provided.

104. For the purposes of effective protection of the nominated property, a buffer zone is an area surrounding the nominated property which has complementary legal and/or customary restrictions placed on its use and development to give an added layer of protection to the property. This should include the immediate setting of the nominated property, important views and other areas or attributes that are functionally important as a support to the property and its protection. The area constituting the buffer zone should be determined in each case through appropriate mechanisms. Details on the size, characteristics and authorized uses of a buffer zone, as well as a map indicating the precise boundaries of the property and its buffer zone, should be provided in the nomination.

105. A clear explanation of how the buffer zone protects the property should also be provided.

106. Where no buffer zone is proposed, the nomination should include a statement as to why a buffer zone is not required.

107. Although buffer zones are not part of the nominated property, any modifications to or creation of buffer zones subsequent to inscription of a property on the World Heritage List should be approved by the World Heritage Committee using the procedure for a minor boundary modification (see paragraph 164 and Annex 11). The creation of buffer zones subsequent to inscription is normally considered to be a minor boundary modification.

Excerpt from World Heritage and Buffer Zones International Expert Meeting on World Heritage and Buffer Zones Davos, Switzerland March 2008:

‘What is a buffer zone meant to protect? As with most management tools for the protection of World Heritage sites, a buffer zone is meant to protect the Outstanding Universal Value of a site as identified during the nomination process and confirmed by the decision of the World Heritage Committee.

In order for this tool to be effective, it is first important to have a well formulated Statement of Outstanding Universal Value1. It is also necessary to identify those attributes on the site which carry the OUV and the desired state of conservation of those attributes and the site as a whole. The authenticity of the attributes and the integrity of the site must also be well understood2.

1 See http://www.derwentvalleymills.org/index.php/world-heritage-status/statement-of-outstanding- universal-value 2 See http://www.derwentvalleymills.org/images/stories/pdf/Appendix_22_Values_and_Attributes.pdf

Excerpt from the World Heritage Site Nomination Document

Buffer Zone A buffer zone has been defined in order to protect the setting of the nominated site from any development which would damage it. Some secondary buildings or features which relate to the primary significance of the nominated site are included. Wherever possible, boundaries of existing protected areas have been adopted.

Special Landscape Areas bound much of the nominated site. This designation identifies particularly fine landscapes which are protected by policies to preserve and enhance their character. This and the developing Landscape Character Assessment for have informed the definition of the buffer zone in recognition of the need to acknowledge and protect the primary significance of the site as a cultural landscape3. Conservation Areas (designated to preserve or enhance areas of special architectural or historical interest) and Green Belts (for urban containment) are used where they abut the nominated site.

The boundary of the buffer zone is generally clearly evident on the ground by virtue of easily identifiable features, such as field boundaries, water courses or roads.

In the north, where the topographical relief is marked, a skyline to skyline approach has been adopted.

In the Belper area the buffer zone encompasses, to the west, historic farmland of the Strutts’ and the site of Samuel Slater’s birthplace on Longwalls Lane. To the east, where the ground rises, the limits of the settlement and the Green Belt boundary have been used. To the south the buffer zone is defined by field boundaries just below the skyline.

At Duffield, the buffer zone comprises the Duffield Conservation Area to the west and, to the east, the rising ground of Duffield Bank and Eaton Bank, including Eaton Bank Conservation Area. Further south the landscaped park of Allestree Hall, the former home of William Evans, provides the buffer zone on the western side.

At Darley Abbey the buffer zone consists of the rising land up to the A6 and A38 roads to the west and the land abutting the River Derwent’s flood plain up to the railway to the east. Further south it includes the Strutt’s Park Conservation Area, the Chester Green Conservation Area, part of the river Derwent immediately south of the nominated site, St Helen’s House, the former home of William Strutt, and Derby Cathedral.

3 A term defined by ICOMOS as representing the combined work of nature and man. Further details provided below.

Cultural Landscape

The current Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site Management Plan http://www.derwentvalleymills.org/images/stories/document_upload/DVMP_Man_Pla n07.pdf provides further information about the cultural landscape:

‘DERWENT VALLEY MILLS HERITAGE SITE: A CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

The Management Plan has as the second of its seven aims to: establish guidelines for the future management of the site, and the buildings and land within it, so that the special character of the cultural landscape is protected and enhanced. It also has as the sixth of its twenty-five objectives to: maintain and enhance the quality and distinctiveness of the Derwent Valley Mills cultural landscape.

A prerequisite for the protection and enhancement of the site’s “cultural landscape” is an understanding of what is meant by that term and also what constitutes the nature and qualities of this particular cultural landscape.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has defined cultural landscapes as “representing the combined works of nature and man”. Of course very few landscapes in the world, and certainly in the United Kingdom, are not of this nature. But it is a useful term to describe the lower Derwent Valley, whose character is very much determined by the way men and women have sustained themselves and their families by the production of goods through harnessing the river’s power, by the winning and processing of minerals from the underlying rocks, by the management of woodland and by cultivation of the soil.

The document which nominated the site to UNESCO explains how the landscape’s particular character is the result of “arrested urbanisation”. Whereas the urbanisation continued unabated in Lancashire, following the initial revolutionary phase of industrial innovation, in the Derwent Valley growth was much reduced after ’s generation. Even though Belper and to some extent Darley Abbey experienced modest growth, the riverside settlements retained their rural setting and as the water-powered mills declined their infrastructure of ponds, weirs and leats have become charming and tranquil aquatic habitats.

The whole of the World Heritage Site is a relict landscape where the natural relief and flora has been extensively modified by human intervention, the evidence for which is sometimes obvious, but often not.

At its northernmost the site lies within the fringes of the White Peak, characterised in landscape terms by limestone dales and limestone slopes. Here the Bonsall Brook, a tributary of the Derwent and a source of power for Arkwright, flows through a deeply incised valley, the steep sides of which provide the conditions for ancient ash woodland habitat. This part of the site is classified as ravine woodland. As a habitat it is of international significance.

Over the brow of the deep valley lies a pastoral landscape .Part of this (Rose End Meadows) is an SSSI. The sloping grassland is given a particular character by enclosure into small fields bounded by drystone walls. The carboniferous limestone on which the pasture lies was mined from Roman times for lead and the limestone itself was extracted for building stone and for burning, to produce quicklime.

The socio economic reason for the distinctive landscape of small fields, scattered with a large number of small field barns, is not certain. One hypothesis is that a dual economy of lead mining and agriculture allowed farming to be carried out on a smaller scale than would otherwise have been economically viable. It may also have been that the decline of lead mining coinciding with the coming of the mills made possible the continuation of a dual economy, with mill work to some extent supplanting lead mining and with pastoral farming receiving a boost as a result of the need to increase milk production for the growing mill workforce at and Masson.

Clues to former human activity include lead mine spoil heaps colonised by metallophyte (metal tolerant) plants and abandoned lime kilns. Also may be found coppiced trees of ash, once a source of wood for the manufacture of mill bobbins.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century the limestone gorge between Matlock and Cromford was admired for its picturesque and “sublime” qualities. The choice of design for Masson Mill demonstrated a desire to honour these qualities. Even though it has lost some of its wild grandeur the gorge continues to attract visitors by virtue of its drama and beauty. Views into and out of the site are particularly important at this northern extremity. For this reason the buffer zone stretches from skyline to skyline across the valley.

The White Peak abuts the landscapes of the Peak Fringe, characterised by thin acidic soils over gritstone edges and long shale slopes below, bearing extensive semi-natural woodland and permanent pasture for sheep and dairy cattle. A dense network of winding lanes, sometimes sunken, numerous footpaths and abandoned packhorse routes and horse drawn tramways pay silent testimony to an intensity of activity this landscape once supported.

At the base of the Derwent Valley the floodplain defines a landscape of riverside meadows through which run not just the river but also, from Cromford to Ambergate, the Cromford Canal. The area for which the canal provided transportation was much greater than the canal corridor, being extended by a network of rail tramways. These were horse drawn. In 1826 an Act of Parliament made possible construction of the Cromford and High Peak Railway which linked the canal to Whaley Bridge and the the north west of England.

On elevated causeways above the flood plain runs the main line railway which ultimately superseded the canal, together with the riverside road, now the A6, which largely follows the line of two turnpike roads which connected Cromford, Belper and Derby. These braided lines of transportation form the spine of the World Heritage Site and, together with the subordinate transport routes branching out from them, constitute one of the most important elements of the cultural landscape. The associated gritstone boundary walls, bridges, cuttings, tunnels, wharfs, aqueducts, culverts, retaining walls and footways are of considerable cultural and landscape significance.

Views of the site obtained from the road and the railway line are of particular importance. This sequential experience of views, travelling north to south or vice versa, is what constitutes for most visitors, and even residents, their principal experience of the site.

For most of the length of the site the presence of the river itself is the constant factor. At Belper and Milford the river bears the marks of considerable human intervention, with the creation of weirs, leats, culverts, mill basins and, to the north of Belper, a riverside park created from an osier bed. To the south, the riverside meadows abut the town centre. At Milford the valley slopes steepen again momentarily and the gritstone mill workers houses at Hopping Hill hug the hillside, following the contour lines of the valley side and utilising the slope to provide an extra storey on the ‘down side’. The land abutting the river contains twentieth century industrial development, some of which lies over eighteenth and nineteenth century water-powered industrial sites.

Above the riverside meadows, within the wider buffer zone of the World Heritage Site, the landscapes of the Peak Fringe are diverse and contrasting. The majority of the buffer zone is defined by the organic landscape of wooded slopes and valleys. On the valley side below Crich lies a particularly interesting area of ancient woodland, within the bounds of the medieval deer park of Crich Chase. The wood provided timber for lead smelting, which initially took place in ‘boles’ on the crest of the valley, from at least the 16th century. Boles were fired with coppiced wood converted to charcoal. Later smelting took place lower in the valley, where white coal replaced charcoal as the fuel. Over one hundred coppiced oak and sweet chestnut bear witness to the production of fuel. Within the woodland several Q pits, where the coppiced timber was dried in a kind of elementary kiln, to manufacture white coal, survive and paths through the woodland retain evidence of having been surfaced with slag. Shining Cliff Woods is another important historic wood, in this case providing timber for charcoal for a nearby ironworks in the 18th century

In contrast to the woodland other areas are more open and ordered in character, like the enclosed moorlands and gritstone heaths and commons. Enclosed commons are characterised by small clusters of cottages and roadside dwellings. Elsewhere sandstone farmsteads are scattered through the landscape. Some of the most arresting farmsteads are those built by the Strutts, who employed innovative building techniques developed for the construction of their mills and also highly organised modes of processing feed and animal waste, which influenced the layout and appearance of the farm complexes.

At Belper, whilst the town faced away from the river, the water meadows were utilised by George Benson Strutt to create a parkland setting to the house he built for himself on the hillside above the mills in 1793. Later a private carriage drive was created through this parkland to make the most of the riverside setting.

Towards Derby the heavy soils and the vulnerability of the river meadows to flooding led to the early abandonment of arable farming, leaving evidence of medieval ridge and furrow around Duffield and Allestree. At Duffield ornamental parkland extends into the landscape and generally the proximity of Derby becomes progressively more apparent. Once the river reaches the city boundary the flood plain has become very broad with the river meandering considerably within it. Beyond Darley Abbey the riverside meadows lose all semblance of nature, being manicured into parkland and playing fields until they get contained between urban development within the city centre.