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How Has the Gwent Levels Landscape Changed Over Time?

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How Has the Gwent Levels Landscape Changed Over Time? THE BIG PICTURE r ie ld A map of the Gwent Levels in 1830 o s SECTION THREE n a How similar is Magor and the countryside m SECTION THREE Design a commemorative o R compared to a modern map? p. 13 a Where does the water on the stained-glass window f o l a Gwent Levels come from? d Show off the Levels’ inspiring n a s Using maps, draw where fresh water landscape and wildlife features. e h t comes from the mountains. p. 12 p. 12 m o r f e r a s t n i r p t o o f e s e h T SECTION TWO Spot different periods of farmland across the Gwent Levels Patterns of drainage: which era does a certain pattern belong to? pp. 10 – 11 SECTION ONE What is still the same? PART ONE What has changed? Create a timeline tracking the drainage of the Levels into How has the Gwent Levels farmland. pp. 6 – 9 landscape changed over time? Images from bottom-left to top-right: Living Levels Landscape Partnership (2); Klovovi (flickr); Public Domain; Gwent Archives SECTION ONE How has the Gwent Levels landscape changed over time? What is still the same? Incredibly, the Gwent Levels look largely the same today as they did back in the 1700s and 1800s. The way in which the ditches (reens) drain the land and the fields, providing rich, fertile grazing for animals, means there has been little need for change. It has always been an area used to raise cows and sheep because the vegetation is so rich and lush. What has changed? While much of the remaining farmland remains the same, some of the land has been modified. ª There are new buildings, from farm barns to industrial warehouses. Many areas have been built over, particularly the wet marshy land on the edge of Newport. ª Newport used to be a relatively small town. In the medieval period it had a castle to defend the river crossing, a market, a mill, a few houses and a wharf. Now it is a big city. ª The Llanwern Steelworks were built in 1962 across a large expanse of the Gwent Levels. When it opened there were more Yoke Reen during than 13,000 workers and contractors on site. the summer, It was the first oxygen-blown integrated an important steelworks in Britain. While steel isn’t made drainage ditch on site any more, it is delivered in huge slabs. and habitat for wildlife. The hot strip mill then rolls the steel into a Image: Living continuous strip; it was the first mill to be Levels landscape controlled by a computer. Partnership Page 6 Part 1 | How has the Living Levels landscape changed over time? SECTION ONE The Gwent Levels landscape Chris Harris Image: Sheep graze across Over time people have stopped the sea getting to the Gwent Farmers have continued to graze sheep and cows on these the Gwent Levels, Levels by surrounding them with an earthen bank (the sea wall). fields, relying on the old, traditional drainage channels to keep in this case the However, water still comes in from inland rivers and streams, their fields free from flooding. There have, however, been some foreshore, as they have done for with water flowing down from the mountains and hills. In the changes. Some fields or areas have been drained further and hundreds of years. past, people have found different solutions to drain the fresh used for horse grazing and recreation, while others have been water off the fields, and maps and photos reveal evidence of this. overgrazed, stopping flowering plants growing or birds nesting. Cow dung and urine being spread onto fields helps the grass to The Romans (around 1,900 years ago) were some of the first flourish. However, this stops flowers from growing and it also people to start draining the Gwent Levels, providing dry fields seeps into the drainage ditches, causing algae to spread which especially during the summer for grazing their cattle, sheep kills all the other plants growing there. and horses. During the Norman period (around 900 years ago) wealthy landowners – including several newly founded Some areas have improved the land for wildlife. For example, monasteries – drained large areas of land. The monks in Newport Wetlands was once farmland. Holes were dug for the particular were creative engineers and cleverly modified the dumping of ash from the power station. This has now been dug water channels in fields, even crossing one over the other, like a out in places to make ponds and reedbeds for waterbirds. mini-aqueduct. Many of the fields found across the Gwent Levels look very similar now to how they would have looked 200 years ago. Page 7 Part 1 | How has the Living Levels landscape changed over time? A cross-section of the Gwent Levels near Goldcliff during the 7,000 years ago: invaded England from France. Over the next different landowners in order to create more Mesolithic Period (when footprints were made in the mud) Mesolithic period 200 years they slowly took over Wales, building farmland. The former tenants were offered a castles, occupying the best land for farming one-off financial settlement in return for losing During the Mesolithic period and living an affluent lifestyle. The Normans their rights in the common land. Many were Islands of drier land with oak, sea levels were lower. The ash and alder trees lived in big estates and took the best areas glad of the money; some, however, were paid land sloped down from the of farmland, leaving the poorer farmland and forcibly evicted from their former lands. SEA sea, and a hill at Goldcliff for the monks. The Normans also founded SALTMARSH formed an island within the This led to lots of social change. This was Occupied in summer monasteries, several of which held land on the by Mesolithic families wetlands. timely as the industrial revolution was Gwent Levels, and helped to build sea walls with access to food happening. Many commoners moved to and fresh water and drain the land. One of these was Goldcliff 1,900 years ago: Newport to earn money by working in local Priory (on the site of Hill Farm), which was the Romans industries. Moved inland during the winter established in AD 1113, and dissolved in the When the Romans arrived in 1530s. In 1850 the railway was built across the Gwent south-east Wales, they set Levels, often slicing through the middle of up a major British legionary fields. A bridge was built across the railway in Monastic lands (around fortress at Caerleon, with 5,600 soldiers. The Magor so that farmers could still access their Newport and Chepstow) Gwent Levels became an important place fields. for rearing cattle, sheep and horses. Local The monks were given areas of good wild birds appeared on the dinner table of agricultural land in the coastal areas, and 1900s to today senior Romans, including the common crane some poorly drained land in inland areas. Many areas of the Gwent Levels remain as (now recently back on the Levels after going The monks probably came up with the more farmland, although it may not be owned in extinct in Britain in the 1600s). An effort was sophisticated drainage systems, including blocks by people living next door to it as it made to partly drain the Levels, for example the ability to send one drainage ditch under once did. As fields have become available, through digging ditches, although large areas another without the two mixing. often when landowners have died without will still have been occasionally flooded by the tide. The Goldcliff Stone (displayed at Caerleon’s Roman Legion Museum) records About 500 years ago A general cross-section of the Gwent some of this work. (1400 and 1500s) Levels from the 1400s onwards A Roman-period boat was discovered From the 1400s onwards the during the construction of the large Tesco’s climate deteriorated leading to distribution warehouse in the ‘Europark’ coastal erosion, which led to SEA development (between the steelworks and the rebuilding of the sea wall Silt/clay FEN EDGE Magor). This suggests that a tidal creek flowed inland of where it had been. Lower land, wet, Land usually 2m below inland from Redwick on the coast to a wharf at reedy and peaty high tide mark, exceptionally 7m the back of the Levels where the boat had been 500–200 years ago till 1700s (below highest spring tides) SECTION ONE moored up. (1500s–1800s) During the 1530s the 1,500 years ago A timeline of monasteries were closed, and At the end of the Roman period sea levels rose their land was sold off (which and a saltmarsh once again formed across the is known as the Reformation). changes on the Gwent Levels. During the 1600s and 1700s private landowners anybody to inherit it, land has been broken up were experimenting with their farming into smaller pieces and sold to people further Gwent Levels 800 to 900 years ago practices. In the 1700s and the 1800s common away. Fields today have very mixed ownership, (1100s to 1200s): the Normans land, used by local villagers for fuel, grazing and which has its own challenges. and how the land has been other materials, was divided up between all the managed by people Over 950 years ago, in 1066, the Normans Page 8 Part 1 | How has the Living Levels landscape changed over time? Dr Jennifer Foster is an archaeologist who has worked at the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum.
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