Character Area Needwood and South 68 Derbyshire Claylands Key Characteristics fields in arable and pasture use as well as straight roads between regular blocks of coniferous and deciduous ● Rolling, glacial till plateau rising to prominent woodland give an ordered, chequerboard appearance. This wooded heights above the central valley. reflects the dominance of large estates, notably the Duchy of Lancaster. However, many of the deciduous woodlands ● Wide, shallow central valley. are ancient and some of the conifer plantations are on ● Gently rolling landscape in the north, dissected by ancient woodland sites. numerous small valleys. ● Frequent plantations and ancient woodland in former forest of Needwood. ● Varied hedgerow patterns: strongly rectilinear in Needwood Forest, irregular in the west, sub- rectangular elsewhere. ● Predominantly pasture with good hedges but some areas of more open arable with low hedges. ● Red brick and half timber villages with sandstone churches. OB COUSINS/COUNTRYSIDE AGENCY OB COUSINS/COUNTRYSIDE R ● Historic parks and country houses. Open, rectilinear fields, with low hedges, in arable and pasture use give the feeling of a neat, well-tended landscape, interspersed with attractive red brick villages.The area is sparsely populated despite Landscape Character its proximity to major centres and it has a rural feel. Needwood and the South Derbyshire Claylands make up an The land rises to a prominent wooded scarp above the area bounded by the river Trent and the rising ground of Dove, with a hilly but less wooded and dramatic landscape Cannock Chase and Cank Wood to the south west and by above the Trent. Attractive red brick villages with the wide Trent Valley Washlands with their dense sandstone churches and occasional half timbered buildings settlement to the south east. To the north and west, the lie towards the edge of the Needwood Forest, sheltered area grades into the rising ground of the Pennine fringes. It within the fertile valleys. On the higher ground there are consists of two main divisions separated by the wide more recent settlements at crossroads and a scattering of floodplain of the river Dove. To the south is land which at 19th century farms. Within the Forest, but more one time or another lay within chase or forest and is extensively outside it, there are large oak-dominated generally known as Needwood Forest. It is dominated by landscape parks. heavy, stagnogley soils derived from glacial till. To the To the west of the landscape of woodland and north is land with the red and pink soils of the Mercia parliamentary enclosure there is a large area of medium-size Mudstones which were more amenable to early settlement fields of irregular and sub-rectangular shape. Locally, some and cultivation. of the hedges have deteriorated but the small woodlands, Within the southern section, between the land west of spinneys and copses still give a predominantly wooded Burton upon Trent and Marchington, is the core of the character. As well as valley villages there are scattered former Needwood Forest which was unenclosed until the farmsteads within the irregular pattern of fields which is a 19th century. Neat, well cared-for, rectilinear, hedged much older pattern than that to the east. On the higher 96 ground there are occasional patches of heathland. Hamlets, Although the villages nearest Derby have been substantially developed amid commons and waste like Loxley Green and enlarged by post-war residential development, and there Scounslow Green, straggle along the winding roads which has been infill elsewhere, much of the landscape remains in the valleys are often sunk between high, overgrown deeply rural. Patches of ridge and furrow and the hedges. earthworks of deserted settlement show that it was once more densely populated. To the north of Dove there is a gently-rolling landscape, of predominantly dairying pasture, with some arable and a Physical Influences strong hedgerow and hedgerow tree framework. Brick and black and white manor houses and mansions of the In the south west, within the land bounded by the Trent, Elizabethan and Jacobean periods are particular features, Blithe and Dove, (the area of Needwood Forest itself), most famously at Sudbury. Woodlands are few but the Mercia Mudstone strata are covered with a substantial layer parklands locally make significant contributions to the of glacial till which creates heavy, poorly-drained soils. To landscape. The brick-built villages lie within the many the north and east the drift cover thins and the underlying shallow valleys, usually with good tree cover and Mercia Mudstone is exposed, with Sherwood Sandstone sometimes with the uniformity of estate settlements. predominating in the northern part of the area. Character Area 68 Needwood and South Derbyshire Claylands Area 68 boundary 600-800' 400-600' Adjacent Area 69 200-400' A Road height above sea- 52 level in feet B Road Railway and Station 5 A515 County Boundary District boundary ASHBOURNE A517 50 Osmaston A52 Staffordshire Moorlands Brailsford District Shirley A515 Yeaveley 4 Upper Town Amber Valley Kirk Langley District A522 64 Derbyshire Dales A520 Marston District A38 A50 Longford CITY OF Moddershall Montgomery DERBY UA River Dove Middleton DERBY Green DERBYSHIRE Stone A50 Church A5111 Garshall UTTOXETER Broughton South Derbyshire Green District Sudbury A516 61 A34 Milwich Stafford A5132 9 District Marchington Hatton A38 STAFFORDSHIRE 3 A51 Tutbury A518 Draycott in 69 East Staffordshire 3 District the Clay A50 River Trent Hixon Abbots Newborough Newton Bromley 67 A50 Blithfield BURTON UPON TRENT Reservoir A515 A513 Colton River Blithe A444 2 A51 2 SJ 0 SK Lichfield Yoxall A38 District Barton-under- Rugeley Needwood A513 Cannock A513 2 Chase District 0 10km 1 97 ending in hay. Large parks such as Bagot’s and Bromley remained, however, and are still evident today. The woodland was further depleted by the crown selling off timber. Yet there were still 9,400 acres of land which remained to be enclosed between 1802 and 1811. To the north of the Dove, on the more tractable soil, the medieval picture is rather different. Open fields were established around the villages and large hamlets and the frequency of settlement was greater than it is today. Settlement also spread onto the commons and heaths. Enclosure took place earlier than in Needwood and the area become famous for its cattle. Around its edges at Sudbury, Osmaston and Brailsford, and within it at Longford and Radbourne, landscape parks, on a more formal scale than the Needwood ones, were established and Sudbury is one MIKE WILLIAMS/COUNTRYSIDE AGENCY MIKE WILLIAMS/COUNTRYSIDE of the finest Jacobean mansions in the region. South of the river Dove, the former forest of Needwood is a rolling glacial till plateau dissected by numerous small valleys.The During the 18th and 19th century the area remained rural, irregular pattern of fields is predominantly under pasture and characterised by strong hedgerow boundaries. as it largely is today. The main changes have been the construction of Blithfield Reservoir and the enlargement of The Dove cuts a wide, shallow valley in an arc across the the villages at the edge. George Eliot’s novel Adam Bede is area westwards and then south-eastwards to join the Trent in part set at Ellastone, just outside the area, but reflecting which flows along the southern and eastern edges. To the its deeply rural character. north, the land falls from the Peak fringe and is dissected by numerous streams which drain directly into the Dove or via Sutton Brook. In the south, the rivers Blithe and Swarbourn drain southwards to join the Trent. Historical and Cultural Influences Evidence for Prehistoric settlement of the area is sparse apart from the barrows to be seen on the high land north of the Dove. Although the Roman road of Long Lane ran from the fort of Rocester in the Dove valley to Little Chester in the east, there appears to have been little non- military Roman influence on the area. Nevertheless, north of the Dove, the Anglo-Saxons probably found a partially- cleared landscape where their tons and burys could be established but the many leigh names (e.g. Shirley, Yeaveley) indicate that there was still some woodland. At AGENCY MIKE WILLIAMS/COUNTRYSIDE the northern extremity there was heathland and moorland. Large, oak-dominated landscape parks and fine country houses South of the Dove the only settlements recorded before are a common feature within the ancient Needwood Forest area. 1086 (except Abbots Bromley) were in the valleys of the three rivers and, although the area lay close to the major Buildings and Settlement Danish town of Derby, Danish influence on the landscape appears to have been slight. In the old village centres red brick is the predominant building material. The churches are usually constructed of a After the Conquest, Needwood Chase became the hunting variety of locally-quarried sandstones and only occasionally preserve of the Ferrer barons and only acquired the name does half timbering survive, as in the ‘most felicitous piece of Needwood Forest in 1399 when ownership passed to the of Elizabethan half timbering’ at Somersal Hall, or at Abbots crown. The barons encouraged clearance and settlement of Bromley. Around the edges of the area, where villages are the land, particularly the Dove valley west of Marchington accessible from the major roads, and along the Dove valley, where the green names are typical of late medieval settlements have expanded greatly in the post-war period colonisation. There was substantial clearance of woodland but in the less accessible hinterland they remain generally and waste, attested by names like Newton and farm names small and without much recent development. 98 Generally, the older villages are sited along the valleys or local character could be submerged within inappropriate valley sides near streams, as at Longford.