REVIEW ARTICLE Reappraising the British townscape: heritage and urban form Ian Morley, Department of History, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin NT, Hong Kong. Email: [email protected] Adam Menuge (2008) Ordinary landscapes, special places (English Heritage, Swindon, UK, 94 pp. ISBN 978-1-873592-89-2). Simon Taylor and Julian Holder (2008) Manchester’s northern quarter (English Heritage, Swindon, UK, 86 pp. ISBN 978-1-873592-84-7). Simon Taylor and Kathryn Gibson (2010) Manningham: character and diversity in a Bradford suburb (English Heritage, Swindon, UK, 108 pp. ISBN 978-1-84802-030-6). Michael Rose with Keith Falconer and Julian Holder (2011) Ancoats: cradle of industrialisation (English Heritage, Swindon, UK, 98 pp. ISBN 978-1-84802-027-6). The development of the English urban From 2000 onwards English Heritage has, environment following the onset of the through its Informed Conservation Series, industrial revolution has been investigated by been active in producing historical biographies numerous academics working within various of English provincial cities. By publishing scholarly fields. Detailed surveys of England’s texts on traditional market towns, for example post-industrial urban evolution have, for Bridport and Berwick-upon-Tweed, seaside instance, been put forward by historians such towns such as Margate and Weymouth, and as Philip Waller (1983), Tristram Hunt (2004), large-sized industrial settlements, such as Richard Rodger (1989), Asa Briggs (1963), Birmingham, Gateshead, Leeds, Liverpool, and Anthony Sutcliffe (1981) – a founder of Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield, English the Planning History Society (now known as Heritage has played a valuable role in the International Planning History Society). illuminating the richness of England’s built Whilst not schooled in urban morphological past. It has informed people of historical theory and practice the contribution of such design and planning contexts, and revealed individuals has nonetheless been invaluable to how the English sense of place affected not comprehending the transformation of English only local, regional, and national identity, but urban form – for example, on micro-morph- also the design of buildings and environments. ological matters such as housing structure and English Heritage has given those interested in plot formation, during the industrial age. Such historical environmental design a foundation to has been their intellectual impact that they appreciate how certain built environments have influenced a host of geographers, evolved during particular junctures in the past, planners, and historians interested in environ- and provided opportunity to comprehend what mental, legal, and cultural development. In environments in previous eras meant to those view of the broad academic interest in who resided in them. England’s urban past, in part due to the Historical buildings provide a tangible link country’s status as the world’s first industrial to the past. This gives them great worth in and urban nation, much information presently their own right, although in prior decades the exists about the character of buildings, spaces, value of old edifices and environments has not and settlements in the nineteenth century. always been viewed in such a positive manner. What can authors whose studies have been Since the Second World War British built published by English Heritage add? heritage has frequently been thought of as an Urban Morphology (2013) 17(1), 65-70 © International Seminar on Urban Form, 2013 ISSN 1027-4278 66 Review article impediment to urban change and renewal. As comprise narratives of urban change. By a result old buildings were often earmarked for presenting case studies of selected urban demolition so as to allow for ‘urban progress’. districts and in some instances entire Today, however, urban planners and municipal settlements, the Series bestows a window authorities more openly recognize the positive through which to assess the features and contribution historical environments can make. evolution of particular urban places. This is Hence many local governments now seek to not academically revolutionary. It has with establish dynamic living environments through reference to settlements such as Liverpool reviving rather than razing aged urban been undertaken by local historians (for districts. A new range of urban conservation example, David Lewis, 2010), social historians policies has become evident. Old industrial (for example, James Treble, 1971), journalists districts, for example, have become not only (for example, Stephen Bayley, 2010), reappraised but also protected. The physical architects and planners (for example, David attributes of historical environments have Littlefield, 2009), and geographers (for consequently been widely acknowledged, and example, Richard Lawton and Colin Pooley, accordingly pioneer industrial areas such as 1975). But the work associated with English Ancoats, a Manchester borough derided for Heritage has through its strong attention to much of the last century as a site of urban plots and typologies granted a fresh analytical decay, have experienced a revival of interest in perspective and shed new light. As a case in relation to their built heritage. English point, whilst the opulent, leafy suburbs of Heritage has been fundamental to this process Victorian England have long attracted the through its investigations and subsequent notice of conservationists and historians, such publicizing of the special qualities of the old as H. J. Dyos (1966), Donald Olsen (1982), urban environments of England. As Baroness David Cannadine (1980), and F. M. L. Andrews, chair of the organization remarked Thompson (1988), the ‘ordinary suburbs’, such (Rose et al., 2011, p. ix), English Heritage is as Anfield in Liverpool, have been somewhat committed to safeguarding Britain’s built overlooked. Far less, for example, is currently urban history. Books belonging to the known of the factors that inspired the Informed Conservation Series are vital to this construction and design of Anfield in course of action. Environments hitherto comparison to, say, salubrious Sefton Park. perceived as commonplace and uninspiring are Likewise little is known of how Anfield now being perceived to be of national cultural contributed to the distinctive townscape of significance, and to be crammed with distinct Liverpool. Hence the value of Adam architectural and spatial features. Menuge’s publication, Ordinary landscapes, special places. Furthermore, with reference to Ancoats in Manchester, the focus of Michael Urban transformation and housing Rose’s book, although much has been written of it as a site of urban deprivation, little Laura Kolbe (2012) has noted that the greatest detailed information exists of how the district’s contribution that historical studies have made urban form developed, or the standards of to city design knowledge-building has been the construction for housing types composed at historian’s curiosity in, and explanation of, different times in the district’s past. Whilst urban transformation. To recognize this point documentary evidence dating from the 1840s is to open the door to appreciating first the (for example, Friedrich Engels’ Condition of standpoint from which the Informed Conser- the Working Class in England, 1845) revealed vation Series has been composed, and marked disparities in social and housing secondly what this series can offer to the urban standards within the area, it was not until morphologist. Although the books are 2007, as Rose observed, when archaeological primarily architectural and historical assess- excavations took place that architectural ments of built environments they also evidence was able to verify nineteenth-century Review article 67 building descriptions of which contemporary and this transition led to a massive reordering historians had been hugely skeptical. For and rebuilding of urban space. From the urban morphologists the findings of Man- examination of Ancoats by Rose et al. (2011), chester University’s Archaeological Unit it is evident that new types of worker housing excavations are noteworthy. Early industrial emerged as a consequence of speculative housing has been shown to be grander in builders responding to the widening of the construction, layout, and provision of sanitary local economy and employment structure. facilities than previously thought. Later Furthermore, as Taylor and Holder (2010, p. houses were not only less well built, but were 17) reveal in their account of Manchester’s so densely packed together that party and Northern Quarter at the time of industrial ‘take gable walls were just one brick thick (Rose et off’ in the 1780s, notable changes to the social al., 2011, pp. 44-5). But why are such data on and environmental fabric occurred: what was Ancoats’s heritage important? As one of the once a high-class residential area developed on world’s first industrial areas, Ancoats has a a grid plan – a classically-inspired housing unique place in industrial and urban history. development of the type first seen in early- So to understand how its environment eighteenth century Bristol – was converted developed is fundamental to appreciating the into an industrial hub with a seemingly first urban industrial forms. disorderly environment. As part of this process The industrial age has in England’s cultural warehouses were built alongside the Rochdale narrative been characterized as a time in which Canal (completed 1804), cheap housing was a