Historic environment and heritage management projects, resources, commentary and analysis by Profs Ian Baxter (Heriot-Watt University) & David Gill (UEA)
Standing at the west end of the Athenian akropolis the viewer is faced with a dilemma about the heritage. The main entrance to the akropolis was constructed in the third quarter of the fifth century BC as part of the Periklean building programme. But the Attalid dynasty from Pergamon (in modern Turkey) constructed a victory monument on the north side. This in turn was remodelled in the early Roman imperial period.
So this Hellenic monument can be linked to a range of modern nation states.
This afternoon I attended a joint lecture on “The Landscape of Suffolk” by Peter Holborn and Edward Martin at Endeavour House, the home of Suffolk County Council in Ipswich. The starting point was a consideration of the soils of Suffolk, and one of the early publications was the Historical Atlas of Suffolk (1988) by Dymond and Martin. The lecture considered greens across the county, as well as the feature that 20% of all known moated sites in England and Wales are to be found in Essex and Suffolk. There was a consideration of hedging methods that are peculiar to Suffolk, and even the tracing of a hedge noted in a Saxon will.
Different landscapes were considered including parks and Breckland, as well as the coastal strip. We were asked to consider if ‘Sizewell’ has now become an icon for the Suffolk coast.
Wider environmental issues were considered such as the growing deer population in Suffolk, and the newly recognised ash disease (discussed on Today earlier in the day).
The lecture closed with a series of challenges such as the appearance of pylons and wind turbines in the landscape, as well as the conversion of traditional buildings.
Hello, we’ve got some exciting plans at UCS to develop heritage as a new subject area within the university. UCS is small enough to be able to do things a little differently, having been created by UEA and Essex just five years ago as a new university to establish a permanent higher education institution within Suffolk. David Gill was appointed just over a year ago as Professor of Archaeological Heritage and head of the Humanities Division in the School of Arts & Humanities, and I was appointed just over a month ago to head up a division within the School of Business, Leadership & Enterprise, which I haven’t quite sorted the name out of.. It has focused to date on tourism, events and hospitality, but given the wonderful waterfront location of the campus, and the team’s ambitions for the subject area (to date led by the tourism degree suite leader, Anita Beresford-Webb), I am subtly morphing the name into a division of tourism and heritage. Anyway, over the past month David and I have been hatching plans based on our academic and professional activities to work strategically together to build a strong teaching and research base in heritage management and heritage studies which complements the existing UCS provision in the two schools (faculties) in history, English, tourism and management. Much activity has gone on already, with Anita developing a foundation degree and Bachelor of Arts in Management of the Heritage Sector, many of our tourism and events students undertaking professional work-based learning in heritage sector organisations, and David being involved in a variety of public engagement projects, such as the Managing a Masterpiece landscape partnership.
We’re going to use this blog to chart our progress as we create new links and develop new ideas within the university and with the wider heritage community at a local, regional, national and international level, and we hope that it will provide an opportunity to engage with us along the way.
