Context 159 - May 2019

C O N T E X T 1 5 9 : M A Y 2 0 1 9 47 country where the investment in the landscape was so great that the owner became insolvent before the principal building was either completed or even started, yet the landscapes survive, valued in their own right by subsequent generations. It is probable that anyone involved in the conservation of historic buildings and structures will have been asked, at some point, to work within a designed landscape; instructed to address a problem facing the big pile of stone or brick at the centre of the site; accommodate a new use or type of occupier; or analyse and describe the impacts of new development. It is possible that in doing so they will have also been asked to look at some of the other features and elements that contribute to the setting of the principal building. On the face of it, these ‘other features’ – the associated multiple structures, vegetation, waterbodies, walls and path network – can seem, individually, of lesser significance than the edifice they surround. But without them, and in combination, how much is the significance of the principal building diminished? And how often is the significance of the designed landscape as a separate heritage asset really understood and considered in its own right? Add to the equation other types of designed landscape likely to be encountered within the conservation sector – public parks, cemeteries, institutional landscapes and commercial landscapes, for example – all containing a complex assortment of organic, built, natural and modified features, and the challenge of conserving and managing designed landscapes as a heritage asset type becomes manifest. Historic designed landscapes are almost invariably complex, often large heritage assets probably containing multiple layers of design styles from a variety of periods and tastes – fragments of previous designs incorporated into later iterations, added to, extended or reduced – and an array of component parts that are essential to the composition of the whole. A wide range of materials, both organic and non-organic, will have been used throughout and an array of construction techniques employed. This can make both understanding the significance of the landscape (unpicking the layers of development and their relevant significance) and prioritising conservation action difficult. Faced by inevitable budgetary constraints, the prioritisation of assessment, repair, alteration to or development within the landscape can become challenging, but inevitable. Queen’s Park, Crewe: publicly accessible, quintessential English landscape parkland