The Sussex Downs AONB

The Sussex Downs was recognised as one of the country's finest landscapes by its designation as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1966. This means that there is national as well as local interest in its conservation and management. The Sussex Downs scenery is particularly well known and appreciated, not least because it is found in the south east corner of the country, one of England's most crowded, pressurised and accessible areas.

The smooth, rounded folds of the chalk landscapes and the wooded sandstone and clay hills of the Western Weald present two strongly contrasting faces of the AONB.

The South Downs form a prominent long spine of chalk which stretches eastwards from the chalk downland of central southern England until it is sheared off at the precipitous coastal cliffs at Beachy Head. The chalk dips to the south with a north-facing escarpment which dominates the patchy, mosaic of fields, woods and heathlands of the Weald. To the north west, the wooded greensand ridges rise to the steep, pointed summit of Black Down and curve around to shelter a gentle, undulating farmland landscape of sandstones and clays. Low, flat-topped ridges, supporting an irregular mosaic of heath and woodland, add a further note of variation to the range of landscape types within the AONB.

Landscape assessment is a basic tool for focusing attention on the key issues involved in creative conservation and management. It is also a valuable means for encouraging a wider awareness of local landscape character and for stimulating debate about the best ways to guide its future protection and enhancement.

Landscape Design Associates was commissioned by the Countryside Commission in July 1994 to carry out a landscape assessment of the Sussex Downs AONB and this report presents the results of the study.

Local distinctiveness

The landscape assessment sets out to identify what it is that makes the AONB landscape so special. The drama of the chalk escarpment; secretive, deeply enclosed coombes; the steep, hump-backed stone bridges crossing the River Rother; hidden leafy sunken lanes. . . a profusion of local images and characteristics immediately springs to mind. They cover an enormous range of scales and types of landscape, yet all are important. Landscape assessment provides a means to analyse the landscape of the AONB in a comprehensive, structured way, specifically identifying the qualities and characteristics which make it special and distinctive.

Landscape is a changing resource and there is growing recognition that the process of change, if left unchecked, often leads to its degradation rather than its enhancement. In particular, local identity, ecological diversity, historic remnants and a sense of remoteness are easily eroded, often in an ad hoc manner as a result of apparently minor changes. By identifying and mapping variations in landscape type, the landscape assessment will help to formulate strategic management policies which will reinforce local distinctiveness, while also suggesting priorities for action.

The landscape assessment identifies and defines variations in landscape character across the AONB. The characteristics which distinguish each type of landscape are described and mapped and the report also identifies the key issues relating to landscape management. It is intended to form an essential part of the Management Plan for the Sussex Downs AONB, to be published by the Sussex Downs Conservation Board.

The Conservation Board intends that policies for managing the AONB should be 'landscape led'. Landscape is a broad term and there is a range of factors which influence and contribute to its character - ecology, archaeology, history, local culture, land management, land use and perception are all important. However, this study concentrates primarily on a visual appraisal of the AONB landscape; other historic and environmental factors have been considered insofar as they have a particular landscape relevance.

Analysing landscape character

There is a range of different techniques for landscape assessment. The approach depends principally on the level of detail required and the purpose of the assessment. It is helpful to distinguish between landscape types and landscape character areas. The Countryside Commission's Landscape Assessment Guidance (1993) CCP 423 provides a useful classification. It suggests that landscape types are generic, in that they may potentially occur in any part of the country, whereas landscape character areas are geographically specific and often describe areas with a distinct local sense of place.

This study has concentrated on the definition and mapping of landscape types throughout the AONB, with a view to providing guidance for landscape management and the basic building blocks from which further more detailed analysis of local landscape character areas can be drawn. The landscape types closely reflect the geological and topographical characteristics of the land which have influenced its cultural and historical development. The distinctive, recognisable sense of place associated with any one particular locality is often hard to define, and in particular to map, but it stems from a combination of physical and cultural influences. Within this study, recommendations for landscape management are specifically geared towards conserving and enhancing the special features of the landscape which contribute to such small-scale variations in landscape character and therefore to local distinctiveness.

The context for this study

It is important that this study is understood in relation to the other landscape assessment work which has been carried out within the AONB. Both East Sussex and West Sussex County Councils have undertaken landscape assessments, parts of which cover the landscape of the AONB. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) has also carried out a landscape assessment of the South Downs Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA), which includes the Sussex Downs AONB.

Each of the landscape assessments has been carefully tailored to provide information which meets the specific objectives of the studies and the resultant landscape character maps are inevitably different. Each study provides an analysis of different aspects of landscape character for parts of the AONB. All the assessments provide helpful and useful interpretations but it is important to understand their different background and objectives. The following notes are intended as a brief review:

• East Sussex Woodland Forum published Trees and Woodland in East Sussex in 1990. This study assesses variations in landscape character at a detailed scale and divides the county of East Sussex into local landscape character areas. Each is geographically specific and the purpose of the assessment is to identify and conserve aspects of landscape character which contribute to local distinctiveness and sense of place.

The published trees and woodlands study is designed to provide guidance for the management of trees and woodlands throughout the county. Guidelines are provided for each of the local landscape character areas. These landscape character areas also form the basis of the East Sussex County Environmental Strategy (unpublished) which is used as a working document by the county planning department.

The landscape assessment has been carried out by dividing the landscape evenly into grid squares and systematically comparing landscape elements between one square and the next on both an aesthetic and statistical basis.

• The West Sussex Landscape Assessment was completed in 1994 as a joint venture between West Sussex County Council and the Countryside Commission/Task Force Trees. Its purpose is to provide an informed basis for the development of positive landscape policy at strategic and local levels and to provide outline guidelines for landscape conservation, enhancement and restoration.

The assessment has been carried out by mapping and overlaying selected physical landscape elements such as tree cover, field patterns and geology to identify areas where the overall pattern of the landscape is consistent. The results of this desktop analysis were then tested and verified in the field. The final classification of landscape character was established by systematically sampling the county on a grid square basis.

The West Sussex Landscape Assessment identifies geographically specific landscape character areas which are broadly defined by landform, in areas where elevated ridgelines are dominant visual features, or by landscape pattern in lowland areas. Guidelines for landscape conservation, management and restoration are included for each landscape character area.

• The MAFF South Downs landscape assessment for monitoring was published in July 1990. This assessment provides the baseline statement for landscape monitoring in the South Downs ESA which will help to assess whether the scheme meets its overall aims and objectives. These are to encourage the continuation of traditional farming methods which maintain and enhance the important scenic and historic characteristics of the landscape and its valuable wildlife habitats.

The landscape monitoring programme is designed to give an assessment of the impact of the ESA designation on landscape quality, specifically focusing on the rural landscape as created and influenced by agricultural land management. The assessment describes the range of landscape types within the ESA and their key characteristics. The monitoring work to follow will identify any ongoing changes to the landscape of the ESA which affect its overall character.

The information within this landscape assessment has been compared to that provided by these three existing studies and was found to be broadly compatible in relation to both descriptions of landscape characteristics and the recommendations for management.

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