39 - Humberhead Levels : Analysis: Landscape Attributes & Opportunities

Analysis supporting Statements of Environmental Opportunity

The following analysis section focuses on the landscape attributes and opportunities for this NCA.

Further analysis on ecosytem services for this NCA is contained in the Analysis: Ecosytem Services section.

Landscape attributes

Low-lying, flat, large scale productive arable landscape with large geometric fields divided by ditches and dykes; central areas generally without trees or hedges.

Justification for selection:

• These features mark the area out as distinctive from adjacent cultivated areas. The open, treeless but productive landscape reveals the relatively recently reclamation of the land from marsh.
• 43 per cent of the land is classified Grade 1 or 2 Agricultural Land.
• The network of ditches makes a significant contribution to the landscape character, as well as providing important wetland habitats with potential for improved connectivity

Variations in underlying drift deposits give rise to a mix of soils and habitats, notably lowland raised bogs of international significance, sandy deposits giving rise to heathland, and heavier clays giving rise to pastoral landscapes.

Justification for selection:

• Past management has responded to the underlying soil and drainage conditions, resulting in subtle variations in landscape character.
• Sandy infertile soils are revealed by areas of conifer plantations and heathland (as at Strensall Common), and bracken in the road verges; Skipwith Common is a National Nature Reserve and is designated SAC.
• The lowland bogs have developed their own specialised plant and animal communities, with two large areas, Thorne and Hatfield Moors are of international significance (SAC, SPA) and designated National Nature Reserves.
• Heavier soils give rise to more pastoral landscape around Fishlake and Sykehouse, with small fields bounded by hedges, narrow lanes and ponds.

Widespread evidence of reclamation and drainage history with an extensive network of ditches, dykes, canals and rivers, with flood banks, bridges, pumping stations and evidence of old river courses.

Justification for selection:

• 7 canals cross the area in addition to the many navigable rivers.
• 91 Scheduled monuments include several moated sites, and there are 1,552 listed buildings.
• Strong network of ditches, dykes and canals are visually very obvious, and also provide opportunities for access to quiet stretches as well as viewing the historic features themselves.

Important historic landscapes, most notably the Isle of Axholme with its medieval open strip fields, linked to surrounding turbaries and marshes; warps near Goole; cables near Thorne and Goole; medieval open fields and flood meadows along the Lower Derwent valley.

• English Heritage describes the Isle of Axholme as ‘a special landscape of medieval origin. This is the largest and most varied survival of open field strip cultivation in the country, characterised by nucleated settlements, extensive areas of narrow hedgeless cultivated strips or ‘lands’ often arranged in a contrasting patchwork of differently aligned groups or furlongs. Associated with the strip field landscapes are areas of peat moor enclosed from the medieval period onwards’.
• Cable field patterns similarly reveal earlier practices in cultivation.
• Warps reveal the connection between the farmed land and its reclamation from the rivers and marshes, and use of ‘warping’ (periodic flooding) to bring sediments in to enrich the farmland.

Lowland raised bogs at Thorne and Hatfield Moors, create distinctive wetlands with some woodland, with a strong sense of remoteness and wildness.

Justification for selection:

• The lowland raised bogs are of international significance, with Thorne and Hatfield Moors designated as National Nature Reserves, SPA and SAC. Important and distinctive wetlands associated with watercourses, including flood meadows, fens and wet woodlands, and intertidal habitats along the Humber estuary.

Important and distinctive wetlands associated with watercourses, including flood meadows, fens and wet woodlands, and intertidal habitats along the Humber estuary.

Justification for selection:

• Lower Derwent valley is designated as a Special Protection Area for its birdlife, a Special Area of Conservation for its biodiversity, and is a Ramsar site for its value overall as a wetland; it is also a National Nature Reserve. It is a distinctive riverine landscape, with extensive medieval open field patterns. Thorne & Hatfield Moors comprise rich combinations of wetland habitats, also designated SPA and SAC.
• The designations of SPA and SAC covering the Humber Estuary reach up into this NCA; the estuary is also a Ramsar site.
• Extensive networks of ditches and dykes to drain the area now form important connecting links between wetland habitats, as well as significant habitats and landscape features in themselves.

Clear settlement pattern with small villages and large farms on slightly higher drier land; large settlements of Doncaster, Goole, Selby and Bawtry.

Justification for selection:

• Clear and visible connection between drainage and settlement patterns over time.

Waterlogged soils hold internationally significant palaeo-archaeological deposits.

• An extensive example of organic remains dating from the Iron Age has been uncovered at Sutton Common.
• Intact palaeo-environmental evidence of occupation through time remains under the meadows along the Pocklington Canal, for example at Grange Ings.

Long views to distant horizons, with big expansive skies; the more robust semi-natural habitats provide good opportunities for accessing and enjoying the lowland landscape, and raised flood defences provide slight elevations to provide walkers with extensive views across the flat landscape.

Justification for selection:

• Although a relatively low density of footpaths, those routes that do exist, including elevated flood banks alongside watercourses and canal towpaths, provide good views and experiences of remote and rural countryside.
• The Trans Pennine trail crosses the area and the Peatlands Way provide access opportunities near Doncaster.
• The Humberhead Peatlands NNR is a flagship reserve for public access, education and enjoyment.

Landscape opportunities

• Protect the open character of the landscape with its long and expansive views, big skies.
• Protect areas with a strong sense of remoteness, ‘wildness’ and tranquillity, including Thorne and Hatfield Moors, lower Derwent valley, and lowland heaths.
• Manage and expand wetland habitats, including wet pastures, fens, reedbeds and, where appropriate, wet woodland.
• Ensure that the important network of ditches is managed to encourage emergent vegetation thus forming important landscape features and wildlife corridors.
• Manage the water table levels so that existing wetland habitats are protected and opportunities to extend them or create buffering pastures can be developed.
• Conserve and interpret the important historic landscapes, especially the Isle of Axholme, the Lower Derwent Valley and Thorne and Hatfield Moors, and the distinctive differences in historic management including warps, cables and turbaries, and the pastoral landscape around Fishlake and Sykehouse.
• Conserve, manage and expand semi-natural habitats that reveal the influence of underlying soils and hydrological conditions, especially lowland heath, lowland raised bogs, wet woodlands, birch/oak woodlands, fens, intertidal and saline habitats .
• Ensure that managed realignment sites, new flood storage areas or where flood defences are allowed to occasionally over-top, are managed to create wetland habitats including wet pastures that contribute both to landscape character and biodiversity.
• Ensure a high level of design so that any new or reinforced flood defences, or new irrigation reservoirs, are constructed with minimal adverse impact on the landscape, and provide new habitat creation opportunities where possible.
• Protect palaeo-archaeological evidence, especially within peaty soils, and the widespread artefacts and evidence of drainage history.
• Seek opportunities to interpret the particular landscape character and history, and provide opportunities for more people to understand and enjoy the landscape.
• Conserve the high quality and productive soils for continued agricultural production while ensuring that the agricultural landscapes make a greater contribution to wildlife, especially farmland birds, avoiding or reducing cultivation where there are archaeological features.
• Restore sand and gravel pits so that they make a positive contribution to the local landscape character, and enhance biodiversity interest.
• Improve access, especially where it is possible to link existing path networks and sites with towns and villages, and provide interpretation, to enable more people to enjoy and understand the landscape, its history and functions.
• Use appropriate local building materials and vernacular styles in restoring traditional buildings and structures.