JCA 132 Salisbury Plain and West Wiltshire Downs
FGU Summary:
Salisbury Plain and West Wiltshire Downs are bounded by the chalk downland of the Hampshire Downs and the Berkshire and Marlborough Downs on the northern and eastern sides and by the Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase in the south west. The Character Area is almost entirely within Wiltshire, with a small part of the eastern edge in Hampshire. The dominant and unifying features of the landscape are the rolling chalklands, the steep escarpments and the attractive sheltered chalk valleys. Just under 30% of the area is designated as an AONB (Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs). It is a very rural area with just under 4 % classified as urban. Woodland cover is 8% and over 70% is agricultural land.
3 sub-units
Salisbury Plain; West Wiltshire Downs; River Avon and tributaries.
1.Settlement & Development
By Neolithic times there was extensive occupation across the area and it is probable that much of the tree cover had been cleared. Major Neolithic monuments include the causeway camps of Whitesheet Hill and Robin Hood’s Ball.
Prehistoric landscape of international importance on Salisbury Plain including Stonehenge, Durrington Walls, The Cursus, barrows and other monuments. World Heritage Site.
The landscape was divided up with boundary earthworks during the Bronze Age, some of these boundaries forming the basis for later land units. From the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age hillforts were built either on new sites like Scratchbury and Battlesbury or as enlargements of Bronze Age enclosures.
A major theme in this area is the continuity of use and division of the landscape with features ranging from the Bronze Age, Roman and early Saxon periods all being used as boundaries for medieval estates and parishes suggesting that many of the land units seen today reflect much earlier territorial divisions.
Roman settlement consists of small towns such as the roadside town that developed outside of the Iron Age hill fort at Old Sarum, a few villa sites and villages. Of particular importance are a number of examples of deserted Roman villages on higher downland that survive, in part, as earthworks. These settlements appear to have been deserted by the 4th or early 5th century. It is probable that most rural settlement in the Roman period followed the existing pattern with linear villages lying in the valleys alongside chalk streams.
The pattern of settlement across this area shares characteristics with that of the Hampshire Downs and the Dorset Downs and forms a distinctive area in a national context. Within these valley-based settlements there is evidence for both medieval planning in the form of regular property plots and the desertion and shrinkage of settlements. It is clear that along some valleys settlement was almost continuous and that the present pattern of discrete villages separated by farmland is the result of loss of some villages from the 14th and 15th centuries. There is very little dispersed settlement – most isolated farmsteads are the result of late enclosure of downland and the movement of farms out of the villages to the newly enclosed fields although more often outfarms were built on the higher downs and the farmsteads remained in the villages.
Salisbury, dominated by its cathedral spire, is the main urban area. Salisbury is a medieval new town created by the Bishop of Salisbury, moving the city form the hill top location at Old Sarum. Downton, a little to the south is also a planned new town laid out opposite an earlier Saxon estate centre. In the Saxon period Wilton was the most important town, being the administrative capital of the area and having a royal residence.
There are several important country houses with their associated parks, for example, Wilton House and the well-timbered historic parks like Boyton and Wilbury which lie in similar valley-side settings.
In the 20th century, there has been an expansion of the Ministry of Defence training areas. Military camps were established at Tidworth, Larkhill and Bulford. Within the area there are a few sites of pre 1914 airfields and related structures (Larkhill, Upavon and Netheravon) and the 1917-18 airfield site at Old Sarum
A particular characteristic is the use of Chilmark Stone in the south of the area which was often used in and a chequered pattern with knapped flint. The WylyeValley has distinctive buildings in a chequered pattern of knapped flint and clunch. Amidst this great variety, the churches are usually imposing buildings in grey limestone.
Cob and thatch was typically used for smaller houses, some farm buildings and boundary walls, the latter being a distinctive feature of chalk land villages in central southern England. In the late 18th and 19th centuries brick and flint was often used. Brick was used from the 17th century on larger farmhouses and by the 18th century was often used to re-front older timber-framed houses or for new buildings.
There has been extensive 20th century development around the edges of many villages. Military towns such as Tidworth and Warminster have also experienced high levels of development in the 20th century.
2.Agriculture
In the Iron Age and Roman periods the evidence of extensive field systems across the downland suggests that this was an intensively farmed landscape. It is probable that the arable on the higher ground reverted to pasture during the late Roman or Saxon period.
In common with other adjacent chalk downland areas sheep and corn have been the dominant agricultural elements since the medieval period at least. Open fields with common arable were located on the lower valleys sides with downland providing grazing for huge flocks of sheep. Through ‘folding’ the sheep on the fallow land (bringing the flock into moveable hurdled enclosures each night where they manured the arable land) the fertility of the soil was maintained and their wool also provided an important source of income. On the meadows relatively small numbers of cattle were kept for milk and fattening.
Although large areas of downland remained unenclosed until the 18th and 19th centuries, the enclosure of the common arable began by the 15th century and by the 16th century large farms were developing, often based on leased estates of major ecclesiastical landowners and through the engrossing of the holdings of smaller farmers. This resulted in the creation of some of the largest farms in the country and the rise of the ‘capitalist farmer’ who had considerable resources available for the rebuilding of large steadings, often including two or three large timber-framed barns.
The wealth of the downland farmer was largely tied to the price of grain and wool. During the Napoleonic Wars cereal prices rose and so the extent of arable was increased but falling grain prices after the war created great distress amongst many farmers who had recently invested large sums in bringing extra land into arable. In the later 19th century there was another period of agricultural depression across southern England due to falling cereal and wool prices. Some farmers looked to other farming methods, such as stock rearing or dairying, whilst others concentrated on increasing their corn production, this time with the use of artificial fertilisers, as corn still produced the best return from the light chalkland soils and so developed the open predominantly arable landscape of the area seen today.
Medium survival of pre-1750 farmstead buildings. Farmsteads are typically large and often arranged in a loose courtyard plan with detached buildings set around a yard. The farmstead could have two or more large aisled threshing barns. This area has one of the main concentrations of timber-framed aisled barns in the country that stretches to the east and south-east into Hampshire and south Berkshire. Free-standing staddle granaries are also characteristic. Staddle barns, a late 18th century variation on the threshing barn are found in the SE Wiltshire/W Berkshire/W Hampshire area.
3.Fields and Boundary Patterns
Enclosure of the open fields was underway by the 15th century resulting in often large fields that reflect the earlier pattern of strips with gently curving field boundaries. Small fields, similarly reflecting their origins as former strips, tend to cluster around settlements.
On the higher down regular enclosure is more typical with large fields and straight boundaries dating from the 18th and 19th centuries although occasionally areas of earlier enclosure are seen on the downland. Intensification of arable production has often resulted in the removal of hedges or surviving hedges are in poor condition.
4.Trees and Woodland
On the downland there is very little woodland – shelter belts planted around 18th or 19th century outfarms and farmsteads. Small plantations of beech or conifers. More woodland on valley sides, steeper slopes in combes and on the scarp slope.
5.Semi-Natural Environments
Chalk grassland
6.River & Coastal Features
Watermeadows are a dominant feature of many river valleys.
Water mills