Keywords

5.1 Introduction

In this section, we will consider the broad issues faced in the management of the National Trust’s natural/cultural landscapes and will illustrate the contemporary challenges framed by climate change, economic problems and post-COVID-19 recovery with reference to their portfolio of heritage assets on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, southern England. It is pertinent to start this analysis by revisiting the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) definition of the World Heritage Site (WHS) as defined by their 1972 convention (UNESCO, 1972) which enshrines what we now recognise as being a false dichotomy between cultural sites and natural sites (Chapter 3). In the light of encounters with indigenous perceptions of heritage meaning in the landscape, particularly in the case of Australia, heritage practitioners and specialists working in the field today, rightly recognise the value of a nuanced ‘mixed’ categorisation (Bickertsteth et al., 2020). It is impossible to disentangle the natural from the cultural, and in any case ‘natural’ as a designation is a subjective cultural construct. As such we take the analysis of the management National Trust’s Isle of Purbeck portfolio in holistic terms, as a landscape of cultural value, embodying natural, historical and aesthetic significances.

UNESCO is one global framework for the formal management of heritage landscapes but of course in many countries there also exists national, regional and local configurations. Informal management and interpretation can also be provided by other NGOs (non-governmental organisations), such as preservation societies and even local tourist boards. In the United Kingdom, each constituent country has its own national heritage management framework for natural and cultural landscapes and also individual sites. We chose England to illustrate how these management systems interlock not out of any perceived sense of superiority that this is the best system, but it is the system with which both authors are most familiar. Site management is provided by the National Trust (also in Northern Ireland and Wales, there is a separate National Trust in Scotland) and English Heritage. We will focus on the National Trust below, but it is important to note that it is an independent charity staffed extensively by volunteers. English Heritage was originally formed in 1983 as a QUANGO (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation) to take charge of England’s archaeological asset portfolio (i.e. monuments such as Stonehenge and Tintagel). In 1999, English Heritage merged with the RCHME (Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England) and the NMR (National Monuments Record). In 2015, English Heritage was broken up. A policymaking advisory arm known as Historic England took on the role of maintaining records and developing heritage guidance, whilst the new iteration of English Heritage became a charity which actually operated the historical properties (English Heritage, 2022).

When we talk about the definition of heritage landscapes from the point of view of English policy and practice, it is important to stress that overwhelmingly Historic England tends to focus on the management of buildings and archaeological sites. The National Trust is more landscape orientated, in terms of both natural and cultural assets, as we shall see below. England of course has UNESCO World Heritage (cultural) Sites which can be bounded entities (such as the City of Bath) or disparate areas of landscape grouped under a common theme, such as the extensive patchwork of industrial sites that make up the Cornwall and West Devon mining landscape, or indeed the significant group of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments of north-central Wiltshire (Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites). UNESCO, the National Trust and Historic England are the overarching international-national management frameworks of English cultural landscapes, but there are also localised and informal frameworks too.

Conservation areas are designated by local authorities. They group together buildings and features that have a distinctive historical and architectural interest or character. Mainly found in urban and often suburban contexts, conservation areas seek to maintain the physical and intangible character of an area (quite how the latter is quantified is debated by planners and academics!). Conservation areas grew out of the context of post-World War Two planning and redevelopment issues. They were introduced in 1967 and carry significant implications around planning, development and even tree preservation (Larkham, 2003; Skea, 1996). Management of heritage landscapes also comes under the aegis of National Parks as well as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs), although here natural heritage (the aesthetics of landscape rather than the human imprint) take priority. Sometimes cultural landscapes can be conjured from intangible elements, linked themes or concepts. Long-distance public footpaths, for example, link to a long linear cultural feature that links and unites landscapes over a long distance (such as Offa’s Dyke Path, or the Ridgeway; Busby, 1996). Tourist boards too can create cultural landscapes based on personifications. Think, for example, of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Wessex’, an imagined literary topography mapped mainly upon the historic county of Dorset (Keith, 1969). Arguably, however, it is the National Trust that in England at least is the primary organisation for the management of heritage landscapes. We now consider how this role developed.

The Isle of Purbeck

The Isle of Purbeck is a discrete and defined area of landscape in the eastern part of the English county of Dorset. Not an island in the strictest sense of the word (more a peninsula), it is bounded on the south by the English Channel and to the east and northeast by Poole Harbour. To the north the River Frome forms another natural boundary. The only significant urban settlement on Purbeck is the seaside resort of Swanage. The main tourist focus is upon the extensive beaches at Studland Bay and the Historic village of Corfe and its ruined castle. The Isle is bisected by the Purbeck Hills, and geology has historically informed Purbeck’s prosperity, initially in quarried stone and latterly through onshore oil exploitation. The National Trust is a major landowner here, through the terms of a bequest from the Bankes Family of Kingston Lacey, and formerly owners of Corfe Castle. The whole of the ‘isle’ is in the eastern portion of the Dorset AONB. On the heathlands to the north, bordering Poole Harbour, there are two national nature reserves (Hartland Moor/ Studland and Godlingston Heath) and a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) nature reserve (Arne). The western coast around Lulworth impinges upon the UNESCO natural World Heritage Site of the Jurassic Coast, and on the south-eastern tip of Purbeck is the Durlston Country Park and National Nature Reserve. It is an unspoilt, scenic and diverse landscape of great individual character, which draws in a large tourist population across the year.

5.2 Managing Heritage Landscapes in the UK: The National Trust

The National Trust is the primary charity in England, Wales and Northern Island that deals with the conservation of heritage landscapes, cultural, natural and mixed. For many readers, it will require little introduction, but it is an organisation that has recently found itself at the centre of political controversy (an issue to which we return later as it has implications for some of the issues analysed in this chapter). The Trust was founded in 1895 as the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty and was from the outset an organisation that chimed with wider currents and thinking of the time (Chapter 2). The three founder members Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley all shared a vision to democratise access to the open spaces of England and Wales and to ensure the preservation of architectural works of merit (the Trust fossilised in its DNA a number of predecessor organisations concerned with philanthropy and what might now be termed widening participation) (for an overview see Hall, 2003).

During the mid-twentieth century the portfolio expanded towards the management and curation of large country house estates, gifted by their owners to the National Trust in lieu of death duties (a process vividly recorded by one of the main protagonists, James Lees-Milne, (1908–1997) Lees-Milne, 1975, 2001). This acquisition pattern was later widely criticised, ensuring the portfolio was skewed towards a certain type of property which became the archetypal National Trust visitor experience (house and garden of landed gentry fallen on hard times; Smedley, 2010). This had the effect of de-emphasising the natural heritage sites and also impacting upon the Trust’s finances as the upkeep and maintenance of these period properties proved to be prohibitively expensive. This is a mistake that the Trust would make again with its purchase of the Victorian gothic manor at Tyntesfield near Bristol in 2001 (Bailey, 2004).

Today, the National Trust manages over 500 historic buildings and gardens and archaeological sites. Access to these properties is free for members, and non-members have to pay an entry fee. It also owns almost 250,000 hectares of land, with significant stretches of coastline and many nature reserves. Access to open spaces is free. Income is mainly derived from footfall (particularly via catering and commercial outlets), subscriptions, legacies, donations and grants from a range of governmental and charity sources. These funds have to support not just the upkeep of the properties but also the wages of c. 10,000 members of staff (who themselves managed some 53,000 volunteers; National Trust, 2022a). Financial overreach is of course a key issue faced by many charities working with historic properties, and in the historic environment, but recent travails for the National Trust have included reactions to their attempts to widen participation further and recognise ‘hidden heritages’.

For the National Trust, ‘hidden heritages’ represent stories of individuals who come from backgrounds that have never been recognised in the heritage ‘canon’. This inclusive approach though has led to criticism. There was a backlash, for example, against the Trust asking volunteers in 2017 to wear rainbow ribbons at their house at Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, in recognition of the role in LGBTQ+ history played by its last owner, Robert Ketton-Cremer (Grierson, 2017). Flames were fanned by popular media further with the publication in 2020 (e.g. Starkey, 2021), against a wider backdrop of agitation around the Black Lives Matter movement and issues of contested heritage, of the report on the legacies of slavery in the National Trust’s historic properties (Huxtable et al., 2020). And of course even greater global events of 2020, namely the COVID-19 pandemic, also impacted severely upon the footfall of National Trust properties. Where business models were focused upon maximising profits from visits by non-members, and particularly tourists from China, the USA, Europe and Japan, the impact was shattering for National Trust finances (National Trust, 2020a).

The foregoing discussion has sketched in some of the key issues that the National Trust has faced in its almost 130 years of caring for our cultural and natural landscapes. Some are long-lived issues, others are part of the cultural moment. In broad terms, against a worsening economic picture in 2022–2023, recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, changes in consumer behaviour and also wider cultural currents (aka the ‘culture war’) this guardian of national heritage finds itself in a complex and precarious position. And these are only the human elements. The other elephant in the room is climate change. The impacts of climate change are already being felt in the National Trust’s coastal portfolio where erosion generated by storms of increasing strength and frequency and sea level rise are increasingly evident (Hancock, 2021). At Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset, for example, National Trust coastal engineers took the decision to remove sea defences with the express intention of not working against nature (a fruitless and ultimately unsustainable approach), but allowing a degree of managed decline. The maritime community volunteer CITiZAN initiative (Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeology Network; Chapter 5) undertook 3D photogrammetry of an old lime kiln on Brownsea to preserve it via recording rather than undertake active physical interventions on the structure (CITiZAN, 2022). This is undoubtedly the most cost-effective and sustainable approach to mitigating the effects of climate change on coastal heritage assets. We will now sharpen our geographical focus to consider a case study of cultural landscape management centred on the Isle of Purbeck in eastern Dorset, southern England.

5.3 The National Trust Isle of Purbeck Portfolio

The National Trust Isle of Purbeck Estate, including Corfe Castle, Studland Bay and Kingston Lacy house and gardens, forms part of a 16,000-acre bequest to the National Trust in 1982 by the late Ralph Bankes (the ‘Lord High Admiral of Purbeck’, 1902–1981) whose family owned the lands for many hundreds of years. This is the largest bequest ever made to the Trust. Located on the southern shore of Poole harbour in Dorset, England (Fig. 5.1), the Purbeck property is now managed separately from Kingston Lacy. Although, the majority of the 8500-acre Purbeck estate came through the 1982, Bankes bequest, there have been subsequent acquisitions which support the delivery of the National Trust aims to protect and care for places of nature, beauty and history. The most recent acquisition was in April 2022, Weston Farm, a small coastal farm on the coast at Worth Matravers.

Fig. 5.1
A map of the Isle of Purbeck highlights 14 regions. It includes Wareham, Stoborough, Stoborough Green, Furzebrook, and Corfe Castle in the west and Sandbanks and Studland in the east.

Map of the Isle of Purbeck (Niall Finneran/https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/50.6398/-2.0582&layers=O)

Full size image

Despite its seventeenth-century ruination, Corfe Castle remains one of the great medieval castles of Britain (Fig. 5.2). Visited by over a quarter a million visitors a year, it occupies a central part of the Purbeck ridge which forms a natural rampart across the centre of the island. It is virtually impossible to visit Purbeck without driving past it and it attracts a wide range of visitors, notably during school holidays, when younger families and international tourists predominate. The wider estate sits in a nationally and internationally recognised landscape area with the estate located within the Dorset AONB and all of the coastline within the Dorset and East Devon Coast UNESCO WHS. It also includes the key landscape features of Old Harry Rocks, Dancing Ledge and Winspit Quarry, some of the most photographed and iconic landscape features in the United Kingdom. The Isle of Purbeck, although not a physical island in the strictest sense, thus retains a very distinctive rural landscape character, the main routes in being via the Sandbanks Ferry from Poole to the east and via the A351 road from Wareham to the north.

The National Trust is also one of the major stakeholders in the Purbeck Heaths Super National Nature Reserve. Declared in 2020, adhering to the Lawton principles of ‘Bigger, Better and more Joined’, (Lawton, 2010) the 8650 acres area covers Hartland Moor, Stoborough Heath and Studland and Godlingston Heaths. With seven different landowners, including public, private and NGO’s, the richly bio-diverse, lowland heath is managed at landscape scale to common principles. The four miles of beaches that make up Studland Bay are the most intensively visited, with an estimated 1.5 million visitors each year. Just across the harbour from Poole and Bournemouth, private ownership by the Bankes family and its use as their summer retreat, prevented the development of Studland into a commercial resort. The Bay has probably the best-known naturist beach in the country with a history dating back over 100 years. The natural dune systems behind the beach are home to all six native reptile species and carry a full range of designations of national and international importance.

Fig. 5.2
A photo of a large castle. It has tall chimneys and several large windows.

Corfe Castle (Niall Finneran)

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The area was requisitioned by the military in both World Wars. Most notably Studland was used as the location for Operation Smash in April 1944. A full-scale live-fire, dress rehearsal for D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe, took place here. The legacy is of this event is still with us today: the ongoing discovery of unexploded ordnance in the dunes remains a significant issue. Although the visitor business is perhaps the best-known aspect of the National Trust, the responsibilities of the Purbeck estate include over 500 tenants and licensees, comprising residential properties, holiday cottages, farms, pubs, shops, activity operators, stone quarries, a golf course, boat posts and beach huts. There are also 26-scheduled monuments and 617 archaeological features in the National Trust’s care. It is a historically rich landscape in terms of archaeological sites and historic monuments, yet also has significant economic value through tourism.

The staffing of the estate, therefore, includes not only the visitor-facing teams familiar to many, but estate management professionals, building and rural surveyors, ecologists and a ranger team. These are supported by staff from the internal National Trust ‘Consultancy Service’, which include curators, archaeologists, project managers, commercial specialists, historic environment professionals and land management professionals. Overall, the business is a careful balance of provision of public access with, in some cases revenue generating opportunities. There is also an obligation to care and improve the condition of the cultural and natural landscapes. As a property with high visitor numbers, Purbeck produces an overall surplus of income, some of which is internally ‘taxed’ to support properties which might have very high costs, but less opportunities to offset them.

The COVID-19 pandemic across 2020 and 2021 produced some real challenges for heritage management as well as the wider national economy. The UK Government Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme ultimately protected many jobs. On a practical level, the repeated opening and closing of properties called for an agile approach, retaining the bare minimum of staffing to keep the estate safe and compliant with insurance conditions. Volunteers were asked to not attend during the closed periods and staff had to adapt to do what was needed from a much smaller team. National Trust projects were paused and expenditure reduced where possible. Although ultimately the number of compulsory redundancies were reduced to half that initially planned (National Trust, 2020a), there was still a challenging impact upon the morale of the organisation. Whereas the cuts were applied proportionally across visitor-facing teams nationally, the impact was disproportionately felt in those areas that saw huge surges in visitor numbers. In 2020 and 2021, when staycation was king, Dorset drew huge numbers of visitors (Mulcahey, 2020). Studland saw an increase in visitor numbers of 25% over 2019, but had a visitor-facing team reduced by 15%, due to no seasonal recruitment in 2020 and voluntary redundancies in 2021.

At the same time, cleaning regimes were increased and social distancing applied to all activities, which were moved outside wherever possible. Food and beverage outlets moved to a takeaway model and shop visitors were carefully managed on a one in, one out basis. Staff were concerned not only by their personal vulnerability to contracting COVID-19, particularly before the vaccination programme started in late 2020, but also by challenging public behaviour. Confrontation and outdoor defaecation were common. At the end of this period, both staff in work and those on furlough were affected by the experience. Some were understandably very tired and others found the lack of work routine difficult to manage and the return to work mostly welcome but exhausting. Close contact was kept with all staff during the period and staff were moved in and out of furlough to try to keep a healthy balance.

Early in the pandemic, in March 2020, the National Trust had determined that the access it could provide to outdoor spaces was essential for the well-being of the nation and announced that it would open its parklands and gardens for free. As visitors flocked to the sites, the Trust had to reverse this decision, stating a desire to limit the spread of coronavirus and the need to protect its staff, volunteers and visitors (ITV, 2020). In Purbeck, countryside and coastal sites were left open and were well used by locals throughout the closed period. The pandemic brought a new audience to Studland, being within easy reach of London and the M3 and M4 corridors it brought diverse visitors who could comfortably manage a day visit before overnight accommodation re-opened. Octavia Hill, one of the founders of the National Trust, was driven by the belief that everyone should have access to art and nature (National Trust, 2020b) and being able to do just that at a time of national crises, felt positive to staff.

The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrated the importance of membership to the organisation. Approaching the pandemic, the organisation was optimistic of reaching 6 million members. The numbers speak volumes for the relevance of the organisation to a large sector of UK society. Although the ability to promote membership was lost with properties closed, membership remained fairly robust. The 2022 Annual General Meeting booklet shows that membership fees account for the largest source of income. In 2021/2022 bringing in £280.1 million (National Trust, 2022b). This contrasts to admission fees which nationally brought in £21.2 million. It is this bedrock that has permitted the ambitious programme of conservation works to be picked back up at pace during the post-pandemic recovery period.

The current ‘culture wars’ being played out both in the UK media and also at the National Trust 2022 Annual General Meeting have brought into sharp focus a wider understanding of the core purpose of the National Trust (the term ‘culture wars’ is widely recognised but is here taken to mean opposing populist positions over climate change, identity politics and decolonisation inter alia). An organisation named ‘Restore Trust’ has fielded a number of candidates and put forward resolutions that are not supported by the Board of Trustees. ‘Welcome Everyone’ and ‘Climate Action’ are key themes that underpin National Trust work programmes which are well supported by staff and volunteer teams in Purbeck. The desire to inclusively welcome all people to National Trust Purbeck is reflected in work with the adjacent Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole conurbation (BCP) to understand potential barriers for ethnic minority engagement with the Purbeck estate. Forthcoming initiatives include an extension of the BCP, ‘Beryl’ public bike and scooter hire scheme to Studland and a ‘Bollywood on the Beach’ event in Spring 2023, working with the BCP South Asian Society. In Purbeck, the engagement team work with local schools to enable every school child to have an experience of the coast and countryside in their home area. It is critical for local children to be able to identify the area as a core part of their own sense of place, and not just an area for visitors to enjoy.

Climate action has also been key in local stakeholder work during lockdown, where Planet Purbeck, a local environmental organisation was catalysed on-line by the National Trust working with other NGO’s and community leaders locally. Two years later, with over 1500 members and an annual festival, the grass roots work carried out during the pandemic has firmly positioned the National Trust as a key member of our community at a time when climate issues are becoming ever more centre stage (Planet Purbeck nd). Climate change and its impact upon coastal change is an area of focus for the Purbeck property. Three of the four most heavily used beach areas are at risk of loss to sea level rise and changing weather patterns. Response to this challenge has provided grounds for disagreements with the local community, most notably at the 2016 National Trust’s AGM, where a group of local Studland residents brought forward a resolution requesting that a local beachside café, vulnerable to loss due to coastal change, should not be demolished. Although the motion was not carried, it led to several years of intense engagement trying to identify a sweet spot where compromise could be reached driven fundamentally by different views of how to respond to climate change.

The National Trust, although owning nearly 900 miles of coastline, agrees to management approaches (known as Shoreline Management Plans) as part of a wider ‘Coastal Group’ made up of the Environment Agency and Lead Local Flood authorities, typically based within local authorities (Gov.co.uk, 2022). The plan for the majority of Studland Bay is for ‘No Active Intervention’, which means that the coast will be allowed to adapt naturally to changing conditions. In Studland, this puts a wide range of facilities at threat including, cafes, car parks, toilets, shops, beach huts, boat parks and visitor welcome areas. In some cases, it will also change how the beach areas can be accessed. Before this policy was adopted, some coastal defences were put in at two of the beach locations. Whilst this has literally ‘held the line’, it has led to significant lowering of the beach height, as the hard stone gabion defences have prevented the natural action of the waves from releasing sandy substrate from the cliffs, maintaining the beaches to a constant level. The hard defences also create a pattern of scour in front of them as the waves bounce of a hard surface with retained energy.

Whilst opinions still vary as to appropriate responses to climate change, the recent changing weather patterns locally played out by two significant fires at Studland and cliff erosion directly caused by heavy rainfall have undoubtedly led to a greater acceptance that change is coming (BBC, 2021, 2022). The generally advocated approach of a roll back to higher and safer ground will be adopted, drawn from a master planning process considering the needs for public access to this area over the next twenty to fifty years. The decision over how to manage loss is altogether more complex in the case of Fort Henry, a World War Two observation bunker located at Redend Point and overlooking Studland Bay. Described by Rodney Legg as one of Britain’s most important relics of World War Two (Legg, 1990), Fort Henry is a reinforced concrete observation post built by Canadian engineers for April 1944, where VIPs watched ‘Operation Smash’ the live-fire rehearsals for D-Day, were conducted at Studland Beach. The VIPs reputedly included King George VI, Eisenhower, Churchill and Montgomery. The coastal change in this area is rapid and a no active intervention approach has been adopted. A 2021 detailed survey has shown that some of the structure is at risk of loss due to erosion within the next twenty five years. The actual timescale is much shorter, as if the structure is to be moved or demolished, the surrounding ground will need to be robust enough to take the heavy plant that would be required for such an operation.

Approaches to managing the loss of historic coastal structures due to climate change is a developing area of expertise. Whilst the process of seeking to mitigate the issues with Fort Henry is at an early stage as of the time of writing (Autumn 2022), the next steps will be informed by a survey seeking to understand the heritage significance using the Historic England Conservation Principles (Historic England, 2008). These include considering concepts such as evidential value, historical value, aesthetic value and communal value. The concept of anticipatory history, exploring ways to respond to climate-based landscape change, using history and storytelling to explore an altered future is also providing some excellent thinking to shape the next steps (DeSilvey et al., 2011).

The impacts of climate change and the pandemic in the early 2020’s have demonstrated that practical management of heritage assets is far more than ensuring their physical preservation for the next generation. How to respond is always complex. Whilst the National Trust is a conservation organisation, not all tangible culture can be conserved in the same state forever. Proposals for a future that involves change or loss are often challenging for those who value the item at risk. Engagement with local campaigns and resulting complaints, typically stoked by social media, are a part of the National Trust’s regular communications work. At a time of increasing ideological conflict being aired in the cultural sector, challenge is also received from some aspects of the media when the National Trust works in a culturally progressive manner on elements of history or intangible heritage such as LGBTQ+ Pride events or the 2020 report on colonialism.

5.4 Conclusion

A dry academic analysis of the role of the National Trust in managing heritage landscapes in southern England over the period c. 2020–2022 cannot capture the nuances of the human elements at play. In the short term, the COVID-19 epidemic forced a rethink on the way the sites operated on a day to day basis in response to different patterns in visitor engagement. The bigger economic impact is yet to be felt, surely, even if visitor numbers have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Climate change is making itself felt, not just in terms of threats to coastal heritage assets through sea level rise but also through hotter drier summers, which as we have seen has impacted upon the heath lands of Purbeck in the exceptional weather of Summer 2022. As a practitioner, at the sharp end of the management experience, these are ongoing challenges. There is also a wider cultural and ideological context at play which has seen the National Trust become a target for elements of the media and certain populist politicians. External consultation over change is imperative, which by its very nature will reflect the current zeitgeist. The National Trust, however, is ‘For Everyone, Forever’, and that is the context in which operational decisions must always be made. This is a message that both authors agree should not be lost.