Bringing Landscape to Life: Environmental Histories at Sheringham Park 1812-2012

The project will explore environmental histories of the designed landscape of Sheringham Park in Norfolk, since 1987 the property of the National Trust. The aim of this research is to build upon the outcomes of the PI’s Director’s Impact Fellowship to address current debates about the implications of environmental change for the restoration, management and interpretation of publically accessible designed landscapes of high cultural value.

The research will build on the outcomes of an established working partnership between the Director’s Impact Fellowship and the National Trust, and develop those with two related RECN projects(‘Local places, global processes’ and ‘Anticipatory histories of landscape and wildlife’), in a collaborative, teamwork research model of wider application for deploying arts and humanities perspectives on environmental change.

It will examine how a designed landscape can be conserved and displayed when there is no longer the economy and labour which once sustained it and explore the ways in which the mentality as well as materiality of this past landscape can best be communicated effectively to the visiting public.

It will take advantage of the topicality of the design, the bicentenary of its 1812 design by Humphry Repton, undertaking new archival, library and field research to situate the designed landscape of 1812 within a broader context of estate management of the time, to rethink Repton’s 1812 design in a way which will both raise its profile at Sheringham as a major example of landscape architecture and place it in a longer and wider environmental history of the site and within longer histories of environmental change: local, regional, national and global.

It will examine the values and narratives of environmental change which shaped the original design process, its symbols and story lines, compare the way the Repton landscape at Sheringham is interpreted and managed to examples of his work on the ground elsewhere and describe how a designed landscape can interpreted as lived in, worked on and moved through as well as looked at.

The project will deploy an understanding of Sheringham’s history to engage with the development of the National Trust’s policies and practices on conservation, heritage and learning, particularly in regard to coastline and woodlands.

The project will produce a series of related outcomes: a small public exhibition at Sheringham Park in July 2012, an academic conference at the University of East Anglia exploring the restoration and interpretation of designed landscapes for public understanding, a scholarly article on the practical and interpretative issues arising from the research on Sheringham, and a landscape and environment trail around Sheringham Park weaving together key locations and views on the Sheringham estate with their environmental and landscape histories.

Furthermore research materials will inform a chapter of the book Living Landscapes and feature on the companion website, as well as being made available for a new edition of the National Trust catalogue for Sheringham Park.

All project members involved in the collaboration will benefit from the research and from the inter-disciplinary process involved in its undertaking.

The National Trust team of employees and volunteers will also benefit from their involvement in the project, in learning from the methods of conducting landscape history and engaging with visitors that will be employed by the research team.

In addition to the academic beneficiaries outlined above, the research will benefit a number of other groups.

The research process and outcomes will inform future National Trust strategies for visitors and wider policy statements, aiding the process of ‘Bringing properties to life’ and thereby enhancing the visitor experience at Sheringham and elsewhere. The wider membership of the National Trust will benefit through the project’s influence on broad landscape management issues and interpretation. The National Trust cares for many of the nation’s most prized and enjoyed landscapes and the methods and outcomes of this project will therefore benefit not only members of the National Trust but the wider public too, by helping to rethink and prepare properties and landscapes for future environmental change whilst ensuring that the nation can enjoy them. Research materials will also provide useful background for a new version of the visitor guidebook for Sheringham Park. Repton landscapes in other hands will also be interested in the project’s re-framing of the designed, named, landscape.

Visitors to Sheringham during the exhibition (estimated to be on display for one month) will benefit from the enhanced content available in the Visitor Centre. The exhibition will be timed to coincide with the bi-centenary of the publication of Repton’s Red Book in July 2012 and will thus take advantage of a period of renewed interest in the site to engage with visitors to Sheringham Park and those living within the local area. The information displayed will be of contemporary relevance owing to the environmental change frame, prompting visitors to rethink how they interpret the Repton landscape within a wider landscape and environmental history. Sources of further information on the research project (including the web resources) will also be publicised on the display boards.

The landscape and environment trail around Sheringham Park and the wider landscape will utilise the existing structure of footpaths around the estate, but with a new downloadable trail available on the National Trust website. This trail will weave together key locations and views on the Sheringham estate with their environmental and landscape histories. It will explore Repton’s design for the park, whilst also highlighting those landscape features which predate the Red Book of 1812 and the changing nature of tree planting and heathland landscapes, both before and after the creation of the park. There is also access by public footpath from the park to the cliffs and beach at Sheringham, allowing the trail to incorporate material on the changing coastal landscape. The download will include some content from historic maps and other archival sources to illustrate the key themes of the project, which will be explored in more depth in the exhibition. As well as being available as a web download and mobile phone application, the public will also be able to join Dr Sarah Spooner on a guided walk around the estate, giving them the opportunity to use facsimiles of historic documents and maps on the ground with a landscape historian, exposing visitors to both the process and outcomes of research.

The National Trust team of employees and volunteers will also benefit from their involvement in the project, in learning from the methods of conducting landscape history and engaging with visitors that will be employed by the research team.