English Hill Towns: Some Further Steps in Appreciating their Identity in the Wider Landscape

Abstract

The notion that English hill towns can be identified as a particular type of settlement is reinforced and a systematic analysis of the characteristics that contribute to their identity in the wider landscape is undertaken. Fourteen towns that meet the working definition of an English hill town are examined in terms of four sets of characteristics that constitute their distinctive features: the continuing imprint of their origins, location and early functions; the influence of natural physical features on their founding and subsequent development; their morphological form; and the visual characteristics that are the medium through which their identity is mainly experienced — pre-eminent amongst these are a town's visual profile, its figure – ground relationship with the landscape, and its skyline. Groups of hill towns with consistent characteristics are identified, including ‘classic’ English hill towns. While the analysis is not directed explicitly towards the development and implementation of planning policy, the fuller understanding of hill towns gained through the analysis should enrich the policy process.

Keywords:

• Hill towns
• characteristics
• identity
• landscape
• groups

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for the constructive comments of three anonymous referees.

Notes

The term ‘group’ is used, rather than ‘class’ or ‘type’, to denote that this is an informal grouping of similarities rather than a formal classification or typology.

The characteristics could have encompassed, first, additional political, economic and cultural influences on the earlier formation of towns (see, for example, Muir, 2003), and second, specific additional characteristics in each of the other three groups: natural physical features, town morphology and visual characteristics. However, after initial scrutiny these additional characteristics were deemed not to have sufficiently significant effect on the identity of the town in the wider landscape to be included.

As well as posing problems for building, the natural physical features of hill slopes can also create advantageous conditions for settlement. Compared with flat land they can provide a range of potential benefits, including good ventilation, unobstructed sunshine and natural light, clean air, good drainage and a lower risk of flooding (Golany, 1995).

In this regard they differ from hill towns in Southern Europe, particularly Italy, which are hill-top towns.

• The author's earlier paper (Owen, 2003, p. 13) suggests that the distinction between figure and ground is created by a number of elements, including:

  	1.	colour—usually the greys and light browns of buildings against the green of the landscape;
  	2.	shape—the geometry of the built environment against the organic shapes of nature;
  	3.	texture—the hardness of building materials against the softness of vegetation;
  	4.	reflectivity—the tendency of hard materials to reflect light and of vegetation to absorb it.

A fuller grouping analysis was also undertaken, encompassing all 18 characteristics. This looked in turn at each of the four sets of characteristics in order to identify clusters of towns within each set that displayed consistently similar characteristics. These clusters were then examined together to see whether the same towns tended to cluster together across all or most of the four sets. The results showed exactly the same four groups as the simpler analysis, albeit that the distinctiveness of some groups was less sharply defined.