Peopling polite landscapes: community and heritage at Poltimore, Devon
Creighton, O.H; Cunningham, P; French, Henry
Date: 8 November 2013
Article
Journal
Landscape History
Publisher
Routledge
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Poltimore House, near Exeter, Devon, was the seat of
the Bampfylde family from the mid-sixteenth century
until the 1920s. The AHRC-funded knowledge transfer
project ‘Community and Landscape: Transforming Access
to the Heritage of the Poltimore Estate’ researched the
changing relationship between house and setting through
a public ...
Poltimore House, near Exeter, Devon, was the seat of
the Bampfylde family from the mid-sixteenth century
until the 1920s. The AHRC-funded knowledge transfer
project ‘Community and Landscape: Transforming Access
to the Heritage of the Poltimore Estate’ researched the
changing relationship between house and setting through
a public heritage initiative that promoted the co-creation
of knowledge with local groups. Research techniques
included analysis of maps, estate records and pictorial
sources; geophysical and earthwork survey; test-pitting;
and fieldwalking. The designed landscape around the house
went through a series of previously unknown iterations
as the park was enlarged and gardens re-designed, while
accompanying changes saw roads diverted and farms and
estate buildings variously moved, re-built and abandoned.
Visual experiences of the house and its surroundings
were manipulated in complex ways as different elements
of the estate landscape were exhibited to certain audiences
but secluded from others at different points in time. The
case study demonstrates how the design of a post-medieval
estate landscape could be moulded by the ‘personality’ of a
local dynasty and mediated by local circumstances. It also
shows how integrated archaeological and historical analysis
of polite landscapes can reveal antecedent activity and
illuminate layers of re-use to these settings.
Archaeology and History
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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