Description of the main features of the cultural landscape – example one

Description of the main features of the cultural landscape – example two

Overview of surveying themes 

Surveying and describing the historical themes given priority

Preliminary identification of cultural environments

The characteristics of the main features of the cultural landscape in an area are described in preparation for surveying. The characteristics include the topo-graphy and natural resource base as well as historical development up to the present, including special power relationships and economic structures and the significance of the area during various epochs. Other characteristics comprise the various main methods of subsistence throughout history and their vestiges, including agriculture with secondary means of sub-sistence, coastal economies, trade and (rural) industry as well as transport and infrastructure. This section summarizes the method of characterizing the main historical features through two examples.

Forest settlement with the manor in the foreground and the arable land in the background

Description of the main features of the cultural landscape – example one

This area is located in the eastern and fertile part of Denmark with a relatively mild climate and has access to two large fjords. The eastern part of the area is a moraine plain, the central part is a hilly moraine landscape and the southwestern part is a very hilly

moraine landscape with large forests. The fertile and relatively deforested arable land is intensively cul-tivated, mostly with grain, is densely built and has large villages and manors. The southwestern part of the area is distinctly different from the arable land because of the hilly landscape that makes cultivation difficult, and this has given forests and uncultivated meadows a prominent historical and current role. Further, the pattern of settlement in the forest area is very dispersed, with manors, single farms and small villages that are still relatively undisturbed by the march of time. The differences in the patterns of set-tlement and cultivation between the settlements with arable land and the forest settlements demonstrate the significance of the natural resource base for de-velopment in a low-technology society and are still prominent in the landscape.

The entire area has been influenced by numerous rivers swollen by meltwater from the end of the last Ice Age that have eroded the moraine soil and created an extensive river valley with its mouth in fjords. The river valleys, which featured wet meadows and flowing water, were significant for the pattern of settlement and extensive mill industry.

Water mill

This area has been described as the country’s seat of power throughout the late prehistoric era and Middle Ages. The vast natural resources of the area com-prised the foundation for dense settlement throughout the prehistoric era. The water of the fjords and fertile arable land as well as forests provided an abundant and diverse subsistence base, and there are numerous vestiges of human activity from the prehistoric era.

From the Iron Age, the area comprised a regional seat of power. The excavated remains of an impressive structure were probably the estate of a chief or king.

River valley in the arable landscape

The sagas of the emergence of the royal family are associated with the area, and in written sources from that time the area is described as the central holy place of the region. In the late 900s, this seat of power was dissolved, and the main settlement of the newly created kingdom was moved northward. The town that emerged was built from the beginning as a centre for the exercise of power by both the Crown and the Church. The town’s profile in local and national history was distinctive throughout the Middle Ages, and vestiges of the numerous old roads linked to the town’s position are still being found.

The Reformation in 1536 transferred the Church’s property and income to the Crown, but since the Crown still lacked money, the King "lent" large parts of his land in the forest area to the nobility, and this is one reason for the numerous manors in this area. In 1661 the king gave a large part of the entailed estate of the manors to the citizens of the capital to thank them for assisting in the war against Sweden, such that the capital became a major property owner, which still influences the area. The King kept most of the arable land, which meant that enclosure and reallotment as well as release from villeinage occurred early in this area. Even though the seat of power had been moved, the fertile land, agricultural reform and the proximity to the capital, and thereby good opportunities for marketing, meant that the people who farmed arable land had good living conditions. This is reflected in such vestiges as large farms and the dense and large villages in this area. In the forest area, where manors were the dominant property owners, enclosure and release from villeinage pro-ceeded much more slowly. The natural resource base was also poorer there, which is reflected by the dispersed village settlements, settlements with cottages, the relatively small single farms in forest clearings and uncultivated meadows.

The field boundaries established by enclosure in the form of walls of stone and earth and hedgerows are still prominent in many places, and the area has many well-conserved village centres, many stemming from the Middle Ages.

The fjord villages were mainly linked with agriculture, and fishing was mainly a secondary means of subsistence. Nevertheless, in the late 1800s, commercial fisheries emerged on the fjords. In the 1920s and 1930s, fishing with pound nets and Danish seine took off. There are also several fishing villages along the fjord coast.

Industrialization after 1850 caused great migration from rural districts in many parts of the country, but the country’s first rail link to the capital in 1847 meant a great boost for the town, which maintained and developed its position as a centre for trade and transport. Many of the people living in this area today work in the capital. Even in the most remote parts of the area, the historical settlements are very well conserved, and many people have resettled there from larger towns. The area’s old agricultural settlements are also generally unchanged and well conserved.

The flat, diked marsh landscape characteristic of the southwestern part of the country

Description of the main features of the cultural landscape – example two

This area is located in a completely different part of the country: the flat and windy southwest dominated by heathland and marshland. Until the railways were extended, transport connections to the eastern part of the country were poor.

The inland landscapes are dominated by large hill islands dating from the Ice Age that mostly consist of sand, gravel and stone and are cut open by the large river valleys from the Ice Age meltwater that flow into the sea. Distinguishing the flat heath plains from the hill islands can be difficult, but the heath plains are where the large bogs and swamps are. The river systems were the basis for the presence of humans back to the Stone Age. In the Middle Ages, the landscape was open and mostly covered by heather, interrupted by the wet meadows of the river valley, bogs, small agricultural fields within the settlements and dis-persed oak woodlands. With the increased cultivation of the heathland in about 1900, the landscape changed from being treeless to a tree-rich landscape with cultivated land and windbreaks.

Most of the inland landscapes were created at the end of the last Ice Age in about 12,000 B.C., but the coastline has changed in location and character. After the Bronze Age, the sea formed an enormous sandbar that allowed the marshes to be formed. This sandbar is now islands in the sea, and there is no evidence that these islands were inhabited in prehistoric times. The hill islands extend to the sea in the mainland in the northern part of the area as distinctive cliffs that served as loading places in several places. The southern part has relatively fertile marshland with manors and villages on the geest, the boundary between agricultural plains and marsh meadows.

Compared with the eastern part of the country, this area was sparsely populated and had few manors. Vestiges of the Iron Age and the early Middle Ages show that the proximity to the meadows of the river valleys and marshes was decisive for settlement. The pattern of settlement, which still exists today, was large villages and manors at the edge of the marsh, smaller villages and manors on the hill islands near streams and meadows and small settlements and individual farmhouses along rivers on the heathland plain. The islands were not inhabited before the Middle Ages.

The north–south maritime trade routes had already begun to be lively, and a town and trading centre was founded in the early eighth century. Agriculture was based on cattle grazing, and the economy was based on a combination of self-sufficiency and ex-tensive trade with live animals and later homemade local pottery.

The coastline with islands and sandbanks

In the coastal zone, fishing and shipping became an alternative or supplement to agriculture. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, fishing boomed on the western coast, and on an island the citizens of a market town built two fishing villages to facilitate maritime trade in herring. Loading places for local and long-distance trade were established where the navigational conditions were best, and from the late eighteenth century a special maritime culture similar to market towns flourished. The north–south pattern of trade on land and by sea was strengthened and

Maritime shipping of the nineteenth century

influenced the building traditions and other aspects of the culture of distant areas. From the 1830s to 1900, the island’s maritime villages comprised one of the country’s largest maritime centres.

Diking the marsh

The feudal system was dismantled earlier and the agricultural reforms were different in the southwestern part of Denmark than in the rest of the country. In the early eighteenth century, all the land of the Crown was sold to the citizens, ministers and peasants themselves, and in 1741 the islands bought their independence from the Crown. The lords sold their manors, which increased the number of farms owned by the farmers and the number of smallholding settlements. In about 1810 there were very few tenant farmers in the area. Largely because of this broad ownership of farms at an early stage, more than 60% of the land had already been enclosed and reallotted when an enclosure proclamation was decreed in 1781. Since the farmers who owned their farms could not be forced to comply and since the basis of the farms was many different natural resources, including marshes, meadows, arable land, heathland and bogs, few farms were moved. The large, densely populated villages were maintained, especially in the marshland, where the small strips of land from the time of enclosure and reallotment are still visible. On the hill islands, many village fields were reallotted in a stellate pattern, and enclosure and reallotment did not change much on the heathland plains, where settlements were already dispersed. On the islands the condi-tions were very different, and the land was not en-closed and reallotted until the middle of the twen-tieth century.

The construction of a modern harbour and the railway network in about 1870 was very important for development and the urban pattern in the region. The stations were mostly placed outside existing settle-ments, and new urban centres called station towns developed. From 1850 to 1920, consumer coopera-tives, feedstuff companies, dairy cooperatives and the like were founded in several places, and many small centres arose around these enterprises: cooperativeera towns. Agriculture boomed in this period. The heathland was cultivated, crops were planted and the marsh was diked in several areas to improve graz-ing and hay harvesting and to improve grain cultivation. This innovation changed the landscape: new farms and smallholdings, hedgerows and trees while cattle raising continued and expanded.

Overview of surveying themes

Based on this description of the main landscape and historical features of these two areas, an overview was prepared of the most important surveying themes within the specific areas. The overview was an im-portant part of setting priorities among which themes related to the cultural heritage would be in focus in the surveying. The overview was prepared based on existing source material, which comprises the documentation of the work and reflects where and within which themes knowledge is lacking and where the surveying therefore must be solely based on how much the staff member carrying out the survey knows about the local area and on field visits.

The overview has three perspectives: time, themes and landscapes, which are interrelated. For example, the theme of agriculture can both be linked with prehistory and the epoch of agricultural reform which, in turn, can have different expressions depending on whether the site is in the fertile and intensively cultivated arable land or the marshland, where agriculture was based on many different natural resources, and it was therefore difficult to make contiguous all the land belonging to one production unit. The purpose of these three perspectives is to ensure that all the connections and elements linked to the cultural landscape are included and to focus attention on the very special landscape prerequisites and features in a given area.

Depending on the history of a country, the history of development can be roughly divided into main epochs, each of which has left its mark on the land-scape. Examples of the main epochs could include prehistory, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, agricultural reform and industrialization and cooper-atives.

The prehistoric era ended in about 1100 and can be further divided into the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age (the Viking era in Scandinavia). This is the lowest of the historical strata (above and below the ground) and includes burial mounds, ancient settlements and rudimentary villages. Prehistoric artefacts (ancient monuments) are protected by law in many countries, and the focus for surveying and conserving this aspect of cultural heritage links the ancient monuments and the landscape and/or the continuity of the history of an area.

The Middle Ages and the Renaissance (about 1050–1750) comprise the next stratum that influences the landscape as fundamental structures and elements to which later strata were added; the artefacts in Denmark are often fossils or relics. The most distinctive relics from this period are village churches, many of which originated in the early Middle Ages, and the parish structure, which is largely unchanged. Many of the country’s manors probably originated in this epoch, but although some castle mounds have been conserved, few mediaeval buildings have been conserved and there are few intact buildings from the Renaissance. Many settlement and village structures arose in the Middle Ages, as well as the boundaries of the historical resource units, which reflected the resource and tax base of a village or other settlement.

The agricultural reforms (about 1750–1850) com-prise the epoch that most radically influenced the agricultural landscape in Denmark and many other European countries. The land was totally redistributed in enclosure and reallotment such that the land belonging to each farm was gathered in one place, at least in theory. Nevertheless, the extent to which enclosure was carried out differed widely. The results of the various types of reallotment in enclosure – a stellate pattern, a block pattern and a strip pattern – are easy to recognize in the landscape in many areas, even though agricultural development in recent decades has eliminated these patterns in many areas. After enclosure, the parcels were reallotted, increasing the number of smaller farms and smallholdings. The numerous stone walls around the forests reserved pursuant to the Forest Reserve Act of 1805 were also built in this period.

Industrialization and the era of cooperatives (about 1850 to the present) is the last stratum in the cultural landscape and has been linked to the development of infrastructure, especially the development of the railroad network, which changed the urban pattern as new towns were created near the stations. The cooperative era, in which much agricultural production shifted from vegetable products to animal ones, created cooperative dairies and slaughterhouses. These also had a social and ideological function, and community centres, con-sumer cooperatives and other social functions were located nearby in many towns. New cooperativeera towns were gradually created. The buildings of these new towns were influenced by the international historical building methods and new materials. Nevertheless, after 1910–1914, a national countertrend based on the style guidelines of the Better Architec-tural Design Association arose, and this influenced the numerous new smallholdings created pursuant to the Land Act of 1919.

The time perspective emphasizes the vertical historical layers, whereas the purpose of the thematic (horizontal) perspective is to capture the breadth in the basic elements that characterize the cultural landscape. The themes are associated with the economic and functional conditions throughout time, including power relationships and privileges. This section provides some examples of important themes related to the cultural heritage.

Agriculture is probably the economic activity that has influenced the landscape most distinctively in most areas in Denmark. The overall historical structure of settlement and cultivation in the form of villages, manors, single farms and smallholdings settlements is still an important basic feature of the landscape. The colonized landscape that arose from 1750 to 1960, artefacts such as slipway grounds (marine railways), with settlement in the heathland, heathland farms and draining of lakes, bogs and other wetlands, damming of low-lying coastal areas and dikes to prevent flooding are characteristic features of agricultural history in Denmark.

Fishing for mussels

The traditional coastal trades such as fishing, maritime transport and shipbuilding as well as ferry service have not left the same vestiges in the landscape as agriculture. This means that conserving the relics that have survived is even more important. The residential housing of fishing villages and maritime villages is generally well conserved, whereas the more subtle drying grounds for fishing nets, shipyards, building berths and loading docks are disappearing. Wharves, harbours, ferry docks, lighthouses, pilot houses and rescue stations are important elements of the coastal landscape that are also threatened by dilapidation because the functions are being abandoned or because of extensive expansion or renovation.

Water-based transport was the most important form of transport well into the nineteenth century. Few vestiges of this transport remain in the form of loading places, loading docks and harbours, whereas the infrastructure on land has influenced the landscape since the prehistoric era, both as main routes of transport with inns at regularly spaced intervals and as local historical roads between villages and, for example, the thingstead or the beach. Well into the nineteenth century, many roads were wheel tracks or sunken roads with bridges or fords over rivers and streams. Many have been incorporated into the modern road network today, but traces of the orig-inal roads still exist in many places as remains of wheel tracks or sunken roads. The recent expansion of the highway network and the railroads as well as the electrification of rural districts with numerous electric cables and transformer stations have influenced the landscape.

Ancient sunken road

Rural industry based on water power

The influence of rural industry on the landscape is still visible in some places. This includes water mills from as far back as the Middle Ages, windmills and various cottage industries linked to agriculture. Heavy industry was located to exploit the potential water power and raw materials in rural districts. The raw materials industry, which can be traced back to prehistoric times, has influenced the landscape with excavation and limestone quarries as well as tile works and cement factories.

Fortifications can include prehistoric ring forts, mediaeval castle mounds and castles dispersed throughout the country, more recent bastions and entrenchments and concrete bunkers, which are especially visible on the coasts.

Before 1850, recreation was reserved for the privi-leged classes, who rode horses and hunted but also established magnificent gardens, parks, summer residences, lakes and ponds and hunting grounds. Beginning in about 1850, country residences were built, especially around the capital, and around these summer and forest pavilions were built, but few have been conserved. Around 1900, bathing in the sea became popular among the middle classes, and bathing resorts with hotels and pensions were built at the best coasts. As broad segments of the population won the right to holidays, summer cottage areas were developed along the coasts, and today these and harbours for pleasure boats comprise the pre-dominant features of the coastal landscape. Other recreational structures include holiday settlements, scouting cabins and hostels, and especially allotment gardens.

In low-technology societies, the foundation provided by nature – the landscape – was decisive in determining how land could be cultivated and where settlements could be located. These differences are still prominent features of the cultural landscape. They can be vast not just between regions of a country but also within smaller areas and are important to emphasize and understand.

Many perspectives can be used to analyse and describe the landscape. The example that follows is pri-marily based on the agricultural potential and pro-file of the landscape.

The eastern part of the country generally has fertile soil and favourable climate, coasts with deep fjords and protected seas that have often provided the basis for a relatively high building density in many

Forest dwelling

areas. The typical example of this is the fertile and easily cultivable arable land, which comprised the basis for large villages with large farms and many manors, whereas the hilly terrain or lowlying forest areas resulted in many single farms and small vil-

Farmhouse

lages, small farms and also forest and cattleraising manors that exploited the diverse resources of the forest and uncultivated dry grasslands.

In the western part of the country, the landscape has mostly been influenced by heathland, characterized by heath plains and sandy soil, dunes and wetlands of the hill islands with dispersed settlements containing many single farms, small villages and farms and a few, small manors. There are also differences within the heathland. The hill islands have smaller villages and manors located on the edge of streams and meadows, whereas the heath plains have single farms. Heathland is dominant in other parts of western Denmark.

Whereas the coastal zones in the eastern part of the country are generally dominated by deep fjords and numerous natural harbours that host most of the country’s market towns and numerous manors, the situation on the western coast was totally harsh. The coastline changed continually, the basis for subsistence was a mixture of dune agriculture, trade, fishing and hunting, but the infertile soil, sand drift and the rough coast without natural harbours did not allow large-scale settlement until after industrialization.

An exception to this pattern is the marshland, which is protected by several islands in the sea. The bountiful marsh meadows of the marshlands resulted in relatively large villages located on the dry geest next to the marsh meadows and in single farms established on artificially elevated land.

Finally, the river valleys have been an important location factor not only for manors, villages and single farms, located on the boundary between the dry, cultivated soil and the wet meadows, but also for water mills and, later, power stations and other industry. The highway inns are often located at the previous transitional boundaries, and the river valley can be seen as a string of pearls of cultural environments linked to the potential of the river without the individual environments necessarily being con-nected.

Surveying and describing the historical themes given priority

Based on the description of the main landscape and historical features and the overview of surveying themes and field visits, the themes to be focused on in the continuing work must be chosen (box). This choice is based on scientific criteria in assessing the special characteristics or unique features of the area being surveyed. Prehistory is not a special focus as a specific survey theme here, as previous work has described this reasonably well, whereas modern history has not generally been well described.

The surveying themes given priority in example one were:

• the enclosure and reallotment of the historical resource units of each village;

• manors;

• smallholdings;

• the single farms and small dispersed settlements in forest areas;

• the coastal zone;

• infrastructure; and

• rural industry.

The surveying themes given priority in example two were:

• marshland and dune agriculture;

• maritime villages, fishing and bird-trapping;

• cultivation of heathland;

• recreation;

• infrastructure – loading places and docks, roads and inns;

• railways and station towns;

• cooperative-era towns; and

• fortifications.

Surveying cultural artifacts and cultural environments

In the examples, the surveying is divided into the themes mentioned in the respective areas and can include the surveying of individual elements of the cultural heritage such as water mills and windmills and historical structures such as roads with bridges and inns. The surveying can also cover entire areas or small villages of historical interest, such as the historical resource unit of a village or a manor after enclosure and reallotment, a maritime village or a station town.

The surveying is conducted on forms covering the following content:

• the surveying theme;

• the epoch;

• the topography and the type of landscape;

• the historical characteristics, describing historical development and physical features;

• a preliminary assessment of the state of

• conservation;

• vulnerability; and

• the context and links.

Each description refers to the sources used, such as registers, literature or material from planning, but also living sources such as archivists as well as field visits. The forms are supplemented by historical maps from the epoch or epochs relevant to the theme to the extent they have been accessible. Experience has shown the importance of supplementing the information in source material with field visits relatively early in the surveying process but after a rough overview has been established. Further, the historical development within the area should be described as a whole and across the themes, even though the main theme of the surveying may be linked to a specific epoch.

Preliminary identification of cultural environments

The surveying results in a preliminary thematic iden-tification of cultural environments linked to the main themes mentioned previously. These thematic cultural environments overlap in many cases in the sense that several historical themes are represented within a geographical area. For example, the forest settlement in example one (page 48) had the themes "single farms and forest clearings", "infrastructural installations" and "recreation" (in the form of a former sanatorium). The areas preliminary identified can be considered as areas to be subjected to historical analysis in the se-cond phase of the work with the aim of arriving at the final delimitation of and priorities among cultural environments.

The main historical features

Registration of the state of conservation

Criteria for delimitation

Criteria for setting priorities

Considerations in delimitation and setting priorities

Identifying valuable cultural environments

The starting-point for the more detailed analysis of the cultural environments that have been preliminarily identified is thorough surveying material, including historical maps, and field work. In preparation for the field work, the main historical features within the area being analysed should be drawn on a map. The main features can be linked to a specific epoch in history or to a course of historical events. The main historical features can include:

• the overall structure of settlements, such as the village settlements on the edge of the river valley or dispersed settlements of single farms located in forest clearings;

• the main roads in the landscape, perhaps with inns and bridges;

• the structure of fields, meadows and roads within a village or estate, which reflects the links in an agricultural system;

• the structure of settlement in a village;

• the elements of a mixed economy, such as a maritime village with fields and bird traps;

• the structure of settlement and roads in a maritime village, with narrow alleys, town greens and single-wing farmhouses; and

• the historically dominant elements of a cultural environment, such as a dairy, consumer cooperative and community centre in a cooperative- era town or the station, heavy goods shop and hotel in a station town.

The purpose of the field work is to register how many of the main historical features have been conserved and to physically delimit the cultural environment or environments in a given area being analysed. The state of conservation is decisive in determining the delimitation. This confirmation of the important his-torical features of an area, which is the basis for the field work, is an important aspect of identifying valuable cultural environments. Thus, experience has shown that this ensures that the surveyors can main-tain their overview when they are in the field so that they focus their limited resources on registering the important aspects and avoid being influenced ex-cessively by beauty.

This section shows examples of the work of iden-tifying the main historical features and registering the state of conservation, as illustrated by various types of cultural environments. Further, the various criteria used to delimit and set priorities are described, and the most important considerations used in delimitation and setting priorities are illustrated with examples.

The main historical features

Marshland agriculture

This marshland comprises the last remaining part of the undiked marsh and has been used for livestock grazing since the early Iron Age in conjunction with grain cultivation on the geest. The settlements include a village and the oldest manor by far in the area. These are very prominently located on the geest boundary between the dry, cultivated land and the wet meadows that were commons before enclosure. Within each village or estate there were common access roads from the settlement to the meadows. During enclosure and reallotment, these roads were divided into narrow paddocks with ditches, as each farm was to have a part of the various types of marshland with varying quality. The mediaeval village has roots back to the Iron Age, and the settlement is located around the arm of the meadow connected with the marsh. The village was enclosed and reallotted in 1797 in a stellate pattern, and the farmhouses remained within the centre of the village. The manor has been located at its present site since about 1500 and was reduced to a normal cattle farm as part of the dissolution of many manors in this area in about 1800. The subsequent parcelling out of smallholdings is located along a straight road on a hill between two streams, with fields down towards the meadows. The knoll that extends to the sea was a loading place with such facilities as a customs house and an inn.

The station was built in 1874 more than 1 km south of the old village at the intersection of the road and the railway, and the town grew along these transport corridors. In addition to the station, the buildings typical for a station town such as a large timber yard, merchant’s house and shop, an old station inn, a steam-powered mill with grain and feedstuff, a pharmacy and various commercial buildings of 2.5 storeys are located in a circle around the intersection. Between the station and the village are a mission building and school built in about 1900, which are both very well conserved, a cooperative dairy (of

Station town with the centre developed at the junction of the main road and the railroad

Registration of the state of conservation

A well-conserved cultural environment:

manor, water mills, roads and bridges

This manor is located centrally in a broad river valley. The coherence between the manor house, moat, park and avenue lined with linden trees and the sur-rounding manor landscape are intact and undisturbed by large technical installations and the like. The Renaissance-inspired manor house, the moat and the former mill dam as well as the large park with a deer forest on the other side of the river are well con-served. This is also true for the dwellings used by the manor’s farmworkers, some of which are located along the avenue. Towards the north, the open fields of the river valley are delimited by forest with well-conserved forest reserve fences along the tall forest fringe. The previous meadow areas along the river have been cultivated.

The bridges over the river are well-conserved granite bridges, and the straight roads around the manor and the other winding roads have not changed. The two water mills that were previously part of a larger mill complex along a tributary and the river have been conserved in part. The lower mill is intact with canal systems, a mill dam, mill building and mill wheel, whereas the only mill building that is conserved is that belonging to the upper mill.

A spoiled cultural environment:

a seaside resort

This seaside resort was built in 1892 by an invest-ment society as an exclusive bathing resort with hotels, pensions and a few summer villas, the oldest golf course in the country (1902) and small summer cot-tages in the local style and functionalist style (1920–1930). The area has been strongly influenced by the recreational trends of recent years. The large old hotels were demolished from 1968 to 1990 and were replaced by two large complexes in the 1970s and 1990s. Only a few of the summer villas and two boardinghouses have been conserved from the original resort. Along the golf course, which is planned to be expanded, are a few of the older functionalist summer cottages, but it is difficult to see the difference between the old summer cottages in the local rustic style and the numerous new ones built in the same style. Overall, the area has changed so drastically that it does not differ from numerous other holiday areas near the coast, and the environment should therefore not be given priority as a conservation-worthy cultural environment, although the area’s history as one of the first bathing resorts is very inter-esting.

Seaside resort in 1997

Criteria for delimitation

After an area is identified to be analysed and the main historical features and state of conservation have been registered, the cultural environment or environments are finally delimited based on various criteria. Most processes of delimitation are based on a combination of several criteria. The main historical features and their state of conservation, which define the content of a cultural environment, are always used as criteria.

This section summarizes the various criteria that can be used in the more detailed physical delimitation of cultural environments.

One criterion is the main historical features from a specific epoch, such as the enclosed and reallotted historical resource unit of a village, the characteristic intersection of a railway and main road of a station town from which the town developed or the origin of a cooperativeera town around agricultural settle-ments near a river. Since nearly all cultural environ-ments have developed further since a given epoch and have additional functions and structures, the question is how much of this development should

A village reflecting a stellate pattern of enclosure and reallotment

be included. Should the entire resource unit of the historical village be included if only part of the en-closure and reallotment pattern is visible today? Should a station town include the preexisting nearby village, and how much of the more recent history of the station town should be incorporated? What should be done about the recreational seabathing cultural environment that has developed from boarding-houses and summer villas built in about 1900 and small holiday settlements from 1910 to 1940 to hotel complexes and modern summer cottages or imitations of the old summer cottages? The starting-point should probably be that the most recent structures and set-tlements, which are not threatened and perhaps instead threaten this cultural environment, should not be included.

Another criterion is main historical features that reflect historical development, such as a river valley (p. 54) with numerous ancient monuments from the Stone Age, Bronze Age and especially Iron Age and a village that has probably been located in the river valley since that time but has a different pattern after en-closure and reallotment. Some of this development history is located within the historical resource unit of the village and some outside. Another example is a cultural environment (p. 46) developed around a river, with a manor, mill and an inn where the old road crosses the river and, later, the development of a cooperativeera town that used the water power from the river. In these cases a cultural environment can be delimited that embodies the entire conserved part of this historical development or a more homogeneous cultural environment that reflects a specific epoch, such as the enclosed and reallotted resource unit of a village in the example on page 40 or the co-operative era in the example on page 46.

Grazing of a wet meadow with the buildings on the dry geest

The often visible boundaries between historically based resource units hand down the history of the resource and tax base of an agricultural settlement. These are often large areas that can coincide with some of the natural boundaries in the landscape, such as a river. Many historical resource units, however, have been influenced by urban development or divided by new infrastructural installations. For ex-ample, the historical resource unit in the marshland agriculture example on page 44 is divided by a railway and a highway on an embankment. This creates both visual and functional barriers between the village settlement and its marsh meadows. The question is whether to include the entire resource base on both sides of the roads or other infrastructure or whether such modern installations should be delimiting such that only part of the resource base of the historical resource unit should be included. In other situations, the connections in the resource base and between the various main elements in development history within a historical resource unit can be unclear or may have been eliminated. The question in this case is whether to include the entire resource base of a historical resource unit and the historical development in the delimitation, including a manor, village and smallholdings, even though the state of conservation of the various historical elements varies and the physical and visual context has been lost. Another option is to delimit the manor, village and small-holdings separately with a representative segment of the resource base. This can produce smaller and more homogeneous cultural environments, which may make setting priorities and targeting conservation efforts easier. The connections of development history related to the place can then be described and disseminated.

The production systems of agricultural society similarly reveal the resource base of a historical re-source unit. An example is the forest settlement on page 49 in which both the forest clearing and the surrounding forests comprised the resource base. Deciding how much of the forest resource base should be included is difficult. Is a representative segment sufficient, or should the cultural environment be based on the property relationships or on the entire forest area?

A historical village with greenhouses as a delimiting feature in the northern part

Delimitation can be based on other economic or functional conditions. For example, the base of sub-sistence in the maritime villages was shipping plus agriculture carried out by women on fields in and outside the town and bird-trapping using bird traps far from the town. Another example is the economic and functional relationship between a loading place and both the catchment area for the origin of the goods (such as a manor or a village) and the place on the other side of the fjord or bay where the goods were unloaded. A cultural environment can thus com-prise several areas that are not necessarily geograph-ically contiguous.

Topographical features can comprise a type of negative delimitation: natural visual boundaries in the landscape such as the edge of a forest or a river or new installations irrelevant to the cultural environ-ment that decisively influence it visually or functionally. It is important to distinguish between irreversible influences such as urban development and large roads or railways and reversible influences such as wind turbines and electrical transmission lines, which can be removed when they are no longer used. If a cultural environment is otherwise intact and very worthy of conservation, including such areas with reversible installations can be appropriate to em-phasize that the installations may need to be renovated.

Types of landscape can represent the typical char-acteristics of an area or comprise a unique base for the historical development of a given area. An ex-ample is marshland, which has large diked plains with coastal meadows and fields divided by drainage ditches and perhaps irrigation ditches, large villages located on the geest and/or single farms on artificially elevated land in the marsh. Nevertheless, using the type of landscape as the only criterion presents prob-lems in conserving the cultural heritage. The area in focus, which can include entire river valleys, stretches of coast or islands, can be so large that the natural heritage is the real focus and not the cultural heritage: the influence of human history on nature. Parts of river valleys or marsh landscapes can be identified if they otherwise fulfil some of the other criteria.

Criteria for setting priorities

In reality, the entire process requires setting priorities from the surveying phase to the final identification of valuable cultural environments. The priorities are set based on scientific criteria such as the most characteristic or rare features in the given area and on a certain amount of pragmatism.

The final assessment of whether a cultural environ-ment can be classified as so valuable that it should be protected through planning should be based on numerous criteria described below. Selecting one of the criteria or posing criteria as mutually exclusive is not appropriate; a cultural environment should fulfil several of these criteria to be identified as valuable, depending on how high priority it is given.

A cultural environment can be unique or rare because it is (and always has been) the only one or one of a very few of its type in the country or represents the only one conserved or the best-

conserved one.

A cultural environment can be rare in a region. Some environments are perhaps not rare or especially well conserved on a national basis but are rare in the region and are therefore given priority to ensure depth and diversity in the conservation of the cultural heritage in the given area.

Cultural environments can be representative for: a type, such as manor, village or industrial cultural environments; an epoch, such as the enclosed and reallotted agricultural property within a village; cooperativeera or station towns; or a geographical area, such as dune agriculture or cultivation of heathland.

Features specific to a region are important. This is related to representative features for a geographical area but can also be a feature that is unique for the given area, such as building style, the villages in the marshland that were not reallotted until much later than were other historical resource units or wellconserved examples of forest settlements.

The state of conservation is always a criterion. This is associated with both the historical structures such as the structure of settlements, fields and meadows or the road structure of a town or village and the physical condition of the individual historical ele-ments, such as a house, mill or bridge.

The functional status of an area is important. For example, if a water mill, harbour or station in a station town is still functioning, this may mean that the area can continue to be conserved as a living cultural environment.

Authenticity is related to the state of conservation and the original function of a cultural environment. Examples include a well-conserved stellate pattern of farm reallotment in an enclosed village that is still being farmed or a well-conserved station town with an operating station, station hotel and grain and feedstuff company.

Old railway station

The value of a cultural environment as a historical source is related to the elements and context that comprise a source of knowledge about the past and are therefore of scientific interest.

A cultural environment can be valuable as a source of identity. The identity can be national, regional or local.

The value in enriching human experience is related to people’s immediate impression: their primeval or emotional comprehension of the surroundings. Such environments are especially expressive, and the entire context of the cultural heritage can be seen and experienced.

The story value is based on knowledgeable recogni-tion of the surroundings and requires prior orient-ation. A cultural environment that illustrates special living conditions at a specific point in time becomes meaningful by telling a (hi)story when it is placed in an appropriate context.

Diversity means whether a cultural environment represents many different themes, such as the fishing and agricultural communities that developed into maritime villages with dune agriculture and bird-trapping and later into recreational environments.

Homogeneity can be linked to a cultural environment that represents a specific part of history, such as the cultivation of heathland in the example on page 39 or a specific physical expression, such as the Better Architectural Design Association style typical of station towns.

The coherence with the natural resource base is another criterion for value. This applies where the structure of settlements and the system of cultivation still clearly reflect the natural conditions, such as marshland agriculture with the buildings on the dry geestland on the edge of the marsh, which is used for (common) grazing, or a system of water mills linked to a river valley.

A fishing village with substantial identity value and value in enriching human experience

The process of setting priorities among the delimited cultural environments can include a three-point scale – high, medium or low priority. This tool can be used for specifying whether an area should be identified as a valuable cultural environment through planning and for setting priorities among the potential instruments that can be used for protection. The criteria cannot be used slavishly such that a cultural environment that automatically fulfils many criteria is given high priority and those that fulfil few criteria are given low priority. The individual cultural environ-ments must be qualitatively assessed as the basis for comparing and setting priorities among them. In addition, the importance of each cultural environment should be assessed in relation to similar ones outside the region and the country as a whole to the extent that this is possible. Thus, the assessment of a cultural environment must transcend the local or regional level to determine whether better-conserved and more representative environments exist on the other side of an administrative boundary or in other parts of the country.

Cultural environments that are very well conserved and representative or characteristic of an area would be given high priority. For example, the well-con-served cultural environment associated with a manor and village on page 42 illustrates well the historical development of agriculture. Another example is the village described on page 53 located on the geest between the cultivated land and the meadows that is characteristic of the pattern of settlement and the sys-

A cultural environment of national significance

tem of agricultural operations in this part of the country.

Some cultural environments are assessed to be of national significance. The reasons include rarity or that they are exceptionally well conserved and intact or magnificent. For example, the manor estate illus-trated in the photograph on this page comprises an integral and magnificent cultural environment with its well-conserved buildings, park, forests, fields and meadows. A maritime village with its narrow lanes, village greens and characteristic houses with the appurtenant meadows and bird traps is one of the best conserved environments reflecting the great maritime era. Environments that are unique would also typically be considered of national importance.

Cultural environments given medium priority include qualities that justify being identified as sufficiently valuable that they should be protected through planning. Examples include the characteristic and representative cultivation of heathland and small-holdings in the southwestern part of the country shown on page 39 and the station town on page 30. The structure and original functions of both cultural environments have been conserved, and both are characteristic of the area and representative of the respective historical theme. Nevertheless, these cul-tural environments do not have great value in en-riching human experience, and many of the build-ing components have been altered.

Cultural environments that do not fulfil several of the criteria, usually because the overall value or the state of conservation is poor, are classified as having low priority and should not be included in the final identification of valuable cultural environments. An example of a cultural environment given low priority because of the state of conservation is the seaside resort on page 32, which has been so influenced by new holiday hotels and summer cottages that the intrinsic value and story value has mostly been eliminated. Other examples include areas with very few elements and contexts, such as a single water mill on a river or a cultural environment of which more representative and better-conserved examples exist in the region. Even though such environments are not given priority in comprehensive planning, they can still be important in the local context.

Considerations in delimitation and setting priorities

Depending on how the various criteria for delimi-tation are weighted, there are several ways to delimit cultural environments, and alternative options can therefore be presented if this is relevant. Thus, many areas both reflect a specific epoch, a type of historical development and several themes. The choice here in delimitation is either to reflect an entire course of historical development and all themes or to reflect a specific epoch or a theme, depending on the state of conservation, representativity and other factors. This section provides seven examples to illustrate the most important considerations that should be included in delimiting and setting priorities among cultural en-vironments.

Cultivation of heathland:

a clearly homogeneous cultural environment

This example reflects the development of the culti-vated heathland landscape through its structure of settlement and fields. The historical village was en-closed and reallotted in 1794, and from 1900 to 1930, the heathland nearest to the farms was parcelled out and sold to the farmers’ children. From 1930 to 1950, the heathland northeast of the main road, which is the old drove road, was parcelled out into long, narrow strips. The structure of settlements and fields from the three epochs in the cultivation of the heathland – the old enclosed and reallotted village, the new row of farms from 1900 to 1930 and the smallholdings –

Smallholding in the style of the Better Architectural Design Association

are mostly well conserved. Several of the characteristic smallholders’ cottages and the narrow strips of land marked with the typical hedgerows have been conserved, but several of the old farmhouses in the village have been renovated. The boundaries of the his-torical resource unit are marked either naturally by a river or by hedgerows at the boundary to the adjacent historical resource unit, and the historical village structure has not been influenced by new large installations or large settlements.

The natural place to delimit the cultural environment is therefore at the boundary of the historical resource unit of the village without considering alternative options.

Considerations in setting priorities

This relatively well-conserved cultural environment illustrates well the development of heathland cultivation that characterizes the area and represents one of the latest allotments of smallholdings. This cultural environment is therefore assessed to be of regional significance. Since few of the older farmhouses have been conserved and several of the smallholders’ cottages have been renovated, this environment is given medium priority.

Road at an old mill dam

A river valley environment with substantial historical depth: delimitation based on the historical resource unit or the landscape?

The area is one of the country’s richest historical landscapes. The area contains numerous ancient monu-ments from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and es-pecially the early Iron Age and Viking era. There is a dense concentration of ancient graves in and around the river valley near a village located on the edge of the river valley where several watercourses and springs meet and branch off. The numerous finds from the area reflect the significance of the valley as a natural resource base and for the location and de-velopment of human settlements. The natural resource base of the historical village included arable land, forest, bogs, meadows and watercourses, and the historical village comprises a well-conserved whole. In enclosure and reallotment in 1804–1806, three farmhouses were moved outside the village, and the rest remained in the village allotted new holdings. Houses were built on the vacant lots along the village street. The structure of the mediaeval village has been conserved, with farmhouses as they looked at the time of enclosure. The boundaries between and within the different historical resource units are mostly intact, and most are marked with coherent hedgerows.

Towards the east, the river delimits the historical re-source unit. A motorway and a large and a small high-voltage transmission line cut through the northern part of the historical village. The motorway is a prominent physical element, and since the part of the village north of the motorway does not contain any special historical features, the motorway comprises a natural boundary towards the north. Depending on whether the delimitation focuses on reflecting the natural resource base of the historical resource unit or the river valley as the landscape framework for historical development over time, this cultural envi-ronment can be delimited either at the boundary of the historical resource unit, which will omit some of the prehistoric vestiges, or further east, so that these are included.

Area around a river valley

Considerations in setting priorities

This cultural environment contains a unique historical legend and source value. With its exceptionally well-conserved village settlements, including fields and meadows, this cultural environment is part of a com-plete landscape entity around the river that is easy to interpret, is unique and has substantial value in enriching human experience. This cultural environ-ment is assessed to be of national importance and is given high priority.

Manor, village, loading place and farmworker settlement: delimiting the historical development of agriculture as one cultural environment or more?

This manor was established in 1673 and has been very significant in the development of the south-eastern part of the peninsula. In addition to the manor, this area includes a village with tenant farms that were under the manor, a settlement for the manor’s farmworkers and a fishing village that originally served as a loading place for shipping the products of the manor and the agricultural village.

The manor, which is primarily based on agriculture, has several different styles but comprises well-maintained building units that appear prominently in the open manor landscape. The boundaries of the manor estate are delimited by walls of stone and earth that are marked by trees in several places.

Just south of the estate boundary is a small forest between the manor and the farmworker settlement, which is along the road between the manor and the village. Each house in the farmworkers’ settlement has an appurtenant field of about 2 ha behind the house. The half-timbered houses were built for the farmworkers of the manor from 1830 to 1850 and are fairly well conserved without substantial changes to the buildings.

The mediaeval village is built up around a small village green and a pond. It has maintained the influence of the epoch of enclosure and reallotment with many well-conserved farmhouses and other houses and an old school built with money donated by the lord of the manor. Overgrown stone and earth walls reflect the stellate allotment pattern around the village and the block-reallotted landscape in the western part of the village.

The fishing village is a coastal village with a fishing harbour, ferry pier and ferry inn. The centre of the village is relatively well conserved, and the transport connections to the agricultural village and to the manor are intact. Cottages originally built for fisher-men and ferry employees are located near the harbour. Summer cottages have been built towards the fjord coast south of the fishing village.

The focus can be either the development history of the area and the economic and functional relation-ships between the manor, village, farmworker settlement and the loading place of the fishing village or the natural resource base of each individual historical resource unit and the more individual value of the cultural heritage in each form of settlement. This choice determines two choices in delimitation.

The first option is to include the manor estate and the village, including the farmworkers’ settlement and perhaps the fishing village, with its function as a loading place and the roads between these settle-ments as a large, coherent cultural environment that reflects the entire development history of the area. The development history is supported by the clear scale of the landscape, with the large cultivation units of the manor, the medium-sized scale of the reallotted village and the modest cottages and small strips of land of the farmworkers’ settlement. Only the most well-conserved and characteristic parts of the his-torical resource units should be included.

The second option is to delimit the manor estate, the village farms and the fishing village as three in-dependent cultural environments. This would in-clude the most conservation-worthy part of the block-reallotted landscape of the village fields. The farm-workers’ settlement has historical relationships with both the manor and the village but could be delimited as an independent cultural environment as a unique and very well-conserved example of an early farm-workers’ settlement. The fishing village with its har-bour would then be delimited as a cultural environ-ment in the coastal zone.

Considerations in setting priorities

This generally well-conserved environment is repre-sentative for the historical development of agriculture and therefore has great value in telling a story and some value in enriching human experience. Further, this environment is characteristic of the fertile arable land and coastal zone, with numerous manors and large villages. The farmworkers’ settlement is a rare example of an early workers’ settlement that is well conserved. The cultural environment is assessed as being of regional significance and is given high pri-ority.

Marshland agriculture, allotment of smallholdings and a loading place:

focus on the development history or the present physical condition?

The area’s most important old manor is from the fourteenth century. It has water mills and is located on the boundary between arable land and meadows. In about 1800, the manor was reduced to a common cattle farm as a result of the reallotment of small-holdings north of the manor, which is located along a long straight road. The original manor buildings have not been conserved but were replaced by new buildings in the style of the Better Architectural Design Association in the early twentieth century. Parts of the old moat, water mill, smallholders’ cottages and much of the field structure have been con-

served. The connection between the manor and the smallholdings is hard to see, however, because of the railway embankment and a large area in which raw materials are being extracted adjacent to the manor. The appurtenant meadows are separated both visually and functionally from the manor by a high-way. The marsh meadows south of the highway border the adjacent village’s meadows and a loading place that has been mentioned in historical records since the seventeenth century. There are relatively new but well-conserved buildings from the house of the customs inspector and an inn located on the edge between the geest knoll and the marsh. This marsh-land south of the highway that has historically been part of the village and the manor, together with the loading place located in a third historical resource unit, can be considered one coherent cultural landscape. It comprises the remaining part of the undiked marsh with several drainage ditches and old access roads conserved. The prominent boundary between the part of the settled geest knoll located south of the highway and the coastal meadows has also been conserved.

Thus, this area represents several historical themes, from 1) the mediaeval manor exploiting an interactive natural resource base in which the coastal meadows have been decisive to 2) the loading activities of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, 3) the elimination of some manors in the nineteenth century and 4) reallotment for smallholdings. Nevertheless, this area is strongly influenced by the infrastructural installations cutting through it that act as barriers be-tween the various elements in the historical development within the historical resource units. South of the highway, the coherent marshland is spread over several resource units but still represents the structure of settlements characteristic of the marsh-land. The delimitation options depend on whether the focus is the historical development within a prop-erty (resource) unit or the topographical conditions.

1. One option is to include the manor and all its original land resources, with the manor, smallholdings and marsh meadows as one cultural environment that represents historical depth in a functional and economic context. This would mean delimiting the loading place as an independent environment and the vil-lage’s meadows together with the village as a third cultural environment.

2. The second option is to delimit the smallholdings as an independent cultural environment that represents a theme and a specific epoch. The manor would be delimited as an independent thematic cultural environment with its castle mound and water mill but without its fields, since these do not have any specific characteristics. The marshland south of the highway, which is still undiked and also includes the loading place, would be delimited as an inde-pendent cultural environment that represents a unique type of cultural landscape.

Gravel excavation near the manor

Considerations in setting priorities

The allotment of smallholdings is characteristic of the elimination of manors in this area and the structure of settlements and fields. They are marked with the typical hedges and are largely intact with well-conserved buildings. This cultural environment com-prises one of the few well-conserved collections of smallholdings in the region and is therefore assessed as being of regional significance and is given high priority.

The marsh south of the highway, which comprises the last part of the undiked marsh and the loading place, is unique with its well-conserved narrow ditched parcels of meadow that are still used for grazing and the prominent boundary between the settled geest and the marsh meadows. This area is considered to be of national significance and is given high priority.

what is the role of geographical contiguity?

This maritime village has narrow alleys pointing towards the harbour, village greens and characteristic and nearly intact single-wing farmhouses with Frisian influence and reflects the great maritime era from 1740 to 1900. Families with seafaring men supplemented this income through household agriculture carried out by women on a croft close to the houses or in parcels on the dunes, heathland and meadows. From 1866 to 1900, the citizens of the town built two bird traps 10–15 km north of the town, and numerous ducks were trapped and exported until this trapping was prohibited in 1931. The bird traps comprise a pond linked to the sea by canals and a trapping-arm surrounded by broad-leafed trees to which the ducks were lured. Urban development and the construction of summer cottages has partly spoiled the link between the town and the appurtenant agricultural land, which cannot easily be seen in the landscape. In contrast, the bird traps have been conserved, and they are distinctive with their tall deciduous trees surrounding them in an otherwise open heath land-scape.

Town green in a maritime village

Bird traps

The options are to delimit the historical centre with the appurtenant fields of the town and the bird traps as two independent cultural environments or to delimit the town and its fields and bird traps as one cultural environment. This cultural environment, which thus comprises two areas that are not contig-uous geographically, reflects the diverse natural resource base and the mixed economy that charac-terized this coastal area.

Considerations in setting priorities

This maritime village comprises a rare, well-con-

served and representative cultural environment with substantial value in enriching human experience and tells an exciting story of the mixed economy of this area. It is considered to be of national importance and is given high priority.

Forest settlements:

a large area requiring special consideration in delimitation

Large parts of this hilly forest area were used as un-cultivated meadows for common grazing by farm animals from the nearly villages and forest farms until the Forest Reserve Act of 1805. The farms in the adjacent villages thus used large parts of this meadow for common grazing until a wall to protect the forest was erected along the terrain lines to the village’s meadows, which were then bestowed upon peasants in the two villages. In about 1820, one of the meadows was afforested. The southern part of the area, which is the most hilly and marshy terrain, continued to be used for grazing and has never been cultivated.

The forest area includes four large or small clearings, and the oldest has existed for more than six centuries. These clearings have few farms and houses or only a single farm. In addition to the clearing, which has mostly been used for grazing, these farms have had specific control over or access to some of the underwood resources, but this was limited somewhat by the Forest Reserve Act of 1805. The villages north of the forest were small, relatively well-conserved villages with few farms and large cattle herds that required large meadows. A small sawmill is still oper-ating on the highway between the villages.

The existing road structure in the forest was established before 1820. In addition, there are tracks from several old ancient sunken roads from the village to the manor.

This is a large, coherent, hilly meadow and forest area with a structure of settlements and system of production that is very characteristic of forest settle-ments and also includes such features as old ancient sunken road systems. There are two options for delimitation.

Ancient sunken road

Forest clearing

The first option creates a whole cultural environment with the tracks of old roads in the forest, the forest clearings and the well-conserved small villages with meadows at the edge of the forest. The peasants from the village previously used most of the present forest area as a grazing meadow for their large herds, and the farmers’ present meadows were previously part of the present forest area. The peasants who settled the forest area and created the clearings and the special system of farming typical for a forest area were probably from the adjacent villages. The wood from the forest is still used for such purposes as the sawmill near the villages.

The second option is to delimit the environment to the forest area with the clearings, road tracks etc. The villages are now independent of the forest area both functionally and in terms of landscape.

In both options an attempt should be made to delimit across the regional boundaries.

Considerations in setting priorities

This exceptionally well-conserved forest settlement with four clearings represents very well the special agricultural system associated with the forest land-scape. The connection to the natural resource base is clear because much of the forest area has been less than optimal for cultivation because of the conditions of the terrain and other factors. This cultural environment includes great historical depth and diversity and has great value in telling a story and some value in enriching human experience. This cultural environment is assessed as being of national significance and is given high priority.

A meadow in the hilly northeastern corner

A river valley with a cooperative-era town, manor and other features:

focus on historical depth or a specific epoch?

North of the manor, a town developed based on rural cooperatives around an old mill and an inn near the river where the old highway crosses the river. The dairy, which originally used the water power from the river, is still operating. In addition, there are several well-maintained old single-family detached houses from this epoch and an old smithery. The historical road, with an inn that has been con-verted to a residence, has been conserved. The turbine, which replaced the water mill, is intact with water flow, a sluice and a dilapidated sluice building. The manor stopped being used for agriculture in 1963, but the manor house from 1805 with a garden and farm buildings has been conserved with access to the river, whereas the farm is cut off from the town by the main highway. The cultural environment around the river with the dairy, smithery, old houses and the old highway comprises a very attractive and well-conserved cooperative-era cultural environment. In addition, this cultural environment reflects the historical development of the potential of the river, with the inn, hydroelectric turbine and especially the manor south of the highway.

The focus can be getting a cultural environment that reflects the entire historical development from manor to a cooperativeera town that is now divided by a main highway or one that is well conserved and represents a specific epoch. This choice implies the following options.

The first option is to include the manor and the older part of the cooperative-era town as a coherent environment across the main highway that reflects the historical development of the river valley.

The second option is to include only the area north of the main highway, which primarily represents the new settlements of the era of cooperatives that arose at the old mill and the inn at the river in this case.

Considerations in setting priorities

This cultural environment is representative for the geographical area; as a theme (the era of cooperatives), it includes many well-conserved features linked to the development at the river and the cooperative-era town. This cultural environment has great value in telling a story and value in enriching human experience. It is assessed as being of regional importance and is given high priority.

A cooperative dairy

The decisions on delimitation and setting priorities result in a final delimitation and identification of cultural environments that are identified as valuable cultural environments through planning. Cultural environments given high or medium priority are included in the plan, whereas those given low priority are not included. The maps on this page show the cultural environments finally identified; their de-limitation and number has changed since the pre-liminary identification shown on page 27.

Valuable cultural environments identified in example two

Valuable cultural environments identified in example one