How can places make the most of their heritage? Jonathan Schifferes introduces the 2016 Heritage Index, a collaboration with the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Last year we set out to answer a difficult question, using a data-led approach.
Our research has shown that heritage is a key resource to connect people to places. Strengthening that connection brings to places as host of other social and economic benefits. So the next logical question is how much of this resource do we have locally?
Today we release our updated Heritage Index. The scale and breadth of what our team has pulled together is astounding, covering 120 indicators, with local data available for all 390 local authority areas in the UK’s four nations. We want people to give people a richer understanding of their place, so that they are inspired to get involved in shaping their place into the future.
Heritage Index 2016 covers 120 indicators and draws upon local data available for all 390 local authority areas in the UK’s four nations
You’ll be inspired by some of the less famous places in the Top 10 (including Scarborough, Gosport and Norwich), but look closer to home and you’ll discover the heritage on your doorstep, including industrial heritage, natural heritage and cultures and memories. Once you explore the maps and data, you’ll never think of heritage in the same way again.
In summer 2015 we first set out to measure the strength of heritage at the local level. We started to organise existing data covering both heritage assets (material and tangible stuff like buildings and nature reserves) and heritage activities (things like volunteering, investment and community initiatives). We’ve take a broad and inclusive view of how you measure heritage. We’ve combined data on the UK’s 10,000 blue plaques, through to size of ancient woodland and the number of local foods with protected naming status (like Cornish pasties).
In short, we wanted to reflect in our data what we were hearing at our workshops and events up and down the UK – heritage is a matter not just of what you have but what you do with it, and it’s up to citizens to decide: heritage is what you choose to make it.
Since our first Heritage Index was released last year, we’ve been amazed by how people have responded.
- Over 50,000 people have browsed our maps to see how their area performs.
- Over 1,000 people have downloaded the raw data for themselves, using it for their neighbourhood plan, for funding applications or to teach young people about the local area.
- We’ve been to dozens of towns and cities, speaking at events organised by our network of RSA Heritage Ambassadors. And since March the Heritage Index has been adopted as an official performance measure in England, through the government’s recent Culture White Paper.
This year, the Heritage Index is bigger and better. We’ve got new data from the Woodland Trust on 140,000 ancient trees across the UK; 65,000 war memorials documented by the Imperial War Museum; 6,000 shipwrecks off the coast compiled by Historic England; and data from the National Trust detailing 400 square miles of open access land. And, importantly, we’ve got an up to date picture on heritage activities at the local scale – from thousands of Heritage Open Days, through to clubs and groups for young people to enjoy wildlife and appreciate archaeology.
Heritage and identity are intimately linked, and our research shows this link is strongest in places where the public contribute and lead. It is through strong networks – what we call ‘networked heritage’ that the value of these contributions is maximised.
The Heritage Index is a tool to explore place. It has brought people together and strengthened networks. Let us know how your place uses it to plan for the future.
Explore the 2016 Heritage Index
Top 10 Heritage places - overall
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ENGLAND |
NORTHERN IRELAND |
SCOTLAND |
WALES |
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1. City of London |
1. Belfast
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1. Orkney Islands
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1. Gwynedd |
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2. Kensington and Chelsea |
2. Ards and North Down
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2. Dundee City |
2. Monmouthshire
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3. Westminster
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3. Newry, Mourne and Down |
3. Eilean Siar |
3. Powys
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4. Scarborough |
4. Causeway Coast and Glens |
4. Shetland Islands
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4. Ceredigion
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5. West Somerset |
5. Fermanagh and Omagh |
5. City of Edinburgh |
5. Cardiff
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6. South Lakeland |
6. Mid Ulster |
6. Argyll and Bute
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6. Conwy
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7. Gosport
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7. Lisburn and Castlereagh |
7. East Lothian |
7. Pembrokeshire
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8. Oxford
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8. Mid and East Antrim |
8.West Dunbartonshire |
8. Denbighshire
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9. Norwich |
9. Antrim and Newtownabbey |
9. Stirling |
9. Merthyr Tydfil
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10. Weymouth and Portland |
10. Derry City and Strabane |
10. Highland
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10. Isle of Anglesey
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I have now had a chance to look at the 'interactive map' and have to question the rigour of this so-called research. I live in an area that you have described as being within the bottom 7% of England. Within 1 mile of my home, I have over 100 listed properties, a largely untouched (and still occupied by the original family) 1640's Manor House with an exemplary William Kent landscaped garden. To get there you would have to take an old turnpiked road (with one toll house remaining), cross a Medieval bridge, and pass four monastic fish pounds dating from around 1300. You could head across the fields, which would take you over an Anglo Saxon burial mound, the George III canal (1790), and the 1850 Oxford and Rugby Railway, as well as the River Cherwell, which (incidentally) now has the same population of otters as it had in 1905, as well as a rapidly growing population of fish-eating birds, in particular kingfishers and grey herons. Had you kept going for less than half a mile from the fish pounds, you'd have reached a significant crossroads with a coaching inn from 1475, which was often frequented by dignitaries attending court and Parliament when it met in Oxford. Such was the wealthy traffic that the highwayman, Claude Duval regularly visited in the 1660s. The Oxfordshire Constabulary police house remained there from 1857 to 1968. Also within a mile, though in the opposite direction, is the 1916 RAF station, subsequently a Grade II listed cold-war US Air Force base from which bombers and reconnaisance aircraft flew regularly from the 1940s (when it was still an RAF base) to the 1990s. I haven't mentioned the pre-anglo Saxon boundary ditch, the 17th century public house, the 11th century church (that was relieved of much of its silver in fear of the approaching army under Cromwell ransacking it), that one of the mill houses remains, as does the bakehouse that depended on it (and had a chequered history as both a brothel and lodging for a 1960s Russian spy), nor that the Wharf acted as a major distribution point for coal to Oxford and London from 1790 to the mid-1800s. I'm afraid that I don't know how many ancient trees there are nearby, but I do reckon that this is a pretty rich heritage area and we are by no means atypical of the district. 7%? Come off it! Regards, Graham.
Graham, you've given a captivating description and I am inspired to spend more time in your neck of the woods.
We calculate scores on a per person per square mile basis - otherwise results would be biased to places with large populations and land area. I am confident in our calculations and the data is all there to run the numbers yourself. Without naming names, it might be that there are several parts of your district with large populations without much recorded heritage (assets or activities). Places like St.Albans, Chelmsford or Braintree district may feel similarly hard done by.
I'm afraid I don't have the time to 'run the numbers myself', nor should I need to do so. As Trevor, Steb, and I have all pointed out, providing metrics of information like this is a fundamentally flawed concept, open to gross mis-interpretation, highly political, and likely to lead to irreversible destruction of an already delicate heritage. I am saddened that my subscription to the RSA is being spent on something that runs SO counter to the philosophy of the organisation.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree. The philosophy of the RSA is to give people the power to create positive change in their lives and communities. Having free access to data that agencies hold regarding heritage, both aggregated into metrics and disaggregated in its raw form, I view as part of that. I don't think the data, alone, will lead to either destruction or conservation of heritage. The important thing is who is able to use it, for what purpose. We offer support through the Fellowship networks to help citizens and community groups use and interpret that data - which many are doing. Note that this work is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, rather than through Fellowship subscriptions. Let me know if you are in RSA house any time soon and we can discuss in more detail.
Fascinating. I realise that there's more to this than meets the eye. However, personally, it seems a bit rich to separate out three of the most affluent areas of, what most people describe as, London. By publishing a league table you are not helping the poorer areas to do anything to develop their own areas. Then there's the question of what a community CAN do to rise up this quasi-ladder? Short of creating a few more youth clubs there seems little. Would it be possible to list the ancient trees in those three parts of the capital?
Graham, everything we calculate is on a lower-tier local authority basis, which in London means boroughs. I appreciate that London is understood as one 'place' (a city with many neighbourhoods) but with a population the size of Wales and Scotland combined, I don't think lumping London all together would be that enlightening.
We've checked for statistical correlations and this shows it isn't accurate to describe the poor places as being at the bottom (not that you were saying that!). There's more than youth clubs - take a look at our suggestions here: https://www.thersa.org/action-and-research/rsa-projects/public-services-and-communities-folder/heritage-and-place/take-action
If you download the data (https://www.thersa.org/action-and-research/rsa-projects/public-services-and-communities-folder/heritage-and-place/explore-the-data) you can see all the sources we have used, including links to explore data in original source locations. So, better than a list, here is a map of all the ancient trees recorded by The Woodland Trust: http://www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk/Discoveries/interactivemap
Thank you. I have now had the chance to look at the Woodland Trust interactive map. It beggars belief, especially that you are drawing on this data to make such politically significant conclusions. Within ten miles of us, there are no trees featured, except an enormous cluster around a UNESCO World Heritage site (notice the word in the title?) where anything that stays still long enough to be counted has been! And yet, an area of Ancient forest (notice the words in the title) that is probably the most studied woodland ecosystem in the world at a similar distance from us has NO trees listed.
I'm sorry, Jonathan, your project is a long way removed from satisfying even the most rudimentary screening.
Graham, the ancient woodland near you will have been picked up in our data (as are all World Heritage Sites), and measured in size/hectares. It is precisely through scrutiny such as yours that much heritage data is created and verified. Woodland Trust have a process in place around ancient trees: http://www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk/NR/exeres/FEB31FC5-7628-4D5F-B8DE-398CA9F51858. I am not suggesting you volunteer, but I do think that using the best available data (such as this) is an improvement on such data being buried and virtually invisible to a person in a place who just wants to know about local heritage (but doesn't know where to begin to look). Questions around what hasn't been recorded, what is excluded, and who get to decide, are - I think - helpfully raised. All part of the messy and contentious process of deciding how to shape and where we live, as much as I appreciate that sounds flippant...understandably no-one likes to be misrepresented. (Also worth double-checking that you have followed instructions and selected additional data layers on the Ancient Tree map: http://www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk/Discoveries/interactivemap)
So here's a thing I was MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey for 13 years from 1997. Sittingbourne has one cinema which is sometimes closed and used to double as a Bingo Hall. On the Island I helped create a small digital cinema but it is small. There is a tiny theatre in both places but not able to take more than 80-100 people. There is no art gallery or concert hall. There is other than a school no place to receive a major concert - pop, jazz or classical. The schools like their music but after 18 there is no what I would call a heavy music scene. There is a shop which doubles as Sittingbourne museum.
Neither the town nor the island has major tourist attractions though the dock has a spectacular 19th century building and the first flights were from Leysdown. There is abject poverty on the Island. Sittingbourne was a paper mill town but not one survives.
My question is could you marry the Heritage index with a Poverty index to see if the worst rated on the first have the highest rating on the second. If as I suspect there is something in this then could we have Arts challenges not for Liverpool and Hull but for small towns?
Derek, we have analysed our heritage index scores against the latest Index of Multiple Deprivation (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2015) - as we did last year (see here (https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/reports/seven-themes-from-the-heritage-index/).
Long story short: there is no significant correlation between deprived places and heritage, though it tends to be richer rural places that do better on heritage activities and poorer urban places that score better on heritage assets.
I appreciate the particular challenges for small towns, and I know some of our heritage ambassadors (https://www.thersa.org/action-and-research/rsa-projects/public-services-and-communities-folder/heritage-and-place/heritage-ambassadors) are interested in settting up regional networks which can connect places facing similar challenges. Happy to pick up over email and connect you in?
A really interesting point. Thanks for raising it.
I realise that apart from its thriving museum sector the city of Derby scores pretty badly on the index, but is it an unfortunately coincidence or a punitive measure that its name label does not appear on the interactive map until clicked-on? Struggled to locate it at first.