4 
Brave New World – the immediate post-war years
Casual observers will see few drastic changes in the appearance of our fields in the near future. The patchwork quilt of colours and the different types and breeds of livestock will continue. (Gerald Wibberley 1950)1
National policy and national parks
The view that the countryside was worth preserving had been gaining ground before the war, but had made little headway during the economic depression of the 1930s. But already in the darkest days of the Second World War there were those who were looking ahead to a better future. ‘While almost everyone was busy with the immediate task of winning the war, it was also a time to dream of “a forward looking and bigger thing” than simply reverting to the pre-war days.’2
In 1941 the Scott Committee was formed to look ahead to what the British countryside should be like when peace returned. The committee, headed by Leslie Scott, a Lord Justice of Appeal, founder member of the CPRE and an active member of the Town and Country Planning Association, was set up to ‘consider the conditions which should govern building and other constructional development in country areas consistent with the maintenance of agriculture … having regard to … the well-being of rural communities and the preservation of rural amenities’. The vice-chairman was Dudley Stamp, well respected for his work on the Land-use Survey and a member of the small group which established the agenda for the development of post-war rural planning policy.3 His work had shown that between 1927 and 1939 there had been an average annual loss of 25,000 hectares of open land to urban and industrial development.4 Scott, with his conservationist background, emphasised the aesthetic values of the countryside: ‘The landscape of England and Wales is a striking example of the interdependence between the satisfaction of man’s material wants and the creation of beauty’, and so ‘farmers and foresters are unconsciously the nation’s landscape gardeners’.5 He brought together the aspirations of the economist and the conservationist in the statement:
We consider that the land of Britain should be both useful and beautiful and that the two aims are not incompatible. The only way to preserve the countryside in anything like its traditional aspect is to farm it.6
Scott and the majority of his committee thought it was traditional farming that would conserve the beauty and diversity of the countryside. Indeed, the eminent ecologist Arthur Tansley wrote in 1945: ‘it is scarcely possible that the extension of agriculture will go much further; the limits of profitable agricultural land must have been reached in most places.’7 However, the Scott Committee was not unanimous in its views. A minority report by Lord Dennison foresaw the dangers to the environment of an increasingly large-scale and automated agriculture.
Alongside these visions of the future of the countryside as a whole there was pressure for the development of national parks as a way of protecting some of the most valuable landscapes. This had begun with the Addison Committee report of 1931 and continued under the Standing Committee of National Parks, set up in 1936. In 1938 the Standing Committee published The case for National Parks in Britain and its ideas were taken up by Scott. His report, published in 1942, advocated tighter planning rules, the setting up of national parks, which would include both the Norfolk Broads and the entire coastline of England and Wales as a single national park, the establishment of a ‘footpaths commission’ and the registration of common land. In the same year John Dower was asked to undertake a survey of potential national parks and ‘amenity areas’. The aims of the national parks would be to preserve their characteristic landscapes, to provide access for public open-air enjoyment, to protect wildlife, buildings and places of architectural and historical interest, and to ensure that established farming use was effectively maintained. ‘it was the culmination of inter-war attempts to combine preservation with modernity.’8 In a lecture to the RIBA in 1943 John Dower explained why he thought that national parks would be so important. The holiday use of the countryside would be a significant part of postwar reconstruction, contributing to the physical and mental health of the nation. There would be increased leisure time and an increasing popular appreciation of ‘natural landscape beauty’, and all this would be made possible by the advance of mechanical transport.9
The official view was thus seen to support conservation and so be in tune with the national park movement. However, the problem remained over the conflict between access, recreation and conservation. There needed to be a clear difference between national parks and national nature reserves (NNRs). The protection of ‘natural beauty’ was the role of national parks, while nature reserves were for the protection of nature. In June 1941 (the same year as the Scott Committee was set up) a ‘conference on nature preservation in post-war reconstruction’ was organised by the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves (SPNR) and the RSPB. In 1942 a Nature Reserve investigation Committee was created under Arthur Tansley and regional sub-committees were formed. The importance of the designation of NNRs based on scientific evidence was stressed. The sub-committee for Norfolk included many well-known naturalists and was chaired by Anthony Buxton of the Horsey Estate in Norfolk. It reported in August 1943 and recommended that all the Broadland rivers and their assoc iated broads, marshes and tributaries should be ‘scheduled areas’. Three areas, Hickling–Horsey, Ranworth–Woodbastwick and Wheatfen, should be given priority rating.10 There are now at least twenty NNRs in Norfolk concentrated in the Broads, the heaths of Breckland, west Norfolk and the north coast.
At the same time, a final list of ten areas that should be designated national parks was being recommended in the Dower Report of 1945. which included the Broads as a ‘reserve area.’ Owing to disagreement between the government departments involved, the Dower report was not endorsed and instead a National Parks Committee (the Hobhouse Committee), working in parallel with a Wildlife and Conservation Committee chaired by Julian Huxley, was set up to review John Dower’s report and the different approaches needed to nature conservation and national parks. The Hobhouse Report of 1947 included the Broads in a third instalment list of national parks to be established. It described the area as
a unique complex of fens and waterways which provides unsurpassed opportunities for sailing and boating holidays, a distinctive range of flora and fauna, including many rare and interesting specimens, and a delicate beauty of landscape, derived from the integration of water and land, and the soft colourings of the marshlands under a wide sky. It will be the only National Park in the eastern counties; and has the added advantage of being easily accessible from London and the Midlands.11
However, in spite of this glowing assessment the Broads remained on a reserve list. This was because
there are many complications, both of drainage, navigation etc., and of existing misuses and disfigurements; and the requirements differ materially from those of a regular National Park. It may prove better to deal with the area on some ad hoc scheme of combined local and national action, which should include the protection of substantial areas of mere and marsh as strict Nature Reserves.12
There was also the problem of costs. The committee estimated these over a tenyear programme for the rehabilitation of the region, including clearing vegetation, dredging channels, providing mooring facilities and wardening, as £122,100 in the first year and £117,000 in each of the following nine. This greatly reduced its chances of gaining national park status.13 Not surprisingly, therefore, the Broads were not included in the National Parks Act of 1949.
Meanwhile, in 1947 the Huxley Committee recommended nearly 100 NNRs across Britain. These were on a much smaller scale than the large areas in national parks and were chosen for their wildlife, ecological or geological importance. Norfolk examples included Scolt Head and Blakeney Point on the north coast, and Hickling Broad, Horsey Mere, Barton Broad and Winterton Dunes in the Broads and on the east coast. In Breckland, Cavenham Heath, Lakenheath and Wangford Warren, all of which ‘displayed a set of conditions and communities found nowhere else in these islands’ were included.14 Parts of Wangford Common and Lakenheath were already protected, as they were owned by the NNT. However, there were many sites which could not be recommended as NNRs, mainly because they were smaller and important for very specific reasons. To draw attention to their importance the Committee suggested that they should be scheduled separately as Sites of Special Scientific interest (SSSis). It also encouraged the designation of Local Nature Reserves. As early as 1929 Professor Oliver had seen local groups such as the NNT as the ideal bodies to manage them and by 1946 the NNT had acquired seven reserves divided between the north Norfolk coast, the Broads and Breckland.
In 1944 Major Buxton proposed a Broadland Nature Reserve. His family had established a bird sanctuary at Horsey in 1910 which was world famous as a breeding ground for wildfowl.15 He felt that the property should be owned by the National Trust, with the NNT cooperating in its management. The NNT committee agreed that the site should go to the National Trust ‘and in any case no further steps should be taken until the government’s actions as regards nature reserves in general was made known’.16
Nearly all the pressure at this time was focused on the natural environment, with little official interest shown in the protection of the cultural landscape. ‘Though the Ministry of Works has fairly wide powers, we are not satisfied that the conjoined interests are sufficiently met.’ The Huxley Committee recognised this as a serious omission, stating in its report:
We are neither directed nor qualified to consider archaeological values; but, as we have tried to show, the interests with which we are concerned are closely involved, and we should like to see applied to archaeological principles of preservation and conservation similar to those we are seeking to apply in our own sciences. We therefore strongly recommend that a special committee fully competent to advise on these aspects should be set up without delay; and meanwhile, that in any proposed legislation, provision should be made to include archaeological features in the general conservation and planning machinery.17
No such committee was set up and the conservation of field monuments lagged well behind that of wildlife.
One of the tasks of the Nature Conservancy, set up under the National Parks Act of 1949, was to designate SSSis and NNRs. The Breckland Heaths, the Broads as a whole and the north Norfolk coast were all considered areas of scientific interest. Professor Steers had been studying Scolt Head since the 1920s and was instrumental in its becoming one of the first Norfolk National Nature Reserves in 1954. For many years, until his death in 1987, he was chairman of both the Scolt Head Joint Advisory Committee and the Norfolk Coast Conservation Committee. He understood that coastal conservation needed the support of the local population, particularly those who made their living from the sea. He had a gentle but firm authority which commanded respect, was an enthusiastic supporter of all research at Scolt Head and understood the importance of earth and life sciences working together to protect the coastline.18
Government concern over the conservation of the Broads can be traced back to 1944, when the Minister of Town and Country Planning wrote to Norfolk County Council indicating that ‘the time is ripe for an investigation into problems connected with the preservation, control and improvement’ of Broadland and requesting the organising of a Broads conference of interested parties. This was held in April 1945 and resulted in the production of a list of eight factors which were detracting from the beauty of the Broads. These including pollution and rubbish, the increase in river traffic, the ‘erection of bungalows and shacks’, the contraction of the area of open water by weed growth and the decay of old pumping mills and other traditional buildings.19 A further conference was held in 1947 which recommended the setting up of a Broads Committee as a voluntary body ‘to promote the welfare, development and use’ of the Broads. It would be a consultative body, advising and stimulating existing authorities to exercise their powers by negotiating between opposing interests and making recommendations.20 In 1949 a Broads Joint Advisory Committee was set up with the function of advising the planning authorities with responsibility in the area. However, it was primarily concerned with development control and planning and did not attempt to tackle the environmental problems that were building up.
The immediate post-war years were active ones for the NNT. In 1945 it was asked by the Huxley Committee to produce a map ‘showing all areas which they regarded as important for the conservation of flora and fauna, together with a note stating in reference to each area what particular danger (development, forestry, change in landuse) they thought should be guarded against’.21 A copy of this map could not be located.
36 Dr Joyce Lambert at work in the Norfolk Broads. Her pioneering botanical research, alongside the historical and geological evidence, established that the Broads were man-made medieval peat diggings.
Building on its previous success, the NNT turned its attention to the Broads, which were likely to come under increased pressure as peace allowed the holiday industry to expand. In 1945 part of Barton Broad was given to the NNT by Captain Wilson of irstead Lodge, while the northern part was purchased from a Mr Storey, and in the same year the Whiteslea estate at the south end of Hickling Broad was purchased from Lord Desborough’s executors with the help of Christopher Cadbury, the RSPB, the Pilgrim Trust and a national appeal. An endowment fund of £15,000 to support the reserve was needed and a national appeal was over-subscribed by £2,360.22 Meanwhile, Major Buxton sold his property at Horsey to the National Trust for £5,000. The area became immediately popular and ‘The difficulties arising from the large numbers of visitors to Hickling Broad’ were discussed by the NNT committee; ‘it was resolved that in future these should be limited to subscribers of a minimum of one pound. Permission must be obtained from the secretary.’23 In 1948 forty acres in the Yare valley at Surlingham were given to the Trust and the following year Ranworth and the smaller Cockshoot Broad, off the River Bure, were given by Colonel Cator subject to the king having one day of shooting a year. No visitors were to be allowed into these areas except to the watchtower at the end of the Broad, ‘from which there is an excellent view’.24 However, an appeal for the upkeep of these two Broads was far less successful than the earlier one and the fact that there was far less public interest in maintenance than in purchase had to be accepted. In 1952 Surlingham Broad was purchased with the help of £1,000 from the Pilgrim Trust. By this time the NNT holdings in the Broads were substantial and a sub-committee to manage them was set up. The NNT annual report of 1950 reported that
Naturalists from all over the country and overseas visited the Norfolk Nature Reserves, particularly those established in the Broads and on the coast. The number of visitors increased every year and many expressed appreciation of the facilities provided by the Trust and ‘the help so courteously given by the wardens.
Outside these protected areas progress in the Broads was painfully slow, as naturalists and scientists watched an area once famed for its flora and fauna being reduced to mediocrity. There were too many competing interests — tourism, farming, drainage and other local authorities — for a unified approach to be achieved. In 1952 new research led by the Norfolk-born botanist Dr Joyce Lambert showed that the Broads were of interest not only to the naturalist but also to the historian. She announced her findings in her presidential address to the NNNS. By analysing more than 1,500 borings from the deposits of peats, clays and muds she was able to show that the broads had had vertical sides and flat bottoms criss-crossed by steep-sided ridges and islands of solid peat, often associated with parish boundaries. The only logical explanation was that they were not in fact natural lakes, but man-made peat diggings dating back to the Middle Ages. Her findings then found support from work by Dr Clifford Smith on medieval leases, surveys and other documents.25
Meanwhile, the pollution of the Broads continued to give concern. As early as 1921 boating interests were complaining that Hickling Broad was becoming choked with weed which would spoil the annual regatta, as well as the fishing. A letter to the Eastern Daily Press suggested that clearing the weed would be ‘useful work for the unemployed’.26 The seriousness of the problems were highlighted in a report of the Nature Conservancy in 1965, followed in 1971 by publication of Norfolk County Council’s first Broadland Study and Plan. But little action followed and it was the floating of a proposal for a national park in the late 1970s that resulted in pressure on all the county authorities to come up with a joint programme of proper management to halt, and if possible reverse, the decline. While the Countryside Commission and the conservation bodies saw a national park status as the only possible solution the various local authorities and recreational interests feared just another layer of bureaucracy and in January 1978, after a ‘long and complex debate’, the Norfolk County Council voted against supporting a national park, a decision criticised by the Eastern Daily Press in its leader: ‘The only common ground is that something must be done quickly if the Broads are to be saved, but the most likely effect of the County Council’s deplorable decision is that effective action, of whatever nature and from within whatever framework, will be further delayed.’27 The compromise was the setting-up, after long negotiation, of a joint Broads Authority consisting of representatives of the eight local authorities, the Countryside Commission, Anglian Water and the Great Yarmouth Port and Haven Commissioners. According to the Agreement signed in 1980, the Authority would be funded from the local authorities and operate from offices provided by Broadland District in Norwich. The planning functions of the participating local authorities within the Broads were to be devolved to the Authority and one of the main tasks was to produce a new management plan for the region. A consultative document, ‘What future for Broadland’, was produced in 1982 and a final lavishly illustrated 128-page version, the Broads Plan, in 1987.28 There always had to be compromises. As stated in the original Agreement, consideration of the wildlife importance of the region had to be balanced against the ‘economic and social interests of those who live and work in the area (and) … facilitating the use of the Broads for holiday and recreational purposes’. Finally, in 1988, fifty-eight years after the Addison Committee had recommended that the Broads should be a national park, legislation giving the Broads Authority National Park status in all but one important aspect was passed. To placate the boating and tourism interests, the bill for its creation, unlike that of other national parks, did not include the stipulation that ‘if an irreconcilable conflict of interest occurs within a national park, priority should be given to the conservation of natural beauty’ over economic arguments (the Sandford principle).29 In effect, the Broads Act 1988 requires balanced weight to be given to navigation as against conservation.
37 The Ouse Washes, acquired by the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust in 1971, are an important feeding ground for migrating wetland birds.
From its inception, the Authority supported a wide range of academic research studying the nutrient levels in the sediments deposited in the Broads and why their ecology had changed so profoundly since 1945. The water chemistry and the way in which water plants were affected by increasing nutrient levels was also a subject for scientific investigation. In this the Authority was greatly assisted by work undertaken by Brian Moss and his colleagues in the School of Environmental Sciences, set up as part of the new university of East Anglia when it opened its doors in 1963.
The NNT’s progress in Breckland was not so impressive. The purchase of 225 acres on Thetford Heath was followed by the news that Stanford Battle Area was to be extended to include much of the Wretham reserve, and in 1953
The proposal to develop Thetford and Brandon into towns capable of absorbing 300,000 Londoners for work in the timber industry was considered a possible threat to the Trust’s reserves. It was agreed that the government department responsible for National Parks and NNRs, the Nature Conservancy (later English Nature)should be consulted.30
The restriction on the number of members of the NNT seems to have been dropped after the war; there were 321 life members by 1947, when membership cards were introduced, and 760 by 1951, many of whom were annual subscribers. For the first time a leaflet listing the properties owned by the Trust was produced for members. Further efforts to involve members were made in 1955, when the AGM was to be made more attractive by the inclusion of a film or lecture. In 1960 it was resolved that ‘an effort be made to encourage more activity on the part of Trust members and the possibility of arranging excursions in future years’. Notice boards were installed at Hickling Broad and on Breckland.31
A further area of great ornithological importance is the Wash. It is one of Britain’s most important winter feeding areas for waders and wildfowl outside the breeding season. The RSPB took over the marshes at Snettisham, visited by thousands of migrating waders every year, in 1972. Peter Scott lived in the Nene Lighthouse at the north-west edge of the county for many years. The reserve on the important marshland feeding grounds of the Ouse Washes at Welney was set up in 1971 by the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust, which was founded by Sir Peter Scott at Slimbridge (Gloucestershire) in 1946. The Welney reserve consists of over 1,000 acres of seasonally flooded land, making it the largest such site in Britain.The whole coastline of tidal mudflats and sands from the Nene around the Wash to Snettisham was leased to the Nature Conservancy and is protected by them.
The historic environment and planning for the future
While concern for the natural environment was growing, the immediate postwar years saw the wholesale demolition of country houses. The agricultural depression and accompanying falls in rents had meant that many landed gentry had abandoned their great houses in the 1920s and 1930s, and they stood unwanted and in disrepair, an ever-increasing burden on ever-decreasing fortunes. Some were taken over by the military during the Second World War and so had suffered further degradation. Following the war the armies of servants and estate staff that were needed to run them were no longer available and only the finest examples, where the owner could provide an endowment to support them, could be taken over by the National Trust. The result was the destruction of many. In Norfolk fifty-four disappeared in the twentieth century, 40 per cent between 1940 and 1960.32 The loss of the house usually meant the end of the parkland around it and the combination meant a diminution of the cultural and landscape diversity of the locality. The scale of the loss was brought home by an exhibition at the victoria and Albert Museum in the winter of 1974 entitled The Destruction of the Country House. As publicity for the exhibition, photographs of lost houses were sent to local newspapers and public awareness was raised. The result was the founding of SAVE in 1975, whose aim was to publicise threats to historic buildings.
The deaths of the third earl of Leicester in 1941, followed only eight years later by that of the fourth earl, left Holkham very vulnerable to death duties and overtures were made to the National Trust. Lord Crawford, chairman of the National Trust, described the hall as being ‘the noblest and the library the cosiest room in England’ and wrote to the fifth earl, ‘i can from my own experience realise the sort of dilemma you are in and the sense of hopelessness and helplessness one feels.’33 In the event some of the outlying farms were sold, as well as books and manuscripts from the library, which government grants enabled the British Museum and the Bodleian Library to buy. In 1950 the house was opened for nine afternoons in July and August, bringing in just over £1,000, a figure that doubled the next year. An important milestone for Holkham and other privately owned houses was the publication of the Gowers report and the implementation of its recommendations in 1953. This established the Historic Buildings Council, which had the power to award grants for the maintenance of buildings, and the Ministry of Works architect gave enthusiastic support to Holkham, which benefited greatly from these grants from their inception.34
38 Burnham Overy Mill –– an example of one of the ‘Amenity Areas’ recognised in the 1951 County Development Plan.
The period also saw an increasing involvement of local government in planning and preservation. As we have seen, the CPRE was critical of the lack of effective planning controls in the 1930s, despite the planning acts of 1923, 1932 and 1935. As with the moves towards national parks, concerns over planning for a better future also began in the later years of the Second World War, when the need for control over rebuilding after the war became clear. The real change was the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, which gave control of planning to the new Local Planning Authorities (LPAs). For rural Norfolk the LPA was Norfolk County Council, which excluded the County Boroughs of Norwich and Great Yarmouth. The LPA was required to produce a County Development Plan which would guide planning decisions for the next twenty years, and the Plan for Norfolk was published in 1951. For the first time the concept of identifying areas of ‘high landscape value’ was recognised and the plan contained sections on ‘National Parks, Conservation and Amenity Considerations’ and ‘Ancient Monuments and Buildings of Architectural and Historic interest’. As well as nationally recognised sites, the Plan identified for the first time ‘Amenity Areas’ such as Blickling, Burnham Overy Mill and Roman Camp, West Runton. The Broads and the north Norfolk coast were recognised as being of ‘Landscape value’. In 1968 the north Norfolk coast was designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The need for conservation was not only seen to include specific ringfenced recognised sites but also flagged up the need for some control over much larger areas. The implementation of the plan was left largely to local urban and Rural District Councils, with professional planning advice from the county planning department and with the proviso that any proposal contrary to the Plan should be referred to the County Council.
While there had been considerable pressure on government to create national parks and nature reserves, there had been little concern over historic sites. The construction of motorways, road widening schemes and city bypasses were the first linear threat since the the construction of the railways. Gravel workings associated with these new roads proliferated, especially along river valleys rich in prehistoric settlement. Aerial photography was revealing ever more sites at a time when forestry and modern farming, with its deep ploughing and drainage schemes, were posing ever greater threats. ‘Economic incentives offered by post-war agricultural incentives and tax structures turned agriculture into a serious threat to rural archaeology.’35 The number of scheduled monuments in Norfolk had hardly risen since the 1920s, when Basil Cozens-Hardy had been active, but by 1950 sixty-four new sites were ‘under consideration’. ‘A number of the more important ones (already scheduled) are in direct custodianship of the Ministry of Works and are usually open to inspection on payment of a small fee.’36 This number has risen to over 400.
Appreciation of the regional diversity of the built environment was also increasing. Attempts to identify buildings of historic and architectural interest other than those recognised as Ancient Monuments had begun in the last days of the Second World War. The 1947 Town and Country Planning Act gave local authorities or central government the power to make ‘lists’ of historic buildings, but there was no obligation to do so or any mechanism for regulating the destruction or alteration of such buildings. Archaeological considerations were given very little weight. In 1945 an advisory committee on listing was established to provide guidance on how the system should operate and it decided that there should be three grades. It then oversaw the first survey of the nation’s historic buildings. Under the 1947 Act listing became a statutory duty of government, ‘thus presaging the most comprehensive act of state intervention in heritage that had hitherto been seen’.37 Provisional lists were compiled from 1948 by the Ministry of Works and included over 1,500 Norfolk buildings by 1951. Buildings were classified as grade i, ii* and ii, but until 1968 no particular statutory powers were attached to these classifications. In Norfolk, the future of windmills was a particular concern. By 1951 twenty-six had been listed; in contrast, water mills were not thought to be at such a risk, with only eleven included.38 Only in 1966 was this national listing survey finally completed. Churches, country houses and vernacular buildings dating from before about 1800 made up the majority of buildings included. However, local authorities had very little power to prevent the alteration or demolition of listed buildings. The Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act of 1953 set up the Historic Buildings Council, which could give grants to owners of listed properties. It also repealed the preservation order arrangements of 1913 and 1931 and introduced a revised system of ‘interim Preservation Notices’ and ‘Guardianship Orders’. In 1962 local authorities were given the power to make similar grants. The 1968 Town and Country Planning Act legislated that permission for grade I and II* was needed before demolition or alterations were undertaken and fines were in place for unauthorised works. Grants for repair could also be given. These early lists were indeed little more than that, with only the briefest of descriptions of the buildings concerned. This left room for revision and improvement, which was undertaken at a later date.
The post-war years saw a steady increase in standards of living and car ownership alongside increased leisure and a desire to visit and understand the countryside. The production of popular books, which had begun before the war, continued. Robert Hale, under the general editorship of Brian vesey Fitzgerald, was producing a series of both regional (The Broads and The Fens, both 1952, and Breckland in 1956) and county (Norfolk, 1951) books. The Norfolk volume boasted on its cover ‘the immense variety of scenery, fine examples of all that is best of English architecture, great variety of landscape and a rich historic past’. Separate sections covered the Broads, Breckland, the Fens and the coast. Particularly popular was Faber and Faber’s series of ‘Shell Guides’, edited by John Betjeman and sponsored by the oil company. The authors of the Norfolk volume, published in 1957, claimed to have visited ‘every church, village and country house within the county …. Everything Norfolk has to show that is worth mentioning is mentioned here.’39 This popular interest increased awareness and pressure for the preservation of what were seen as significant monuments from the past, although these were generally confined to the churches, castles, ruined abbeys and great houses that featured so prominently in the guide books.
Concentration was still focused on individual sites and buildings rather than larger areas. Change had to await the ‘Civic Amenities Act’ (1967), which introduced the concept of ‘Conservation Areas’. These were defined as ‘Areas of Special Architectural or Historic interest, the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance’.40
Gradually the emphasis in the conservation of both natural and historic sites was shifting from single isolated examples to concern for the wider environment. This was a trend which increased during the later years of the twentieth century, but at the same time was likely to be more controversial. The conflicts which resulted are the subject of the next chapter.
1 Quoted in P. Lowe, C. Cox, M. MacEwen, T. O’Rioden and M. Winter (1986) Countryside conflict: the politics of farming, forestry and conservation. Aldershot, Gower, 26.
2 Sheail 2002, 117.
3 W. Pilfold (2007) ‘Defending farmland’, in B. Short, C. Watkins and J. Martin (ed.) The Front Line of Freedom. Exeter, British Agricultural History Society, 196.
4 Lowe et al. 1986, 16.
5 Scott, Lord Justice (1942) Report of the Committee of Land utilisation in Rural Areas. Command Paper 6278, London, HMSO, 4.
6 Scott 1942, 47.
7 A. Tansley (1945) Our heritage and wild nature: a plea for organised nature conservation; quoted in Lowe et al. 1986, 20.
8 Sheail 2002, 121.
9 Sheail 2002, 118.
10 George 1992, 453.
11 Parliamentary Papers (1947) Report of the National Parks Committee (England and Wales) (the Hobhouse report). Command Paper 7121, London, HMSO, 11.
12 PP 1947 7121, quoted in George 1992, 408.
13 George 1992, 408.
14 Parliamentary Papers (1947) Report on the Conservation of Nature in England and Wales (the Huxley Report). Command Paper 7122, London, HMSO, 22.
15 Eastern Daily Press, 17 May 1946.
16 NNT minute book 1944.
17 TNA HLG 93/23; Parliamentary Papers 1947b, 32 and 30.
18 H. Allison and J. Morley (eds) (1989) Blakeney Point and Scolt Head Island. Norfolk, National Trust, 10.
19 Quoted in George 1992, 407.
20 Printed report of conference (NCC).
21 NNT Minute book 1945.
22 Eastern Daily Press, 17 May 1946.
23 NNT minute books 1946.
24 NNT minute books 1949.
25 J. Lambert, J. Jennings, C. Smith, C. Green and J. Hutchison (1960) The Making of the Broads. Royal Geographical Society, Series 3. London, RGS.
26 Eastern Daily Press, letter 21 November 1921.
27 Eastern Daily Press, 24 January 1978.
28 George 1992, 424–7.
29 George 1992, 438.
30 NNT minute books 1953.
31 NNT minute books 1947, 1951, 1955 and 1960.
32 D. Clarke (2008) The country houses of Norfolk, part two, the lost houses. Wymondham, George Reeve, 5.
33 Holkham MS ‘sale of heirlooms file’ correspondence 1949–1950.
34 I am grateful to Christine Hiskey, the archivist at Holkham, for the information in this paragraph.
35 Hunter 1996, 51.
36 Norfolk County Council (1951) Development Plan for the County of Norfolk. Norwich, NCC (NRO Acc2012/163). For an analysis of the 1951 report see J. Ayton (2012) ‘The mid-twentieth century norfolk county survey and plan’, The Annual 21, 15–32.
37 Cowell 2008, 112.
38 Norfolk County Council 1951; Ayton 2012.
39 W. Harrod and C.L.S. Linnell (1957) Shell Guide to Norfolk. London, Faber (dust cover).
40 Mynors 2006, 12–13.