Context and General Introduction

Dry Stone Wall Wall Under Repair

This plan is drawn up as an immediate precursor to the Northumberland National Park Authority's full bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for funding to set up a Traditional Boundaries Traditional Skills training course. The research surrounding this bid has highlighted severe gaps in our knowledge about the state of the National Park's traditional boundaries and mechanisms for their protection, management and conservation as an important economic, natural environmental and cultural heritage resource. The recommendations set out below are based upon the results of a field survey exercise carried out in four sample areas of the Park viz:

• The Cheviots
• Coquetdate
• Redesdale
• The Hadrian's Wall Area

Within each of these sample areas three contiguous holdings were examined in detail. The express aims of the field survey were:

• to record in detail the form, structure, relationships and condition of the boundary system in the sampled areas
• the results of this survey to form the data base for the production of the present conservation management plan for traditional boundaries
• to provide a base-line document from which:
  • key areas for boundary/wall repair and conservation can be targeted
  • estimates relating to boundary condition might be made for the whole of the national park
  • to produce a better understanding of the historic evolution of the existing boundary system and ultimately the evolution of the agricultural landscape of the park
  • to develop and refine the recording methodology so that it might eventually be applied to a Northumberland National Park wide boundary survey