JCA 15 Durham Magnesian Limestone Plateau.
FGU Summary:This Character Area extends in a broad triangle south-westward from the North Sea
coast to the Wear valley and the Tees lowlands. Based on distinctive Magnesian Limestone rock, it
comprises varied coastal scenery, a gently undulating low upland plateau, and a striking west-facing
escarpment. 23% is urban area and just 4% is woodland.
3 sub-units: coast and coastal limestone plateau, clay plateau, limestone escarpment.
1. Settlement and Development
Large number of deserted medieval settlements, victims of post-medieval enclosure and reorganisation,
perhaps 15-20% of nuclations once present
Medieval settlement, essentially nucleated, was re-written after the 'Harrying of the North' . Planned
villages were commonplace within the Palatinate of Durham, and survive best to the south of this
character area.
Limestone quarrying, begun by the medieval monastic estates, expanded rapidly in the late 18 th century
- producing first building and agricultural lime, then materials for steel and chemical manufacture.
Underlying coal measures, although of poor quality, provided raw material (coke) for manufacture and
engineering.
The settled landscape across the north of the area were transformed as industrial villages were
established and expanded next to the collieries in the 19th century. These typically imported contrasting
urban brick and Welsh slate terraces and rows into the rural landscape.
Traditional buildings use local Magnesian limestone for walls and slates, and are frequently centred on
greens.
2. Agriculture
Medieval agriculture was mixed - producing grain and cattle for the monastic estates. Farmsteads
developed from 15th century on estates, and with enclosure of common fields from this period were
either relocated to new sites or left in village centres.
Very low survival of pre-1750 farmsteads. Some courtyard farmsteads survive from the medieval period.
More common are the mixture of linear farmsteads dating from late 17th century and the loose and
regular courtyard layouts of late 18th and 19th centuries. Farming was reorganised to match the
demands and markets provided by the urban expansion, leading to larger farm units, operating on semiindustrialised basis ,
3. Fields and boundary patterns
Arable production has been a feature of the plain since at least the medieval period. The large regular
fields reflect the ease with which the open fields of the medieval townships could be re-ordered in the
17th-18th centuries as production was reorganised around larger centralised farming units.
Most of the arable fields were enclosed by the late 17th century, the remaining commons and pastures
in the 18th. Hawthorn hedgerows were widely used.
4. Trees and woodland
Hedgerow trees are generally few.
Formal parkland and gardens contain exotic specimen trees and broadleaved semi-natural woodland.
Semi-natural broadleaved woodland (oak, oak-ash and alder) is confined to the incised river valleys
5. Semi-natural environments
Some unimproved limestone grassland, wetlands and heath.
6. River and coastal features.