Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Heritage Lottery Bid

A £1.9 million grant to Quantock Hills ‘Reimagining the Manor’ Scheme has been given initial support by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) through its Landscape Partnership (LP) programme.

The scheme, developed by the Quantock Hills AONB Team in partnership with South West Heritage Trust, Friends of Quantock and others, aims to inspire the local communities to learn from the centuries of landscape development on the Quantock Hills and undertake a wide range of projects providing resilience and protection of the landscape into the future.

The Quantock Hills are a special place. Their designation in 1956 as England’s first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty was not only for their particular qualities as a natural environment, but also for their remarkable story of human interaction with nature reaching back many thousands of years. The Quantock Hills landscape is based on a ring of historic estates. These estates have ensured a holistic landscape scale approach to land management. However a number of these estates are experiencing changes such as breaking up into smaller farm units, leading to an increasingly fragmented approach to land management.

The ‘Reimagining the Manor’ scheme is made up of over 26 separate projects which aim to work together to:

Inspire - engage people in understanding the landscape, its cultural influence and work with communities to understand the pressures and opportunities into the future.

Live - undertake physical works to conserve and enhance the landscape and heritage assets of the Quantock Hills.

Learn - increase knowledge of the Quantock Hills and the role of the estates in the formation of its landscapes.

The scheme will increase interpretation of the Quantock Hills, including historic figures such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Andrew Crosse by linking with local schools, leading walks and village events. Also there will be training available for young people, landowners and local communities in the skills required to enhance the landscape and manage land and assets into the future. There will be a focus on those features that make up the special qualities of the Quantock Hills area such as orchards, hedgerows and parkland trees as well as follies and other built features. Other exciting projects will engage the local communities in capturing the traditions and memories of the Quantock area, as well as training in undertaking heritage investigations to increase knowledge of the pre-historic landscape and how it has changed over time, shaping the landscape we see today.

Iain Porter Project Officer at the Quantock Hills AONB says

“This is the start of a very exciting journey for the Quantock Hills AONB and the surrounding communities, a big thank you to the National Lottery Players for making it all possible. We can’t wait to get the ball rolling with the Reimagining the Manor project. The Quantocks are a living and working landscape and always have been. Although the way we live and manage the land is constantly changing, with this project we want to give people the inspiration, knowledge and skills to move forward but continue to enhance this special landscape and historic environment for future generations to enjoy and love.”

A development grant of £91,300 has been awarded by HLF to enable the Quantock Hills AONB service and others to develop its plans and seek final approval for the full grant amount of £1.9 million at a later date.

For further information please contact:

Iain Porter, Development Officer, Quantock Hills AONB Service

Email: iporter@somerset.gov.uk Tel: 01823 451884

Katy Coate, Communications and Support Officer, Quantock Hills AONB Service

Email: klcoate@somerset.gov.uk Tel: 01823 451884