Stenness, Orkney; Copyright: Historic Scotland

Scottish Ministers announced today their decision to refuse planning permission for the proposed development of three wind turbines at Merranblo, Stromness, Orkney. The application was considered at a local public inquiry in January 2008. ICOMOS-UK appeared at the inquiry along with other organisations, such as Historic Scotland, Orkney Archaeological Trust, Orkney Skyline Concern and Scottish Natural Heritage.

The World Heritage Site (WHS) in Orkney was inscribed on the World Heritage List as “a major prehistoric cultural landscape that provides a graphic depiction of life in a remote archipelago in the far north of Scotland some 5,000 years ago. [...] The monuments of Orkney, dating back to 3000-2000 BC, are outstanding testimony to the cultural achievements of the Neolithic peoples of northern Europe” (UNESCO World Heritage Centre). At the Inquiry ICOMOS-UK expressed concern about the adverse impact of the turbines on the historic environment of the WHS and its setting, as we believed that the site of the proposed development was located within the area of visual impact of the WHS.

The World Heritage Convention in 1972 was set out to identify, protect and preserve for future generations cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding universal value to humanity. ICOMOS-UK believed that the erection of the proposed wind turbines would compromise this very sensitive Scottish landscape and therefore have a detrimental impact on the outstanding universal value for which the WHS was inscribed in 1999.

The report by the Scottish Ministers concluded that “given the international importance of the cultural heritage resources of the area [...] the objective of preserving these monuments within an appropriate setting is consistent with the fundamental objectives of national policy”.

Leonor Medeiros with Stuart Smith, international industrial heritage expert, on Carn Brea overlooking Camborne mining town, Cornwall

Leonor Medeiros, while studying for a Masters in Heritage Management at the Ironbridge Institute, successfully completed her Work Attachment project with ICOMOS-UK at the end of June. Her project compared the experiences of UK and Portuguese mining sites and landscapes, identifying good practice in Britain to take home to Portugal.

The Report, entitled: ‘Managing Mining Landscapes: Sharing Experiences from the United Kingdom and Portugal‘, considers three sites in southern Portugal, situated on one of the largest sources of iron sulphide in the world, the Iberian Pyrite Belt. These are Lousal, Aljustrel and S. Domingos. Through site visits and meetings with conservation and heritage professionals at Blaenavon Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site and Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, Leonor learned about challenges concerning conservation, interpretation and opportunities for sustainable development and regeneration through, for example, cultural tourism.

Attending the ICOMOS-UK Summer Conference on Cultural Landscape Management enabled Leonor to meet several people involved in the management of industrial heritage, and in addition to field visits in the UK and Portugal, gained valuable experience in understanding how international guidelines such as the European Landscape Convention can be implemented for the successful conservation and presentation of a site.

Read the Managing Mining Landscapes report

Executive Summary of ‘Managing Mining Landscapes: Sharing Experiences from the United Kingdom and Portugal’ by Leonor Medeiros

This report is the result of a work placement with ICOMOS-UK, part of a MA in Heritage Management at the Ironbridge Institute, taken during May to June 2008, under the supervision of Tehmina Goskar. Its themes will be developed further into the course dissertation.

Lousal, Portugal, photo: Leonor Medeiros

The project aims to undertake an assessment of best practice for the management, presentation and interpretation of industrial mining landscapes, taking as examples two World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom – the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape and the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, which can suggest ideas of improvement to three developing mining sites in Portugal – Lousal, Aljustrel and S. Domingos.

Engine house restored as a private dwelling, Porthtowan, Cornwall

The focus on projects of restoration and conservation, the strong brand development and marketing strategies, the possibilities for creative interpretation and the variety of projects taking place in the UK have shown the opportunities of sustainable tourism-based development of abandoned mining sites; for the improvement of the local communities and the benefit for visitors. The importance of diverse international directives produced by organisations like ICOMOS also play an essential role overcoming challenges. In Portugal, with the investment in this area just beginning, the possibility to learn from the mistakes and successes of other sites provides invaluable information and excellent role models.

This report graciously acknowledges the time, effort and kindness of colleagues in Cornwall, Blaenavon and Portugal in enabling the necessary research.

Read the Managing Mining Landscapes report

Read the report in Portuguese

Link to ICOMOS Portugal

Dr David Yeomans, ICOMOS-UK member and UK representative on this committee, reports from his latest meeting:

“A sub-committee of ISCARSAH has been meeting with a working group of the ISO13822 committee (ISO is the International Organization for Standardization). This standard deals with the structural assessment of existing buildings but specifically excludes historic buildings. The task of our sub-committee has been to produce an annex for the standard that does cover historic buildings.

The meetings have been necessary because the structure of the annex has to reflect that of the basic standard and its text has to be approved by the ISO committee. The last meeting was held in Padova, one of the members of our group and our host, Claudio Modena, being in the Department of Structural and Transportation Engineering at the university there. The joint meting was held over two days, working to develop the text of the annex.

Following that, the Canadian member of our committee, Lyne Fontaine, and I spent another day and a half taking the comments that we had received to develop the text further. My original plan had been to spend a few days in the region to see something of its architecture. After all the region is dotted with Palladian villas. But clearly with much work to do on the document and the two of us normally separated by an ocean it was sensible to use the opportunity to make as much progress as possible.

We did have one day of a busman’s holiday when we were taken into Venice to look at restoration work on a couple of church towers and to visit the Arsenale.

Fig. 1: Arsenale, Venice, photo: David Yeomans

The work being done on the church towers that we visited involved foundation strengthening to arrest progressive leaning of the towers, vital work to preserve the monuments but not something that makes good pictures. The Arsenale is a different matter. It has been partly abandoned by the Italian navy although one part, still inaccessible and in fact containing some of the oldest buildings is still being used (Fig 1).

Fig 2: Wall surrounding Arsenale, Venice, photo: David Yeomans

Of course, the part that was abandoned was then given no maintenance and is an example of how rapidly buildings decay under those conditions. Therefore they now present a restoration problem. The tall wall that surrounds the Aresenale, (Fig 2) seen on the right where there is the opening to the lagoon, needs attention in places but while the roofs of later buildings may have even fallen in some of the huge timber roofs of the shipbuilding slips, the focus of this photograph still survive but need urgent attention.

Fig 3: Crane, Arsenale, Venice, photo: David Yeomans

A complex like this also includes major historic artefacts and there is a proposal to restore this historic British built crane (Fig 3)

The committee held a general meeting at the beginning of July taking advantage of the number of members who were attending the conference on the Structural Analysis of Historic Constructions. We arranged a full day meeting organized by Dina D’Ayala. Apart from the general committee business this was an opportunity for other members of the committee to comment on the text produced by this sub-committee. Our next meeting will be in Quebec.”