Historic Environment -
AONB Through the Ages

Our picture of the Island's development over the last 450,000 years, is continually changing as new information comes to light.  The gaps that exist within our current interpretations illustrate the continuing need to record information about the historic environment.

Early inhabitants

Within the AONB, evidence of human activity has been found dating back to a time when the land that now forms the Isle of Wight was part of a larger land mass, along with much of modern day continental Europe.  One Paleolithic flint-working site found locally may date from as early as 425,000 years ago.  But early humans had little impact on the environment.  In post-glacial times, from 10,000 years ago, Mesolithic hunter-gatherers operated in an environment that became increasingly heavily wooded as the climate improved.

New Stone Age people were the first to actively change their surroundings for farming (between approximately 3500 and 2200 BC).  Pollen analysis suggests that small areas of natural woodland were cleared on chalky and sandy soils, and the area worked for the growing crops.  Once soil supplies were exhausted, new areas of woodland were felled.  Our current archaeological evidence is concentrated in West Wight, and shows the impact of these communities on the landscape.  A key feature is the Longstone (Grid Ref SZ407842), the only Neolithic standing stone on the Isle of Wight.

Bronze and Iron Age

From around 220BC, the advent of metalworking and advances in both cereal production and livestock rearing, marked a radical change in the management and development of the landscape.  Following the clearance of extensive areas of woodland on the chalk downs for agriculture, Bronze Age communities sited burial mounds in these highly visible areas on the ridgeline or on 'false crests' above settlements (a good example being 'Five Barrows' on Brook Down Grid Ref SZ390852).  Today, Bronze Age barrows are significant features in the historic landscape of the AONB.  Organised field systems were present in the landscape during later prehistoric times, and a particularly well-preserved example of such a field system within the AONB lies in Brighstone Forest.  Prehistoric settlements of Bronze Age and Iron Age date, although known to archaeologists, have left little trace in the modern landscape but the earthworks at Castle Hill, near Mottistone Longstone, may have protected a farming settlement.

Prehistoric farming methods have sometimes led to soil erosion and degradation.  Hillwash deposits in chalk combes have been found to contain Bronze Age material.  Much of the heathland that was present on the Island was, until relatively recently, either naturally generated coastal heathland or created by prehistoric woodland clearance of poor soils.  In lowland England generally, it has been estimated that around 50% of post-glacial woodland cover had been removed as a result of agricultural activity by the earlier part of the Iron Age (circa 500BC).

Roman Vectis

With the coming of the Romans to the Isle of Wight (Vectis), the existing systems of agriculture were refined and more efficiently organised in response to the market economy.  Roman building techniques and culture were introduced into some areas of the Island, while in other areas life often continued as it had before for the Iron Age farming communities.  A good example of this is the villa at Brading (Grid Ref SZ600862), where a late Iron Age settlement was superseded by a simple early villa, and then by a more sophisticated villa complex at its full extent dating from around AD300.  The remains of a field system on Brading Down may be associated with the nearby villa.

Anglo-Saxons and Normans

The withdrawal of Roman administration and government left Roman Britain, including the Isle of Wight, vulnerable to attack and invasion.  Jutes and then West Saxons colonized the Island.  Important Anglo-Saxon cemeteries were discovered on Chessell Down and Bowcombe Down in the nineteenth century, but have left no traces in the present landscape.  Place names, however, have left an enduring record of the Anglo-Saxom colonisation of the Island.  Many surviving settlements, farmsteads and estates originated in Anglo-Saxon times, and are mentioned in the Domesday Book.  Anglo-Saxon estate boundaries recorded in charters have also in some cases survived to the present day.

The Middle Ages

Mediaeval settlement patterns within the AONB consisted of small, loosely nucleated or nucleated settlements.  However, the planned towns of Yarmouth and Newtown were created in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  During the Middle Ages and early modern period, land ownership was formalised and recorded in wills, and land terriers.  Boundaries were often given further importance by being used to demarcate manorial and parish administrative areas, the integrity of which was checked annually through rogation or beating the bounds.  Many can still be seen in the landscape of the AONB today.

Post mediaeval landscape changes include industrial and military activities, which have resulted in a wealth of structures and sites on the Island.  The designed parklands, still visible within the landscape of the AONB, date mainly from the later eighteenth century and from the nineteenth century, although earlier designed landscapes are known from documentary sources (Basford 1989).  Several such sites within the AONB are recorded on the National Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest held by English Heritage, (such as Appuldurcombe, Grid Ref SZ542801, and Osborne, Grid Ref SZ519949).  Further locally important sites are listed in the Unitary Development Plan.

The agrarian and industrial revolutions saw changes in farming techniques, and in the availability, transportation and production of building materials.  All of these changes had an impact on landscape and settlement within the AONB.