Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - Local Distinctiveness and Landscape Change
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5. Elements at Risk and Strategies for Recovery

Picture of a war memorial

The previous chapter explored in detail how the built environment plays a major role in defining the character of the landscape of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

A wide range of factors concerning form, materials and details have been identified as essential to the local distinctiveness of the region, and information provided on where they are located and how they are used. This chapter picks up a number of these threads, with specific reference to how particular elements of the built environment (and hence local distinctiveness) are at risk from loss (or already lost). Each elements is discussed in terms of a problem (i.e. why it is at risk or already lost) and then a strategy as to how it might be maintained or recovered. The following elements are dealt with:

  • Form of settlement
  • Details within settlement
  • Dry stone walls in the landscape
  • Gates and stiles
  • Stone slates
  • Thatch

The key points that emerge from this chapter are then summarised.