Support and Funding for Rural Heritage

How agri-environment schemes support rural heritage

Much of our designated heritage is on agricultural land. This includes most Scheduled Monuments (78%), Registered Parks and Gardens (67%), as well as all Registered Battlefields. Most of this is in private ownership and agri-environment schemes represent the only source of funding for their conservation and maintenance.

Since their introduction more than three decades ago, agri-environment schemes have helped to repair and conserve our rural heritage sites. Since 2006, agri-environment schemes have contributed around £13 million per year towards the conservation and maintenance of our rural heritage. This has helped to remove 1,200 Scheduled Monuments from our Heritage at Risk Register.

Currently four in every ten Scheduled Monuments and nine out of ten Registered Battlefields are looked after through agri-environment funding.

Cumulatively, the heritage sites currently managed under agri-environment schemes cover 330,000 hectares – an area bigger than the whole of Gloucestershire.

Success stories: Saved thanks to agri-environment schemes

Countryside Stewardship agreements

Currently 45,000 archaeological sites fall within Countryside Stewardship agreements, having been identified as important by local authorities. These agreements ensure the sites are protected by the landowner from the dangers of ploughing, erosion caused by livestock and shrub growth. These keep the sites accessible to the public.

6,500 agreements also include the maintenance of traditional farm buildings, sustaining their heritage and landscape importance, preventing them from falling into disrepair. This is important, given that we’ve lost half of our historic field barns in the past century.

Stewardship schemes have been the single biggest driver of progress on Heritage at Risk. But an even more significant achievement has been the extent to which agreements – which help to raise awareness and improve understanding – have brought thousands more heritage sites into sustainable management. In doing so they have prevented them from being added to the Register in the first place.

Economic Benefits

The benefits of such agreements are also economic. For example, forecasts for the Historic Building Restoration pilot operating in five National Parks suggest that every £1 of the £8 million Defra grant aid is likely to generate up to £2.50 for the local economy.

A 2020 study in the Lake District National Park (also a World Heritage Site) estimated that archaeological sites on agricultural land generated over £1 billion for the local economy over a ten-year period; 80-90% through tourism visits, the remainder by local communities. Similarly, a 2018 study of the impacts of agri-environment-funded dry stone walling repairs within the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District estimated that between £5 million and £7.8 million had been generated for the local economies.

Saving traditional farm buildings

Modern agriculture has made many traditional farm buildings largely redundant and uneconomical to repair. A Countryside Stewardship pilot scheme running within five national parks co-funds the restoration of such buildings for continued agricultural use. This results in an enhancement of the historic, landscape and public enjoyment of the National Parks and provides opportunities for the farm businesses to diversify.

The scheme has been very popular, receiving more than 250 applications. Almost half of applicants were new to agri-environment schemes and in total, 126 buildings are now being repaired.

The re-use of such buildings and the embodied energy they contain also provides a carbon-saving over new builds.

HEFERs and SHINE

Historic England and our colleagues in local government advise on the Countryside Stewardship Scheme using a number of tools. Historic England host the Historic Environment Farm Environment Record (HEFER) portal, which provides information and advice to prospective scheme applicants.

We also work in partnership with Natural England and the Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers (ALGAO) to support the development of the Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England (SHINE) dataset, a national dataset of non-designated heritage features. Find out more about SHINE. 

COSMIC: Conservation of Scheduled Monuments in Cultivation

We  also continue to work together with Natural England to identify and prioritise Scheduled Monuments at risk of damage or loss from arable farming. The  COSMIC toolkit will give farmers and heritage managers realistic options for managing the archaeology so that they can either avoid or reduce negative effects of cultivation.  You can download the report about the COSMIC project findings. 

Further information about Countryside Stewardship can be found in its manuals:
Countryside Stewardship: Mid Tier 
Countryside Stewardship: Higher Tier manual

Environmental Land Management

Defra's Future Farming initiative and its flagship new Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme provide a huge opportunity to create a more sustainable future that avoids or mitigates the impacts of agriculture upon the environment.

ELM will take the place of existing farm support payments made under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. Instead, farmers will be rewarded for the environmental benefits that they provide and for making their businesses more sustainable.

Transition to the new schemes is expected to take until 2027. It will contain three main elements – the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Local Nature Recovery, and Landscape Recovery.

Countryside Stewardship will continue in parallel with the piloting of new schemes as part of the transitional arrangements, but it will end for new applications in 2024. Within National Parks and Areas of Natural Beauty the three-year Farming in Protected Landscapes capital scheme will also aid transition. Heritage is figuring prominently within the first round of applications.

Related publications

Whilst some parts of the publications below may now be out-of-date, Historic England believes that they still contain useful advice, guidance and case studies for farm advisers and heritage managers. All of these land types and sites may be managed under Countryside Stewardship: