Further Guidance and Worked Examples: Stage 2
Stage 2: Identify its distinctive attributes.
Establish which elements of the subject are Particular (Approach 1) and Typical (Approach 2) to Cornwall. Identify how these elements, attributes or qualities contribute to its distinctiveness.
We want new development to reinforce the distinctiveness of Cornwall as a whole. We also want to respect its internal variability. For instance, of Padstow in comparison to Penzance. Cob, thatch, dormer windows, or slate cladding, are distinctive materials within Cornwall. These materials and forms must not become a palette of Cornwall-wide attributes. The use of materials and forms must respect and understand local distinctiveness.
Approach 1 is broken down into two main subsets: Approach 1a and Approach 1b.
- Approach 1a: There are several building, site and historic landscape types recorded in the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly HER. They have distributions that show they are particular to Cornwall. Often to a specific part or parts of Cornwall.
- Approach 1b: These are types found elsewhere in Britain. They are found in especially large numbers in Cornwall, or they may have a particularly Cornish form.
Many places featuring these types of assets or landscapes will already be designated. Some will be Listed Buildings or Scheduled Monuments. Many will be a part of the World Heritage Site, a National Landscape or a Conservation Area. Others will be worthy of consideration as ‘undesignated heritage assets’. These should be added to the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Historic Environment Record.
You can find Approach 1 asset and landscape types in Part 2 of the PDF 'Distinctively Cornish'. These are part of a distribution-based analysis of assets and historic landscape types. Our analysis is not a comprehensive list of every type found in Cornwall. It includes those that make a significant contribution to distinctiveness and character.
Approach 2; that which is typical or representative of Cornwall, or of a part of Cornwall.
These may not be particular to Cornwall. They make a strong contribution to the distinctiveness of a place. This may be due to their relationship to the character and value of Cornwall. They can also be important aspects of a particular locality within Cornwall.
Typical Cornish distinctiveness has 5 distinctiveness themes:
- Economic activity
- Physical geography (including geology, soils and topography)
- Natural environment
- Linguistic
- Spiritual, folkloric, and artistic
Within each theme there are characteristics of Cornwall as a whole. More often, they are distinctive of more local places within Cornwall. Both scales of distinctiveness are important and valuable and should be sustained.
At Stage 2, use the 5 themes to identify elements of Cornish distinctiveness.
Under each heading explain the aspects of the subject that relate to each theme. These might include different elements. Materials, design, details, associations, function, use, relationship to surroundings and so on.
Specific examples of Typically Cornish distinctiveness can be found in Part 3 of the PDF 'Distinctively Cornish'.
1. Economy:
Cornwall has always had, a highly diversified rural, industrial, urban and marine economy. Much of it is characterised by particularly Cornish resourcefulness and innovation. An ability to adapt to conditions and take opportunities.
Some activities have now ceased. Their remains illustrate the range of ways Cornish people made and make a living. These might include buildings, enclosures, yards, earthworks and infrastructure.
The following list, though long, is not exhaustive. There is within each of these economic activity's considerable local variety. This is reflected in the material, forms, styles, and scale of buildings and remains across Cornwall.
- mixed farming; wool, cloth and leather-making
- granite, elvan and slate quarrying china-clay and china-stone working
- fishing
- tourism
- art, music, and entertainment
- sport
- boatbuilding, victualling and defending
- managing forests and woodlands
- cherry, apple and plum orchards
- growing flowers, strawberries, potatoes and brassicas
- brewing and cider-making
- renewable energy
2. Topography:
Cornwall has a beautiful, rugged, and dramatic natural topography. It is flanked by the Atlantic and two Channels. A coastline featuring sinuous sunken estuaries and winding steep-sided valleys. Rounded downlands rise on the granite to tor-topped nearly-mountains. Our geology is sedimentary and igneous, metalliferously mineralised, and exploitable in many ways.
There are many distinctively Cornish ways of living and working with this natural topography. Exploiting, overcoming, and adapting to it, has shaped much of Cornwall’s historic environment.
3. Natural environment
There are distinctive ways that the Cornish have adapted to and exploited their natural environment. Much of this follows and reflects Cornwall's varied topography flora and fauna. They have shaped a natural environment. They have adjusted or guided habitats and species for their own ends.
To remain viable, the altered state of nature has been managed in sustainable ways. These are methods that are typical of Cornwall; distinctive. These include the varying balances between arable and livestock. Mixed farms on differing soils. Selection of parts of farms for meadows, oak woodlands, pastures, orchards and arable. Making the best of sheltered and remote areas. Utilising steep valley sides and wet valley bottoms. Managing the commons of Cornwall: the semi-natural acid grasslands of Bodmin Moor. Exploiting the Western heaths of the Lizard and West Penwith and the coarse grasses on the towans.
People have cultivated or introduced distinctively Cornish plants and animals. Used for agriculture, horticulture and ornament they have shaped our landscape. Cherry orchards in the Tamar valley, apple orchards on the Fowey and plum orchards on the Fal. Cauliflower, daffodil and potato farming in the west is all locally typical. Tamarisk is common on seaside hedges. Monterey pines on urban streets and sheltering farmhouses. Rhododendrons, camellias and azaleas in gardens, a legacy of famous plant-hunters of the past. All have become typical of Cornwall, and distinctively so.
4. Language
We speak, we hear, and we read, so language is in our heads and in our land. We revel in our Celtic language and dialects. We delight in our nonconformist way with the English language. Both are spoken and are visible and heard every day in the names of places, from tre to splat, from chy to row. Variations in dialect, from loustering to schemying.
Place names reflect Cornwall’s underlying variety and its history. English -cotts, -worthys, and -tons in the north-east. Cornish tre-, bos- and ker- names in the west. These reflect ancient fundamental political happenings as well as types of hamlets. We know this, and so the typical becomes meaningful in other ways.
5. Spirit 
The Typical is in the effects on creation and maintenance of places and structures. Evident in the distinctive Cornish identity and spirit Onen hag Oll, ‘One and All’. They can reflect the ways we have of relating to place, to each other, to our culture and that of others.
From maintaining customs to gathering for ceremonies, festivals, feastings and pleasures. Partaking in rituals and religious practices. Engaging in raucous and more disciplined sports. Composing and retelling stories, creating art and literature. Making music and dancing.
These intangible ways of being Cornish, directly relate to the tangible. The places, buildings and arenas where they take or took place framing our experience. These may be typical and normal to us, sometimes strange to others. Together they contribute to what it is that makes Cornwall distinctive.
