ABSTRACT
Why conserve at all? This fundamental question has been repeatedly asked and addressed with respect to a wide range of cultural artefacts, not least of which are landscapes (Lowenthal and Binney, 1981). Amongst many such artefact groupings, what is viewed as ‘significant’ (i.e. worthy of collection or preservation) appears to be getting closer and closer to the present day. This is certainly true of buildings and landscape areas in the UK (Larkham, 1996a). What seems to be emerging is a view that the important issue is not what is retained, with concomitant problems of genuineness and/or originality, but the use(s) to which the past, and its intangible and tangible remnants, may be put (Lowenthal, 1985).
