Who owns England’s marine historic assets and why does it matter? English Heritage’s work towards understanding the opportunities and threats, and the development of solutions and constructive engagement with owners

Summary

The understanding of historic asset ownership in the marine or terrestrial zones is a key step in enabling good heritage management aimed at realising values for the benefit of all. Marine heritage asset ownership is unclear, poorly documented, and there is a lack of constructive collaboration with owners leading to problems with a lack of appropriate reporting, archive development and museum engagement.Legal instruments relating to marine finds are neither comprehensive nor sensitive to contemporary heritage management. Owners, including Government Departments, often have little time or interest in historic asset management and they may be tempted by disposal to recover revenue.This paper summarises English Heritage’s work to understand marine heritage asset ownership in English waters in order to develop projects to address the issues and to explore the potential for encouraging owners to participate in, and contribute to, the management of the common heritage.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Law and Order: Protecting, Studying and Sharing Underwater Cultural Heritage   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-72,09