©Crown Copyright. All rights reserved. Hertfordshire County Council, LA 076678, 2001
| Landscape Character Assessment | HertsDirect | Environment | |||
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©Crown
Copyright. All rights reserved. Hertfordshire County Council, LA 076678, 2001
Rectangular area between Cuffley and Goff's Oak, south to boundary with Theobald's Estate.
©Crown
Copyright. All rights reserved. Hertfordshire County Council, LA 076678, 2001
Open arable farmland squeezed between two urban areas and linking two area of former parkland - Ponsbourne to the north and the Theobald's Estate to the south. The local topography is very noticeable, swooping down from the north and made the more obvious by the lack of woodland, hedges and settlements.
Cheshunt Common from Cuffley Hill (HCC Landscape Unit)
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Geology and soils. Slowly permeable, seasonally waterlogged clay soils, mostly with brown subsoils, over Tertiary clay (Windsor series).
Degree of slope. 1 in 12 to 1 in 24.
Altitude range. 55m to 100m.
Hydrology. Cuffley Brook flows southwards through most of this area and eventually joins the river Lea.
Land cover and land use. This area is almost exclusively arable farmland, with a few scattered blocks of woodland.
Vegetation and wildlife. In the northern part of this area there is one block of woodland plus a few associated fragments and one area on the north-western edge of Goff's Oak. There are very few field boundaries.
Formerly common land.
Field pattern. Where a field pattern is visible, it is regular to geometric and medium scale, with some irregular fields on the south-western edge of Goff's Oak.
Transport pattern. The only road in this area is the B156 which links Cuffley and Goff's Oak and from which extensive views of the area can be gained both north and south. There is only one footpath in the area, linking the eastern edge of Cuffley with Brook Farm.
Settlements and built form. There are no settlements within this area and very few dwellings - two farms and a cottage. However, it serves as a buffer between the two urban settlements of Goff's Oak and Cuffley.
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This is quite a dramatic landscape, particularly when viewed from the swooping B156 between Cuffley and Goff's Oak, when the open, undulating arable farmland can be clearly seen. It is a unified, simple landscape with strongly defined boundaries to east and west, a breath of rural fresh air between the dense urban settlements.
Rarity and distinctiveness. This is a most unusual area in this part of Hertfordshire, much more open and unwooded than any areas nearby.
The urban settlements to east and west hem in the area and give it a confined character, reinforced by the only road in the area cutting across at a narrow point, so that the full extent of the area cannot be seen.
There is only one public footpath in this area, linking the B156 to the northern boundary of the Theobald's Estate.
This is a valued landscape (C).
| CONDITION | |
|---|---|
| Land cover change: | localised |
| Age structure of tree cover: | N/A |
| Extent of semi-natural habitat survival: | relic |
| Management of semi-natural habitat: | poor |
| Survival of cultural pattern: | declining |
| Impact of built development: | high |
| Impact of land-use change: | high |
| ROBUSTNESS | |
| Impact of landform: | prominent |
| Impact of land cover: | insignificant |
| Impact of historic pattern: | relic |
| Visibility from outside: | widely visible |
| Sense of enclosure: | open |
| Visual unity: | unified |
| Distinctiveness/rarity: | unusual |
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