Event SW10: The Coastal Plain: past, present and future

From Brighton to Portsmouth the wonderful Sussex and Hampshire landscape is under threat from development. Archaeologist Mark Roberts examines clues from the distant and more recent past to pose the question: is there a future for this landscape beyond just urban sprawl?

The Coastal Plain of eastern Hampshire and Sussex comprises one of the three great geographical and geological provinces of our area, along with the South Downs and the Weald. It’s a landscape that’s unique in the British Isles. It has been a preferred area of human habitation since the early Palaeolithic.

From the Bronze Age to the Second World War era it was a focus of agricultural activity, marine resource exploitation and, critically, trading. However, today, this wonderful landscape is under threat from unfettered development, with housing and retail construction reaching unprecedented levels. In contrast with the South Downs, which have become, in essence, fossilised as a consequence of their National Park status, there are few areas of statutory protection across the plain.

Both the South Downs and the Weald have a far more extensive geographical distribution than the Coastal Plain, whose environments and associated ecosystems are shrinking on daily basis. This lecture will look at the distant and more recent past to examine if there is a future for this landscape beyond an urban sprawl from Brighton to Portsmouth.

Always one of Talks At Six’s most popular and thought-provoking speakers, Mark Roberts is an archaeologist, best known for his ground-breaking excavations and research at a half-million-year-old site at Boxgrove. He is also an Honorary Fellow of West Dean College and a UCL lecturer.

Book a seat at www.talksatsix.co.uk; free entry but donations collected for the speaker’s chosen charity.