Historic environment

The historic environment encompasses all the material remains created by our ancestors within the landscape. It covers all the aspects of human activity from planned street and shipwrecks to milestones and flint tools. Because human activity has never ceased, almost all aspects of our towns, cities and countryside forms part of the historic environment.

The Design Team deal with the protection of the wider historic landscape including the buries and standing archaeological resource, Scheduled Ancient Monuments, industrial, defence and maritime sites, listed buildings and structures, and historic parks and gardens.

Sites and monuments record

Plymouth City Council is responsible for compiling and maintaining the primary database of the city’s archaeological resource, currently known as the sites and monuments record (SMR). This large database is gradually being upgraded to create a more comprehensive and accessible system, which will be called the historic environment record. It is hoped this will eventually be accessible through this website.

The SMR serves as an index to the archaeology and historic environment of the city and is a vital planning and research tool. The information held on it includes:

• Listed buildings
• Conservation areas
• Scheduled ancient monuments
• Registered parks and gardens
• Aerial photographs
• Historic ordnance survey maps
• Site information and surveys
• Archaeological reports
• Bibliographic information

For all general enquiries please contact us using the details above or by filling in the online enquiry form. Please note that searches for commercial organisations may incur a standard hourly charge so please enquire.