About

The UK HER Manual was developed between 2022 and 2024 and funded by Historic England. It was designed to provide updated advice and guidance on how to manage and maintain a dynamic Historic Environment Record. The purpose of this manual is to provide a set of working guidelines appropriate to all HERs and for all staff and volunteers involved in managing, running or supporting an HER. The aim is not to prescribe rules or to describe every conceivable variation that might be encountered. Instead, this manual offers an overview of the standards, best practice, services and systems that are kept by everybody and highlights ideas and approaches being developed by a few. It shows the benefits of pooling ideas and using scarce resources to develop standards, systems and training that benefits all.

The UK HER Manual builds upon guidance which has been developed during the last 25 years. Its first iteration, Informing the Future of the Past: Guidelines for SMRs, (IFP) was edited by Kate Fernie and Paul Gilman and published in hard copy in 2000. The original IFP only covered Sites and Monuments Records (SMRs) in England. At that time, SMRs were beginning to extend their coverage to include the various aspects of what has become to be known as the historic environment, in the process becoming known as Historic Environment Records (HERs).

In 2007, the original guidance was peer-reviewed and Informing the Future of the Past: Guidelines for Historic Environment Records (known as IFP2) was published online with the Archaeology Data Service. Archived versions of these webpages can be found here. IFP2 reflected the many changes and developments which occurred during the early 2000s, and also broadened the geographical coverage of the guidance to include Scotland and Wales.

In 2022, in anticipation of Historic Environment Records achieving statutory status under the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, Historic England commissioned a new project to review, update and augment these earlier documents to reflect the changes which have occurred during the previous 15 years and provide a definitive, UK-wide statement on guidance and best practice for Historic Environment Records: The UK HER Manual.

The first phase of work on the HER Manual, comprising a review of IFP2, was undertaken by Idox plc and Alice Cattermole Heritage Consultancy, guided by an Advisory Group. An online survey was disseminated to some 400 individuals via the HER Forum mailing list to find out how past, current and future users of IFP wished to interact with the new guidance. The survey was designed to help better understand how frequently IFP2 was being used, what it was being used for, and any barriers to its use. It also ascertained which sections of IFP2 were being used most and why, and which parts of the guidance users felt were least useful. The results of this survey, coupled with a series of telephone interviews with users of IFP2, resulted in the production of a prioritised list of editorial work, and a series of recommendations to accompany this, including suggestions about using the new guidance as a training resource, and ensuring that the new guidance remains current.

Alongside work focused on the content of the guidance, an options appraisal was undertaken to consider where and in what format the new guidance should reside online. This appraisal was informed by the user consultation process, and considered a range of factors including how users wished to consume and interact with the guidance, and the advantages and disadvantages that each potential solution would offer. A wide range of options was assessed against a set of criteria which included sustainability, cost, ability to analyse usage, ease of use, ease of content management, effective version control and interactivity. This concluded that the new guidance should reside in the Heritage Workspace, which is a network on the KnowledgeHub information sharing platform. 

The second phase of work on UK HER Manual was undertaken in 2023–24 by Alice Cattermole Heritage Consultancy, guided by an Advisory Group and funded by Historic England. This part of the project was given additional impetus as it took place while the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill was moving through Parliament. It comprised a complete overhaul of the text of the guidance and the transfer of the final text to the KnowledgeHub website. The structure of the guidance was completely reorganised to better reflect the ways in which users were expected to wish to access and interact with the content. All of the content was revised and edited, and new sections of guidance were written. This work was undertaken by Alice Cattermole with Emily La Trobe-Bateman, Richard Hoggett and Sylvina Tilbury.

Completed draft texts were shared with an editorial panel comprising members of the Advisory Board and volunteers from the HER community and wider heritage sector, whose feedback was sought. This part of the editorial process was invaluable, resulting is many useful and insightful comments and additional contributions, and ensuring that the new guidance has been rigorously scrutinized prior to being shared more widely.

Once the draft text had been edited, reviewed and finalised, the content was uploaded to its new home on the KnowledgeHub platform. The UK HER Manual was presented to the HER community via a webinar hosted by Historic England in May 2024.

The UK HER Manual is designed to be a dynamic document, which can be edited and expanded as required in response to changes within the wider heritage sector or as new examples of best practice emerge. Registered users of the site can add their own comments to the content, with the intention that these can be incorporated into the text by members of the Editorial Panel. The membership of this panel represents the full extent of the geographical coverage of the UK HER Manual and will ensure that the content of the manual will remain current and retain its relevance well into the future.

Publication

© Historic England 2024. This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

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