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Darent Valley Landscape
Partnership Scheme
Samuel Palmer's Earthly Paradise
The Darent Valley Landscape Partnership Scheme is an
exciting large-scale partnership, working to conserve
and enhance the distinctive heritage landscapes of the
Darent Valley and to connect people to the Valley to help us
conserve it for the future.
The scheme focuses around the work of influential
landscape artist Samuel Palmer who, 200 years ago,
described the Darent Valley as an 'earthly paradise'. Today,
he would still recognise the special qualities conveyed
through his visionary paintings. It remains a landscape
of surprising beauty, rich in diverse habitats and with an
impressive cultural heritage. But this is a landscape on
the edge. London has expanded to the brink of the valley,
bringing multiple and dramatically increasing pressures that
are dissolving its natural character. Many people who live
within reach of the valley lack awareness of the amazing
potential of this captivating landscape which is on their
doorstep, further threatening the future of the valley.
The scheme brings together a unique mix of organisations
that will work with and empower local communities to
ensure the survival of this exceptional area. Through
them, we will achieve genuinely sustainable conservation
of its natural and cultural heritage with communities that
feel emotionally and physically reconnected with their
landscape.
darent-valley.org.uk
in partners hip with
www.s vaf.co.uk