The Living Levels Landscape Partnership (LLLP) has come together to promote and reconnect people to the heritage, wildlife and wild beauty of the historic landscape of the Gwent Levels.

The Living Levels programme seeks to conserve and restore the important natural heritage features of the area, to develop a far greater appreciation of the value of the landscape and finally to inspire people to learn about and participate in the heritage of the Gwent Levels.

It has been awarded a £2.5 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and will lever in further funding to deliver a £4 million scheme over the next 3.5 years.

The scheme covers an area of 225km squared extending from Cardiff and the River Rhymney in the west to Chepstow on the River Wye in Monmouthshire to the east. Predominantly low-lying agricultural land, criss-crossed with an intricate network of drainage channels and field ditches, the project area also includes the inter-tidal zone of saltmarshes, mudflats and sands that are revealed at low tide along the northern coastline of the Severn Estuary within Wales.

The Gwent Levels in south east Wales is home to an incredible landscape, full of history, stories and archaeology – all waiting to be rediscovered.

DigVentures is working with Living Levels to explore the archaeological potential of the area, including surveys, excavation and recording important historical buildings and features on the landscape.

The Levels have been maintained by local people for over a thousand years, and with archaeological evidence dating as far back as 8,000 years to the Mesolithic, there’s still so much to learn.

Together with local residents, historians, archaeologists, archivists, and people who are curious about history, we’re aiming to create an interactive online map showcasing the area’s extraordinary past.

Taking a crowdsourced and community approach to mapping the region’s history, archaeology and heritage is a both a deep-touch way for people living in the area to reconnect with the landscape’s rich and storied past, and also a timely new way to bring some additional and much-deserved attention to the Gwent Levels from further afield.

Visit the Living Levels website to find out more.