Postgraduate Research

The National Trust works with PhD students in a variety of capacities, from supporting short-term placements to co-supervision. This collection holds details of research produced by postgraduate students in collaboration with the National Trust.

Now showing 1 - 10 of 15

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Hydria of a Nolan Ware / Sacrifice to Pomona
(2025)
Allan, Abigail
This blog post published by the British Art Network discusses an ancient Greek water pot (hydria), now in the care of the National Trust at Montacute House, Somerset.
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Unravelling abiotic and biotic drivers of biodiversity change in local plant and invertebrate communities after 80 years - a re-visitation study on the Studland peninsula
(2020)
Carroll, Tadhg
How ecological communities respond to long-term environmental change via changes in species richness and composition is an urgent question in the 21st century as anthropogenic forces drive biodiversity declines across taxa and regions. As environmental conditions change over time, effects may cascade through co-occurring taxa, directly disturbing some species and altering the structure of ecological networks to disturb others However, a paucity of data has meant that studies investigating abiotic and biotic drivers of biodiversity change over periods of decades are rare, particularly those spanning multiple co-occurring taxa. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how effects of long-term (ca. 80 years) environmental change propagate through co- occurring plant and insect communities, driving changes in species richness and composition across taxa. To achieve this aim I utilised a uniquely rich re-visitation study of species occurrence data on the Studland peninsula in the south of England. Data collection was led in the 1930s by the naturalist Cyril Diver, and in the 2010s by the National Trust in collaboration with a team of citizen scientists. I asked: 1) How have vascular plant assemblages of Studland changed in response to a changing abiotic environment between the 1930s and the present day?; 2) Have plant and insect taxa undergone congruent biodiversity changes under shifting environmental conditions?; 3) What abiotic and biotic factors relating to adult and larval ecological requirements have influenced long-term biodiversity change in Studland’s hoverflies?; 4) How are the plant and insect communities of Studland likely to change in coming decades under proposed management interventions? 1) Using multilevel models of differences in Ellenberg indicator values (EIVs) between assemblages of vascular plant species occurring in each time-period, I found that the most prominent driver of plant species compositional change was changing hydrological conditions, followed by successional processes. 2) Using hierarchical modelling of species loss/gains and a range of multivariate techniques, I found that species richness and compositional changes in plant and insect communities displayed cross-taxon congruence – correlated patterns of biodiversity change – over the ca. 80 year time-period, likely driven by a combination of abiotic and biotic change. 3) Hierarchical modelling of species loss/gains in the hoverfly community suggested that species richness in adult assemblages is limited by adult resource availability (plants) at highly localised scales, while compositional change is strongly affected by the availability of suitable larval microhabitat at the wider scale of a few kilometres. As with the plants, hydrological change was the main abiotic driver of change in the hoverfly community. 4) Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) models predicted that local management interventions to increase drainage and control ecological succession could benefit the taxa and habitats of Studland through increased species richness. However, BBN models also predicted that the health of the regional metacommunity is of utmost importance in maintaining a healthy local system. I have shown that congruent biodiversity change occurs across diverse plant and insect taxa, and is driven by changes in both abiotic and biotic conditions. These drivers do not act independently from one another, as demonstrated by effects of wetter winter conditions on hoverfly composition, coupled with effects of species richness change in the plant community, while the plant community was itself also responding to hydrological change via changing species composition. Crucially, my results suggest that the health of the regional metacommunity is of the utmost importance in maintaining a healthy local system when faced with environmental changes as seen at Studland; a reservoir of species available to take advantage of new conditions is vital. Therefore this work suggest a joint emphasis placed on local and regional conservation practices to mitigate effects of the anticipated acceleration in environmental change.
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An analysis of the dynamics of resource sharing networks in ant colonies
(2020)
Burns, Dominic D. R.
Cooperation ties animals together into social groups that often demonstrate complex emergent behaviours. One striking example of this are social insect societies that emerge from extreme cooperative behaviour and have an important impact in many ecosystems. Colonies of most social insects construct and inhabit a single nest. However, colonies of some species have been found to spread across many different nests – known as polydomy. This strategy is thought to have evolved in response to several different drivers, such as increased foraging efficiency, avoiding nest-size limitations and territory defence. In this thesis, I present studies that investigated how polydomous colonies function and the reasons that some, but not all, ant species use polydomy as a strategy. I used a mathematical model to demonstrate that decentralization of the nest population can be advantageous under a variety of different conditions, which explains why polydomous species are so behaviourally and phylogenetically diverse. Using a longitudinal study of several years of data on a set of polydomous colonies I found that resource sharing networks become more static over a season and that while nest foundation occurs throughout the season, nest abandonment occurs at a much faster rate in the latter part of the season. Through sampling several polydomous colonies, I found that there is a correlation between relatedness of the inhabitants of different nests and the rate of resource sharing between the nests. The most likely mechanism for this is that nests that share resources become more closely related due to migration and brood transfer. Finally, using a resource manipulation study, I found that resource-sharing networks can adapt in response to change in the availability of food. Together these results demonstrate how ant colonies can use polydomy to their advantage and the various factors that are important in determining the dynamics of these complex societies.
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Tattershall Castle: building a history
(2022)
Wright, James Peter
Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom, was developed in the 1230s for the regional baron, Robert de Tateshale. It was later remodelled, in the fifteenth century, for Ralph Lord Cromwell as a major expression of his status as a royal councillor and Lord Treasurer of England. The castle consists of three wards surrounded by water-filled moats which contained five gatehouses, several lodging ranges, chapel, services, hall, solar and Great Tower. The latter dominates the entire site and originally acted as an architectural focus which was imbued with motifs connected to Cromwell’s prestige. The castle has been included within the pages of many important publications in English castle studies. Many statements were influenced by a prior generation of scholars who valued a military interpretation of castles. This view has been largely replaced by more nuanced thematic approaches over the last thirty years. Consequently, this project has offered the first opportunity to apply the contemporary disciplines of buildings archaeology, within the context of modern castle studies, to the site. Key theoretical principles have included the integrated techniques of historical archaeology and ‘building biographies’. These have been used to reveal the connections between built environment, landscape, socio-political ideology and the human agency of mediaeval builders and patrons. A re-analysis of the castle’s fifteenth century building accounts has enabled an understanding of the practices of the master builders and assessment of the Great Tower has revealed the underlying geometry that underpins the structure. Further work on the built environment of the castle has uncovered complex access routes and spatial functions alongside motifs in the diaperwork, window tracery, vaulting and chimneypieces which are deeply redolent of elite mediaeval lordship. The architecture of prestige has been a constant theme throughout the project – from the probable emulation of the castles of Earl Ranulf de Blondeville by Robert de Tateshale, through to the carefully stage-managed designed landscape of lordship which extended significantly beyond the walls of Cromwell’s castle. Evidence has also come to light that Cromwell was a major patron of highly innovative architecture which helped to demonstrate his social position further. Taking influence from both European and indigenous structures the castle was an architecturally unique site which dendrochronology, commissioned during the project, has shown may have been an originator of the Lancastrian court style. The castle then went on to have a significant impact on English architecture for around two centuries to come. Ultimately, Tattershall went into a gradual decline during the post-mediaeval period. It has been possible to trace the changing built environment to give a complete picture of the status, visual appearance, land-use and conservation of the site across eight centuries.
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Eating Together: Early Modern Gentry Commensality in the Northwest of England c.1530-1670
Fielding, Anna
Early modern commensality represented an opportunity for early modern gentry communities potentially split along religious lines to come together while simultaneously being occasions for the display of social status, a mechanism for social advancement, and the persuasion of important county figures. This thesis demonstrates that the northwest gentry families of the Heskeths, Norrises, and Moretons used commensality and hospitality to navigate the religious and social changes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Successful commensal occasions required detailed knowledge and implementation of culture, dietetics, information, and accomplished social skills. This was demonstrated through décor, tableware, conversation, entertainments, and food. Careful stage-management of these elements ensured commensal atmospheres that could shape and influence guests. Immersive food spaces featured aspects of material culture which acted as pillars of support for Catholic hosts, such as the Heskeths and Norrises, when deviating from the prescriptions of their faith in dining with Protestants. These symbols of devotion rooted Catholic hosts in religious piety even as they made concessions over foods served or who they broke bread with. They also represent changing conceptions of the early modern gentry home during the Reformation as food and dining rooms became increasingly sanctified in lieu of ecclesiastical buildings and amid anxieties over mixed-faith commensality. Gentry commensality was increasingly centred on London in the seventeenth century and this change is reflected in the experiences of the Protestant Moreton family. Changes in hospitality shifted the location of commensality around different food spaces of the gentry house and then beyond the home in line with changing social fashions. Added to the assemblage of gentry commensality came influences from metropolitan, colonial, and diplomatic centres including associated material culture, conversation, and different markers of gentry belonging. Analysis of how each of the families achieved this at Rufford Old Hall, Speke Hall, and Little Moreton Hall uses affect and assemblage theories. These are combined with early modern understandings of domestic environments based on embodiment, humoral bodies, and the interconnected nature of mind, body, sensation, and soul.
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Assessing high resolution climate data to inform landscape management of climate risk at different scales
(2023)
Watts, Lucia
Climate change is one of the greatest threats in the 21st century to all inhabitants of the planet. Conservation organisations in the UK are interested in understanding this risk to their sites, and in integrating climate adaptation into management plans. This research assesses the use of high resolution UKCP18 projections for three case studies managed by the National Trust in Wales. The case studies cover a range of expected climate impacts to, bird species distributions, wind on parkland trees and fire in peatland areas. Predictions are at a range of scales from a single property through to the UK scale. Results are presented for three time frames of 20-year averages; 1980 to 2000 (1990s), 2020 to 2040 (2030s) and 2050 to 2080 (2070s). Bird species in the UK uplands, especially habitat specialists, are vulnerable to climate change. For the species distribution study current and future distributions of five bird species found in the uplands of Britain were modelled using the Maxent model. Results at 2.2 km and 12 km scales were compared, with baseline and projected habitat layers included to investigate land cover change. Species-specific, local scale species distribution models outperformed those at the larger spatial scale. Habitats were found to be more limiting than climate, with all species increasing ranges under climate change alone. Fire risk on peatlands is increasing, with risks to important habitats and carbon stores. The Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS) was tailored to an upland peatland and predicted three metrics of future fire risk: 1. Fire Weather Index (FWI), a measure of fire risk, 2. Head Fire Intensity (HFI), the strength of a potential fire and 3. fire season length. The metrics were validated using dates of known fire at the site. All metrics of fire risk increase from the 1990s to 2070s with reductions in risk in the 2030s. Validation results suggest FWI is a better predictor of fire risk than HFI. Current conservation and farming practices may need to adapt to consider risk from fires all year round. High wind speeds have a direct impact on tree health and lifespan in forests and parklands, and consequently affect visitor safety. Tatter flags were used to quantify the exposure of individual parkland trees to wind speeds and direction, with baseline data gathered from a year-long fieldwork study. The number of times the site may have to close due to high winds above pre-determined thresholds were also calculated. Trees are more likely to become more exposed to high winds in autumn and winter seasons, with a decrease in exposure in the spring and summer months. Wind directions are predicted to continue as a prevailing south-westerly, but likely to experience more wind from the north-west. Closures are predicted to increase, especially around Christmas and Easter holidays. The current site plan may not be viable in the future, with exploration around new access routes and species a potential next step. Finally, we conducted a feedback study with staff at each site to explore understanding about the results from the data chapters. We developed all chapters and outputs iteratively with staff using an online questionnaire. Staff found that results presented about their case study site would be useful when thinking about conservation planning and adaptation for the future. Overall, most results suggest a decrease in risk from climate change in the 2030s, and an increase in the 2070s compared to the 1990s. We found that, as expected, tailoring models to a site or species produces results of a greater degree of accuracy, and therefore are a greater useful contribution to conservation. Finally, we have demonstrated the versatility of high-quality local scale climate data in a range of scenarios as useful data to explore future risk at the site scale.
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Architectures of identity: English modernism, domesticity, and imperial decline
(2022)
Ketteringham, Sean
This thesis presents a cultural history of domestic space in England between 1910 and 1948. Against the backdrop of several social and economic shifts – imperial overextension, the end of the Pax Britannica with World War I, women’s suffrage, and Britain’s abandonment of the Gold Standard amid the Great Depression – it argues for a new appreciation of how domestic space became a critical forum in which the renegotiation and reformation of English national identity took place. Drawing on literary sources, economic history, architectural design, and the visual arts, the thesis thoroughly revises our historical understanding of how the impending collapse of the British imperial project inflected the cultural politics of modernism in England. By seeking out transdisciplinary blind spots in both literary and art historical studies, and uniting popular and avant-garde culture, this study provides a more nuanced account of the domestic mechanisms that enabled English national identity to wax as British imperial hegemony waned. The first part of this thesis reassesses the relationship between the suburbia and modernist architecture, as it emerged in the years immediately before and after World War I. It recovers links between suburban domesticity and modernist artists and writers such as Frederick Etchells, Roger Fry, Wyndham Lewis, and Rebecca West. It then demonstrates the national and imperial tenor of efforts to promote both semi-detached suburban housing and modernist domesticity. From this confrontational atmosphere of avant-garde bluster, the focus shifts to how inter-war artists conceived their homes (and the artwork produced within them) according to principles of vernacular design, which were encoded with notions of nationalism and nativity. Building on existing scholarship on architecture as a discourse, as opposed to built projects, a study of the writings of J.M. Richards reveals unifying themes amongst an array of artists including Peggy Angus, Barbara Hepworth, Winifred Nicholson, Ben Nicholson and Eric Ravilious. The second half of this thesis uses its initial foundation in private and interior domesticities to investigate public notions of domestic belonging. With the aid of new archival sources, it looks beyond customary accounts of how modernist domesticity troubled distinctions between private and public spaces to examine how homes became a national concern, and how modern subjects attempted to feel at home in public land- or cityscapes. This is addressed by investigating expressions of homelessness and architectural language in the poetry of W.H. Auden, John Betjeman and Geoffrey Grigson, before surveying their connections with the Georgian Group and its efforts to protect eighteenth-century architecture, predominantly in London. Ultimately it will show how these literary and preservationist discourses relate to a rise in imperial nostalgia and how they influenced attempts to build modernist homes based on eighteenth-century vernaculars. The thesis will end by charting the revival of the picturesque by Christopher Hussey and in the pages of the Architectural Review. The picturesque became a tool with which to domesticate rural and urban space in the 1940s. Through comparison with the late work of T.S. Eliot, this section assesses the picturesque’s inherently colonial and appropriative qualities, and its emblematic relationship with Englishness, to recover how strategies of aesthetic and social reform centred around domesticity attempted to prepare English culture for life after empire. On a national scale these physically and emotionally nested structures of belonging became entangled with an increasingly untenable imperial identity through the 1930s and 1940s.
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DNA-based resolution of freshwater arthropod communities and interactions
(2022)
Davidson, Elizabeth
Freshwater biodiversity is widely considered to be in crisis. The need for new methods to quickly assess and monitor biodiversity is urgent. DNA-based identification of biodiversity offers promising new methods. Compared to monitoring species presence and richness, DNA-based identification of ecological interactions through predator diets has gained much less attention. The study of these interactions has the potential to provide new insights into species ecology and new methods of identifying and monitoring changes in biodiversity. This thesis aimed to explore how DNA-based resolution of predator diets can contribute to improving the assessment and monitoring of freshwater biodiversity and to identify the method development necessary to achieve this improvement. The studies in this thesis aimed to improve understanding of how DNA-based identification methods can be used to characterise freshwater arthropod communities and to resolve trophic interactions within those communities. Gaps in the coverage of publicly stored reference sequences for UK freshwater arthropods coupled with low data quality will lead to poor taxonomic resolution and potential misidentifications. A systematic framework for prioritising current and future sequencing and curation needs was produced to address these issues. Thorough optimisation and validation of methods for metabarcoding of bulk zooplankton samples was found to be essential in order to produce meaningful community data. Optimisation of primers, bioinformatic processing and data analysis improved the detection of target taxa, reduced false positives and negatives, and improved relative abundance data. The combination of community metabarcoding of prey taxa and dietary screening of individual predators provided detailed and informative information on how predator-prey interactions change over time. Overall, DNA-based resolution of predator diets has great potential for resolving freshwater food web interactions and providing new insights for improving assessment and monitoring. Curation of reference databases and method development for freshwater arthropods are urgent to realise this potential.
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Space, Agency and Experience: A Social History of the Styal Estate, c.1800-1860
(2021)
Collier, Grant
This thesis presents a micro-history case study of everyday life in an early-nineteenth-century industrial community. Throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the entrepreneurial, Dissenting Greg family developed the Styal estate from a rural valley into a landscape geared towards industrial cotton production and its workforce. Its surviving records and structures offer historians valuable insights into life in a managed industrial community, and the extraordinarily rich archival and built legacy of the estate has exerted considerable influence on historians’ understanding of working life across this period. However, many existing accounts of life in this period rely on regional aggregated sources which fail to recognise the power that local spaces exerted on people’s lived experiences. Through innovative use of surviving spaces, business records and personal correspondence, I present a more detailed picture of working life during the industrial revolution; one in which impersonal administrative and material structures of capitalist efficiency and gender ideology created localised inequalities of pay, security and authority. My approach offers new insights into how people shaped and experienced spaces of work, home and worship. I inform key debates surrounding nineteenth-century industrial labour, particularly how gender influenced experiences of cotton factory work for adults and children and to what extent workers or employers determined patterns of work and leisure. I further demonstrate that ideologies of gender, age and expertise determined how men, women and children experienced a broad range of cotton factory roles and workspaces. To secure steady work and pay, workers navigated divergent working conditions as part of employer-driven, negotiated systems of production. Records from the estate’s homes and chapels also provide valuable insights into how faith, family and community shaped industrial communities, including the role of politeness amongst the entrepreneurial middle classes and how elite attitudes to faith, family and business shaped spaces of industrial production. Across the Styal estate, poorer residents negotiated complex, multipolar hierarchies of power and status, adapting spaces that were structured and maintained by their employers to display distinct and different middle-class values for their own independent purposes. This demonstrates that working people’s agency can be found not only in obvious acts of conflict or resistance, but also in more subtle, negotiated acts of ‘rubbing along together’, the imprints of which can be found in these spaces of everyday life.
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Going Deeper than ‘Emotional Impact’: Heritage, Academic Collaboration and Affective Engagements
(2022-03)
Fielding, Anna
Organisations such as the National Trust have recently looked to academia to assist them in the telling of their properties’ stories and contexts. Academia has similarly turned to heritage organisations and sites for audiences they can engage in their variously funded projects, and to fulfil the requirements of the REF (Research Excellence Framework) when it comes to research dissemination. However, the benefits of academic and heritage collaboration go much deeper than these initial mutual attractions. Collaboration can change the nature of audience engagement through affect theory and affective interpretation. This can cause a reâ€ envisioning of what emotional engagement with a historic site means and highlight the affective potential of heritage visits. This article shows, through case studies, arguments taken from the disciplines of history and heritage studies, and personal experience, how using affective interpretation can convey more complex research in longerâ€ lasting and more meaningful ways when academia and heritage work together.
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