Characterising Space Use and Electricity Consumption in Non-domestic Buildings

Energy used in the operation of the United Kingdom’s non-domestic buildings contributes 18% of national carbon dioxide emissions and reducing these is government policy. The use of electrical equipment in buildings is a major contributor to overall consumption, due to both its intrinsic energy consumption and the effects of incidental internal gains resulting from its operation. Knowledge of how and where consumption and internal gains occur in buildings is important in understanding the consumption characteristics of the building stock. The overall aim of this research was to improve the prediction of energy consumption in the non-domestic stock through the inference of appliance electricity consumption and resultant heat gains, for internal space uses of premises, as identified in UK property taxation data. To achieve this, the objectives were to: 1. Develop a method for inferring space usage in premises. 2. Infer values for the electricity consumption of appliances, and hence internal gains, for space uses within premises. 3. Apply the method to a dataset at the urban scale and use a suitable model to deduce the energy consumption. 4. Compare the results with measured data. Objectives 1 and 2 were achieved through analyses of detailed energy surveys of more than 300 non-domestic premises. By excluding equipment used for heating and cooling, both intrinsic electricity consumption and internal gains from appliances have been characterised for combinations of internal space use and premises activity type. For each combination, the characteristics include the energy intensity (kWh/m2/year) for: • overall appliance use • 14 end uses of appliances (e.g. lighting, catering, computers) • 18 groups of appliance activity descriptions (e.g. sales, office work, process) These characteristics were mapped onto subdivisions of space use, within premises, listed in property taxation data for a test urban area (City of Leicester). Using only 115 descriptions of space use, appliance consumption characteristics have been inferred for 91.5% of the measured internal floor area of the test dataset; this achieved the third objective. More than 80% of the floor area was identified using standard space use descriptions utilised in real estate taxation datasets. The total estimated consumption accounted for 75% of the recorded annual electricity consumption of the test area (the fourth objective). This result is acceptable, given the known limitations of the datasets and suggests that the method constitutes an improvement to stock energy modelling, thus meeting the overall aim. By inferring appliance electricity consumption and internal gains at a finer spatial resolution than previous methods, the diversity of energy consumption characteristics of the non-domestic stock may be represented more faithfully than by values applied to entire homogenised premises or premises types. The method may be used by policy makers as part of an urban energy model and as a means of evaluating potential energy interventions in the non-domestic stock, or parts thereof.Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, through a Doctoral Training Accoun

Decline and Disparkment: Management Trends in English Deer Parks, 1500-1750

Deer parks have been the subject of much research in recent years, but the bulk of this work has focused on the place of parks in the medieval countryside, rather than their later histories. This article examines the fate of medieval parks in the two centuries after 1500, a period usually characterized as one of decline as park enclosures were broken up and turned over to agriculture. While the post-medieval period undoubtedly witnessed significant changes to medieval parks, these need to be set in a longer perspective. Disparkment was not confined to the period after 1500 and many of the management trends in deer parks down to the mid-seventeenth century were continuations of those that had originated in the late medieval period. It was the pervasiveness and more permanent character of certain management regimes, rather than their novelty, that distinguishes the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from the earlier period. The real decline of the medieval deer park lay in the century after 1650, not the century before

Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Medieval Warhorse

The warhorse is arguably the most characteristic animal of the English Middle Ages. But while the development and military uses of warhorses have been intensively studied by historians, the archaeological evidence is too often dispersed, overlooked or undervalued. Instead, we argue that to fully understand the cultural significance and functional role of the medieval warhorse, a systematic study of the full range of archaeological evidence for warhorses (and horses more generally) from medieval England is necessary. This requires engagement with material evidence at a wide variety of scales — from individual artefacts through to excavated assemblages and landscape-wide distributions — dating between the late Saxon and Tudor period (c. AD 800–1600). We present here a case study of our interdisciplinary engaged research design focusing upon an important English royal stud site at Odiham in Hampshire. This brings together several fields of study, including (zoo)archaeology, history, landscape survey, and material culture studies to produce new understandings about a beast that was an unmistakable symbol of social status and a decisive weapon on the battlefield

Wild to domestic and back again: the dynamics of fallow deer management in medieval England (c.11th-16th century AD)

This paper presents the results of the first comprehensive scientific study of the fallow deer, a non-native species whose medieval-period introduction to Britain transformed the cultural landscape. It brings together data from traditional zooarchaeological analyses with those derived from new ageing techniques as well as the results of a programme of radiocarbon dating, multi-element isotope studies and genetic analyses. These new data are here integrated with historical and landscape evidence to examine changing patterns of fallow deer translocation and management in medieval England between the 11th and 16th century AD

Isotopic biographies reveal horse rearing and trading networks in medieval London

This paper reports a high-resolution isotopic study of medieval horse mobility, revealing their origins and in-life mobility both regionally and internationally. The animals were found in an unusual horse cemetery site found within the City of Westminster, London, England. Enamel strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope analysis of 15 individuals provides information about likely place of birth, diet, and mobility during the first approximately 5 years of life. Results show that at least seven horses originated outside of Britain in relatively cold climates, potentially in Scandinavia or the Western Alps. Ancient DNA sexing data indicate no consistent sex-specific mobility patterning, although three of the five females came from exceptionally highly radiogenic regions. Another female with low mobility is suggested to be a sedentary broodmare. Our results provide direct and unprecedented evidence for a variety of horse movement and trading practices in the Middle Ages and highlight the importance of international trade in securing high-quality horses for medieval London elites

The 10,000-year biocultural history of fallow deer and its implications for conservation policy

Over the last 10,000 years, humans have manipulated fallow deer populations with varying outcomes. Persian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) are now endangered. European fallow deer (Dama dama) are globally widespread and are simultaneously considered wild, domestic, endangered, invasive, and are even the national animal of Barbuda and Antigua. Despite their close association with people, there is no consensus regarding their natural ranges or the timing and circumstances of their human-mediated translocations and extirpations. Our mitochondrial analyses of modern and archaeological specimens revealed two distinct clades of European fallow deer present in Anatolia and the Balkans. Zooarchaeological evidence suggests these regions were their sole glacial refugia. By combining biomolecular analyses with archaeological and textual evidence, we chart the declining distribution of Persian fallow deer and demonstrate that humans repeatedly translocated European fallow deer, sourced from the most geographically distant populations. Deer taken to Chios and Rhodes in the Neolithic derived not from nearby Anatolia, but from the Balkans. Though fallow deer were translocated throughout the Mediterranean as part of their association with the Greco-Roman goddesses Artemis and Diana, deer taken to Roman Mallorca were not locally available Dama dama, but Dama mesopotamica. Romans also initially introduced fallow deer to Northern Europe but the species became extinct and was reintroduced in the medieval period, this time from Anatolia. European colonial powers then transported deer populations across the globe. We argue that these biocultural histories of fallow deer should underpin modern management strategie

The 10,000-year biocultural history of fallow deer and its implications for conservation policy

Over the last 10,000 y, humans have manipulated fallow deer populations with varying outcomes. Persian fallow deer ( Dama mesopotamica ) are now endangered. European fallow deer ( Dama dama ) are globally widespread and are simultaneously considered wild, domestic, endangered, invasive and are even the national animal of Barbuda and Antigua. Despite their close association with people, there is no consensus regarding their natural ranges or the timing and circumstances of their human-mediated translocations and extirpations. Our mitochondrial analyses of modern and archaeological specimens revealed two distinct clades of European fallow deer present in Anatolia and the Balkans. Zooarchaeological evidence suggests these regions were their sole glacial refugia. By combining biomolecular analyses with archaeological and textual evidence, we chart the declining distribution of Persian fallow deer and demonstrate that humans repeatedly translocated European fallow deer, sourced from the most geographically distant populations. Deer taken to Neolithic Chios and Rhodes derived not from nearby Anatolia, but from the Balkans. Though fallow deer were translocated throughout the Mediterranean as part of their association with the Greco-Roman goddesses Artemis and Diana, deer taken to Roman Mallorca were not locally available Dama dama , but Dama mesopotamica . Romans also initially introduced fallow deer to Northern Europe but the species became extinct and was reintroduced in the medieval period, this time from Anatolia. European colonial powers then transported deer populations across the globe. The biocultural histories of fallow deer challenge preconceptions about the divisions between wild and domestic species and provide information that should underpin modern management strategies