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The term 'natural beauty' has been an important criterion for designating and managing fine landscapes in the UK and elsewhere. However, its meaning has been assumed to be selfevident and has never been officially defined. Latterly, this has become problematic in relation to more critical contemporary understandings of 'natural', and legal challenges to the use of the term in practice. Based on an analysis of the antecedents to legislation for the protection of natural beauty, and of subsequent efforts to analyse and describe fine landscapes, this paper considers the contested use of 'natural beauty' in current landscape policy. It proposes an extended meaning for the term which is consistent with the intentions of the original legislators.Keywords: natural beauty protected landscapes landscape character national parks landscape legislation I ntroduction 1The concept of natural beauty is one of the cornerstones of legislation to protect landscapes in the UK. The term "natural beauty" has existed formally in legislation for England and Wales since the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, and has parallels in the Northern Ireland 1965 Amenity Lands Act and 1985 Nature Conservation and Amenity Lands Order, whilst the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act 1991 includes "natural beauty and amenity" within its definition of natural heritage. The significance of the concept extends well beyond the UK, and has more general implications for 'protected areas' which fall into IUCN Category V protected landscapes/ seascapes i , and which are predominantly 'cultural' rather than 'natural'.The beauty of such places cannot be natural in the strict sense, and this paper explores the current meaning and use of the term in relation to the designation and management of protected cultural landscapes. The 2004 review of the National Park Authorities in Wales commentedii that "the breadth of the term 'natural beauty'…. is not well understood by all those who take decisions affecting National Parks." As a result the Welsh Assembly, in its National Park Review Action Plan, asked the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) to produce a statement on the full scope of 'natural beauty'. This paper arises from research undertaken for the Countryside Council for Wales to produce such a statement.Although the term 'natural beauty' initially seems uncontroversial, in practice it has had to serve as a vehicle for successive trends in landscape planning, and its implicit meanings have been stretched to the point where its continued policy and legal fitness is questionable. Equally, however, it is associated with much policy and legal precedent, and is a widely used and familiar phrase without an obvious alternative. In order to explore its continued suitability as a basis for planning fine landscapes, this paper examines it from four perspectives. First, we consider the theories and concepts which have underpinned natural beauty, ranging from 2 aesthetic arguments to more utilitarian justifications. Second, we explore the origins...

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