chuk-mcp-her 0.2

Historic Environment Records MCP Server

chuk-mcp-her

Historic Environment Records MCP Server -- A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for querying Historic Environment Records across England and Scotland. Searches listed buildings, scheduled monuments, registered parks, battlefields, protected wrecks, and World Heritage Sites via live ArcGIS REST APIs from Historic England and Historic Environment Scotland.

This is a demonstration project provided as-is for learning and testing purposes.

Features

This MCP server provides structured access to Historic Environment Records through 26 tools across 9 categories, querying 6 data sources via live ArcGIS REST APIs and Heritage Gateway web scraping.

Key capabilities:

• Source registry pattern -- pluggable adapters for NHLE, AIM, Conservation Areas, Heritage at Risk, Heritage Gateway, and Scotland (HES) with unified query interface
• England + Scotland coverage -- English heritage via Historic England, Scottish heritage via Historic Environment Scotland (320,000+ NRHE records + designated assets)
• Spatial-first queries -- bounding box, point+radius, and area searches via ArcGIS Feature/Map Services
• BNG/WGS84 coordinate support -- automatic conversion between British National Grid (EPSG:27700) and WGS84 (EPSG:4326)
• All tools return fully-typed Pydantic v2 models for type safety, validation, and excellent IDE support
• All tools support output_mode="text" for human-readable output alongside the default JSON

1. Server Discovery (her_status, her_list_sources, her_capabilities)

Check server health, list registered data sources, and get full capabilities:

• Source availability and status
• Supported query types per source
• LLM guidance for query planning

2. NHLE Queries (her_search_monuments, her_get_monument, her_search_listed_buildings, her_search_designations, her_count_features)

Search the National Heritage List for England:

• Scheduled monuments by location, name, or description
• Listed buildings with grade filtering (I, II*, II)
• Generic designation search across all 6 designation types
• Fast feature counts without fetching full records
• Pagination with offset-based paging

3. Aerial Mapping (her_search_aerial, her_count_aerial, her_get_aerial_feature)

Search aerial investigation mapping data:

• Archaeological features from aerial photographs and LiDAR
• Cropmarks, earthworks, and features not in the NHLE
• Monument type and period filtering
• Fast feature counts without fetching full records
• Full details for individual aerial mapping features

4. Conservation Areas (her_search_conservation_areas, her_count_conservation_areas, her_get_conservation_area)

Search Historic England's 8,000+ conservation areas:

• Search by name, Local Planning Authority, or location
• Bounding box and point+radius spatial queries
• Fast counts without fetching full records
• Full details including designation date and area

5. Heritage at Risk (her_search_heritage_at_risk, her_count_heritage_at_risk, her_get_heritage_at_risk)

Search the Heritage at Risk Register:

• Annual register of heritage assets at risk of loss
• Filter by heritage category (Listed Building, Scheduled Monument, etc.)
• Spatial search by bounding box or point+radius
• Risk methodology details for each entry

6. Heritage Gateway (her_search_heritage_gateway)

Search local Historic Environment Records via Heritage Gateway:

• Best-effort access to 60+ local HERs via web scraping
• Undesignated sites, findspots, and HER monument entries
• Returns empty results gracefully when Gateway unavailable

7. Scotland (her_search_scotland, her_get_scotland_record, her_search_scotland_designations)

Search Historic Environment Scotland records:

• 320,000+ National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE) records via Canmore Points
• Designated assets: listed buildings, scheduled monuments, gardens and designed landscapes, battlefields, world heritage sites, conservation areas, historic marine protected areas
• Site type, broad class, and council area filtering
• Full details for individual records by Canmore ID

8. Cross-Referencing (her_cross_reference, her_enrich_gateway, her_nearby)

Spatial matching, enrichment, and proximity search:

• Cross-reference candidate locations against known heritage assets
• Classify candidates as match, near, or novel
• Grid-based spatial indexing for efficient batch processing (O(n+m) amortised)
• Optional AIM aerial feature integration (include_aim parameter)
• Designation type filtering (single type or comma-separated)
• Enriched match output with 11 fields per asset (source, grade, monument_type, period, form, evidence)
• Enrich Gateway records with resolved BNG coordinates for cross-referencing
• Find nearby heritage assets with distance and bearing
• Accepts both WGS84 and BNG coordinates

9. Export (her_export_geojson, her_export_for_lidar)

Export and format results:

• GeoJSON FeatureCollection for QGIS, Leaflet, or other GIS tools
• LiDAR cross-reference format with enriched metadata per source:
  • NHLE sites with grade
  • AIM aerial features with monument_type, period, form, evidence
  • Gateway sites with monument_type and period
• Optional AIM integration (include_aim) and Gateway sites (gateway_sites) for LiDAR export

Tool Reference

All tools accept an optional output_mode parameter ("json" default, or "text" for human-readable output).

Tool	Category	Description	Status
her_status	Discovery	Server health and source availability	Active
her_list_sources	Discovery	List registered data sources with capabilities	Active
her_capabilities	Discovery	Full server capability listing for LLM planning	Active
her_search_monuments	NHLE	Search scheduled monuments by location or name	Active
her_get_monument	NHLE	Get full details for a specific monument	Active
her_search_listed_buildings	NHLE	Search listed buildings with grade filter	Active
her_search_designations	NHLE	Search across all designation types	Active
her_count_features	NHLE	Fast count of features in an area	Active
her_search_aerial	Aerial	Search aerial investigation mapping data	Active
her_count_aerial	Aerial	Count aerial mapping features in an area	Active
her_get_aerial_feature	Aerial	Get full details of an aerial mapping feature	Active
her_search_conservation_areas	Conservation	Search conservation areas by name, LPA, or location	Active
her_count_conservation_areas	Conservation	Count conservation areas in an area	Active
her_get_conservation_area	Conservation	Get full details of a conservation area	Active
her_search_heritage_at_risk	At Risk	Search heritage at risk register entries	Active
her_count_heritage_at_risk	At Risk	Count heritage at risk entries in an area	Active
her_get_heritage_at_risk	At Risk	Get full details of a heritage at risk entry	Active
her_search_heritage_gateway	Gateway	Search local HER data via Heritage Gateway	Active
her_search_scotland	Scotland	Search Scottish NRHE records (320K+ sites)	Active
her_get_scotland_record	Scotland	Get full details of a Scottish NRHE record	Active
her_search_scotland_designations	Scotland	Search Scottish designated heritage assets	Active
her_cross_reference	Cross-Ref	Cross-reference candidates against known assets	Active
her_enrich_gateway	Cross-Ref	Resolve Gateway record coordinates for cross-referencing	Active
her_nearby	Cross-Ref	Find heritage assets near a point	Active
her_export_geojson	Export	Export results as GeoJSON FeatureCollection	Active
her_export_for_lidar	Export	Export known sites for LiDAR cross-referencing	Active

Data Sources

Source	Name	Organisation	Coverage	API Type	Status
nhle	National Heritage List for England	Historic England	England	ArcGIS Feature Service	Active
aim	Aerial Investigation and Mapping	Historic England	England	ArcGIS Feature Service	Active
conservation_area	Conservation Areas	Historic England / LPAs	England	ArcGIS Feature Service	Active
heritage_at_risk	Heritage at Risk Register	Historic England	England	ArcGIS Feature Service	Active
heritage_gateway	Heritage Gateway (Local HERs)	Historic England / Local HERs	England	Web scraper	Active
scotland	Historic Environment Scotland	Historic Environment Scotland	Scotland	ArcGIS Map Service	Active

NHLE Designation Types

Type	Description
listed_building	Listed buildings (Grades I, II*, II)
scheduled_monument	Scheduled monuments
park_and_garden	Registered parks and gardens
battlefield	Registered battlefields
protected_wreck	Protected wreck sites
world_heritage_site	World Heritage Sites

Installation

Using uvx (Recommended -- No Installation Required!)

uvx chuk-mcp-her

Using uv (Recommended for Development)

# Install from PyPI
uv pip install chuk-mcp-her

# Or clone and install from source
git clone <repository-url>
cd chuk-mcp-her
uv sync --dev

Using pip (Traditional)

pip install chuk-mcp-her

Optional: Sub-metre Coordinate Accuracy

# Install pyproj for sub-metre BNG<->WGS84 conversion
# Without pyproj, Helmert approximation (~5m accuracy) is used
pip install chuk-mcp-her[pyproj]

Usage

With Claude Desktop

Option 1: Run Locally with uvx

MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "her": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["chuk-mcp-her"]
    }
  }
}

Option 2: Run Locally with pip

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "her": {
      "command": "chuk-mcp-her"
    }
  }
}

With Python SDK

from mcp import ClientSession, StdioServerParameters
from mcp.client.stdio import stdio_client

server_params = StdioServerParameters(
    command="uvx",
    args=["chuk-mcp-her"],
)

async with stdio_client(server_params) as (read, write):
    async with ClientSession(read, write) as session:
        await session.initialize()
        result = await session.call_tool(
            "her_search_monuments",
            {"name": "Stonehenge", "max_results": 5},
        )

Standalone

# STDIO mode (default, for MCP clients)
chuk-mcp-her stdio

# HTTP mode (for web access)
chuk-mcp-her http
chuk-mcp-her http --port 8010

# Auto-detect mode
chuk-mcp-her

STDIO mode is for MCP clients like Claude Desktop and mcp-cli. HTTP mode runs a web server on http://localhost:8010 for HTTP-based MCP clients.

CLI (mcp-cli)

mcp-cli chat --server her

Example Usage

Once configured, you can ask questions like:

• "List the available heritage data sources"
• "Search for scheduled monuments near Stonehenge"
• "Find Grade I listed buildings in central London"
• "How many heritage assets are in this bounding box?"
• "Get the full record for monument 1002345"
• "What heritage assets are within 500m of the Tower of London?"
• "Export all scheduled monuments in the Maldon area as GeoJSON"
• "Cross-reference these LiDAR survey points against known heritage assets"
• "Search for protected wrecks along the English coast"
• "Find registered parks and gardens near Bath"
• "Search for all red hills along the north bank of the Blackwater estuary between Heybridge Basin and Tollesbury"
• "Find castles in the Scottish Highlands"
• "Search for brochs near Inverness"
• "What scheduled monuments are in Edinburgh?"

Multi-source queries: The tool descriptions guide LLM agents to combine multiple sources automatically. A query like "find all red hills near the Blackwater" will prompt the agent to search NHLE (designated monuments), AIM (aerial mapping features), and Heritage Gateway (local HER records), then merge the results for comprehensive coverage.

Model-agnostic: The MCP server works with any LLM provider that supports function calling -- Claude, GPT, Gemini, or any other MCP-compatible client. The same tools work identically through Claude Desktop, mcp-cli, or the Python SDK.

Running the Examples

cd examples

python capabilities_demo.py          # server capabilities, sources, tools
python quick_start.py                # quick intro: status, count, search, nearby
python nhle_search_demo.py           # scheduled monument and listed building search
python aerial_search_demo.py         # aerial investigation mapping features
python conservation_area_demo.py     # conservation area search
python heritage_at_risk_demo.py      # heritage at risk register
python nearby_demo.py                # find heritage assets near a point
python export_demo.py                  # GeoJSON export
python gateway_search_demo.py          # Heritage Gateway local HER search
python cross_reference_demo.py         # cross-reference candidates (with AIM)
python enrichment_pipeline_demo.py     # Gateway enrichment + cross-reference
python blackwater_estuary_scenario.py  # multi-source scenario

Script	Network	Tools Demonstrated
capabilities_demo.py	No	her_capabilities, her_list_sources, her_status
quick_start.py	Yes	her_status, her_count_features, her_search_monuments, her_get_monument, her_nearby
nhle_search_demo.py	Yes	her_search_monuments, her_get_monument, her_search_listed_buildings, her_search_designations, her_count_features
aerial_search_demo.py	Yes	her_search_aerial, her_count_aerial, her_get_aerial_feature
conservation_area_demo.py	Yes	her_search_conservation_areas, her_count_conservation_areas, her_get_conservation_area
heritage_at_risk_demo.py	Yes	her_search_heritage_at_risk, her_count_heritage_at_risk, her_get_heritage_at_risk
nearby_demo.py	Yes	her_nearby
export_demo.py	Yes	her_export_geojson, her_export_for_lidar
gateway_search_demo.py	Yes	her_search_heritage_gateway
cross_reference_demo.py	Yes	her_cross_reference (with include_aim)
enrichment_pipeline_demo.py	Yes	her_enrich_gateway, her_search_heritage_gateway, her_cross_reference, her_count_features
blackwater_estuary_scenario.py	Yes	Multi-source scenario using NHLE, AIM, Conservation Areas, Heritage at Risk

Architecture

                    MCP Client (Claude, mcp-cli, etc.)
                              |
                              | MCP protocol (stdio / HTTP)
                              v
                  +-------------------------------+
                  |       Tool Functions          |
                  | discovery/ nhle/ aerial/      |
                  | conservation_area/ scotland/  |
                  | heritage_at_risk/ gateway/    |
                  | crossref/ export/             |
                  +-------------------------------+
                              |
                              | validate params, format response
                              v
                  +-------------------------------+
                  |       SourceRegistry          |
                  |   (unified query interface)   |
                  +-------------------------------+
                  |     |     |     |     |     |
          NHLEAdapter   |  CA     HAR    |  ScotlandAdapter
            AIMAdapter  |  Adapter Adapter|  (2 clients)
                        |               GatewayAdapter
                v       v       v             v           v
        +------------------+  +------------------+  +------------------+
        |  ArcGIS Client   |  |  Gateway Client  |  |  ArcGIS Client   |
        | (HE FeatureSvr)  |  | (httpx, bs4)     |  | (HES MapServer)  |
        +------------------+  +------------------+  +------------------+
                |                      |                      |
                v                      v                      v
        +------------------+  +------------------+  +------------------+
        | HE ArcGIS Svc    |  | Heritage Gateway |  | inspire.hes.scot |
        | NHLE,AIM,CA,HAR  |  | (60+ local HERs) |  | Canmore, HES Des |
        +------------------+  +------------------+  +------------------+

Built on top of chuk-mcp-server, this server uses:

• Async-First: Native async/await with httpx for all HTTP requests
• Type-Safe: Pydantic v2 models with extra="forbid" for all responses
• Source Registry Pattern: Pluggable adapters registered at startup, queried through unified interface
• BNG/WGS84 Conversion: Helmert transformation with optional pyproj for sub-metre accuracy
• Filesystem Cache: TTL-based per-source caching to reduce API load
• Rate Limiting: Per-client rate limiting with exponential backoff on 429/5xx
• Dual Output: All 26 tools support output_mode="text" for human-readable responses
• Error Messages: All error strings from ErrorMessages constants -- no hardcoded strings

See ARCHITECTURE.md for design principles and data flow diagrams. See SPEC.md for the full tool specification with parameter tables. See ROADMAP.md for the development roadmap and planned features.

Development

Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone <repository-url>
cd chuk-mcp-her

# Install with uv (recommended)
uv sync --dev

# Or with pip
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Running Tests

# Run tests
pytest tests/

# Run tests with coverage
pytest tests/ --cov=src/chuk_mcp_her --cov-report=term-missing

# Run a specific test file
pytest tests/test_coordinates.py -v

Code Quality

# Lint and format with ruff
ruff check src/ tests/
ruff format src/ tests/

# Type checking
mypy src/

# Security scan
bandit -r src/ -x tests/

Building

# Build package
python -m build

# Or with uv
uv build

Configuration

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
MCP_STDIO	-	Set to any value to force stdio mode
HER_CACHE_DIR	~/.cache/chuk-mcp-her	Filesystem cache directory
HER_NHLE_CACHE_TTL	86400	NHLE cache TTL in seconds (24 hours)
HER_AIM_CACHE_TTL	604800	AIM cache TTL in seconds (7 days)
HER_HG_CACHE_TTL	3600	Heritage Gateway cache TTL in seconds (1 hour)
HER_RATE_LIMIT	5.0	Max requests per second to ArcGIS
HER_TIMEOUT	30.0	HTTP request timeout in seconds

License

Apache License 2.0 -- See LICENSE for details.

References

• Historic England -- National Heritage List for England
• NHLE ArcGIS Feature Service -- Live data endpoint
• ArcGIS REST API -- Query specification
• Historic Environment Scotland -- National Record of the Historic Environment
• HES ArcGIS MapServer -- Scottish heritage data endpoints
• Heritage Gateway -- Federated HER search
• Model Context Protocol -- MCP specification
• Anthropic -- Claude and MCP support
• British National Grid -- EPSG:27700 coordinate reference system