An outline of the importance of appropriate curtilages for monuments and the reasons for the need to protect such curtilages for a number of reasons including visual ones. Deals with the problems being faced today with intrusive elements around a monument, whether tall buildings in urban areas or uncontrolled sprawl in the countryside, and the need to accept that in some urban areas the curtilage has already been compromised and that the best that can be achieved is to stabilize that position. Discusses legal questions and the fact that currently popular planning controls and currently available heritage or voluntary agreements are used in different areas and/or with different pruposes, but not so far in a complementary fashion and not to date with a view to protecting the curtilage of monuments.