Southwold Harbour & BUNGAYSouthwoldWalberswick ConservationConservationQuay AreaConservation AreaArea Written by Paul Edwards, Written byWritten by Historic Environment Paul EdwardsPaul Edwards Specialist , and the Historic Historic Environ- Environ- Waveney District ment mentSpecialist Specialist and and Draft Character Council Design & the Waveneythe Waveney District District Conservation Team Appraisal CouncilCouncil Design Design & & CharacterAppraisalDraft Character Appraisal ConservationConservation Team Team March 2008 Draft 1D Decemberraft February 2007 2007 Fig 2, Southwold Harbour from Walberswick This copy has been produced specifically for Planning & Building Control purposes only. No further copies may be made. Reproduced from the Ordnance Survey map with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Crown Copyright reserved. License No. 100042052 Waveney District Council. Fig 3, Fishermen’s Huts Fig 1, location plan Contents Page 3 Introduction Page 3 Planning Policy Framework Page 3 Assessing Special Interest Page 3 Location and Context Page 5 General Character and Plan Form Fig 4, Walberswick Beach Houses Page 5 Landscape Setting Page 5 Historic Development & Archaeology Page 9 Spatial Analysis Page 10 Character Analysis Page 15 Local Materials Page 16 Community Involvement Page 17 Local Generic Guidance Page 17 Appendices Page 19 Management Plan Fig 5, Landing Stages 2 Introduction: Location & context Introduction when exercising planning powers, will pay The historic environment is all around us in special attention to the preservation and the form of buildings, landscapes, enhancement of the conservation area archaeology and historic areas; it is a according to the policies for the built precious and irreplaceable asset. Once gone environment set out in the Adopted it is gone forever. Waveney District Local Plan of November 1996 and Interim Local Plan of May 2004. Caring for the historic environment is a dynamic process which involves managing Additional guidance is contained in change. This does not mean keeping Historic Environment Supplementary everything from the past but it does mean Planning Document No 4, S5 New making careful judgements about the value moorings and S6 Replacement moorings. and significance of the buildings and landscapes. Critical to these decisions is an In recognition of these policies and in line appreciation and understanding of an area’s with the requirements of the 1990 Planning character including its social and economic (Listed Buildings & Conservation Areas) background and the way such factors have Act, Waveney District Council will shaped its urban fabric. This should be the continue to formulate and publish proposals starting point for making decisions about for the preservation and enhancement of the both its management and future. conservation area and consult the public on these proposals. This conservation area appraisal: •Describes the character of the area •Provides a sound basis for development Assessing Special Interest control Location and Context •Identifies proposals for improving the area Southwold Harbour is situated on the Suffolk coast, 1 mile south of Southwold, 14 miles south of Lowestoft and 34 miles Planning policy framework north of Ipswich. (See fig 1, location map) Conservation areas were introduced The harbour is located on the north bank of through the Civic Amenities Act in 1967 the River Blyth between ‘The Studio’, and there are now sixteen in Waveney north of No 5, Blackshore Cottages to Salt District. Conservation areas are ‘areas of Creek, on the north-west boundary of the special architectural or historic interest, the caravan park. Walberswick Quay is the character or appearance of which it is small area of Waveney District on the south desirable to preserve or enhance’. The bank of the river, from north-east of Old Southwold Harbour Conservation Area was Vicarage Cottage, Walberswick to the north designated in 1996, Walberswick Quay in bank of the Dunwich River. 1991 and article 4(2) protection imposed on (See plan of conservation area overleaf) both in 1997. The harbour is used for landing, processing Designation as a conservation area is not and retailing fish, for boat building, sales intended to prevent new development or and repairs, for sailing, canoeing, walking, stifle the area’s economic life or potential, and crabbing and as a tourist destination; though the Council will expect a high served by restaurants and a public house. degree of attention to be paid to design, There are also five dwellings on Blackshore repair and maintenance of such areas and, Quay and four on Walberswick Quay. 3 4 Fig 6, Southwold Harbour & Walberswick Quay – Existing Conservation Area Character, Landscape setting, Early history General Character & Plan Form and down the coast from the harbour The Harbour is situated next to the sea, on a mouth, where in the winter months the remote channel in a marshland landscape. observer can experience isolation and The harbour mouth is comparatively long solitude. There are footpaths along both and wide and is enclosed by long, heavily banks of the harbour which continue along engineered reinforced concrete piers and the river beyond Blackshore and there are concrete walls up to the Walberswick Quay branches to north across the common to and the conservation area. Nursemaids Green and two more along both banks of Buss Creek. The harbour buildings are informal and functional and follow a narrow strip on the The conservation area is within the Suffolk north side of the river, with timber landing Coast & Heaths Area of Outstanding stages at the water’s edge, an unmade Natural Beauty and Suffolk Heritage Coast access road, informal parking widest designations and the beach is a County adjacent to the Harbour Inn. Then there are Wildlife Site. The Town Marshes many small plain black tarred huts and immediately to the north are a Site of sheds and some larger industrial structures Special Scientific Interest. ranged along the north east side according to the available space. Historic Development & Archaeology: Blackshore Landscape Setting There are harbours on each side of the Surrounded by marshland, its wider River Blyth where it runs into the sea. On environment is watery and remote, with the south side is Walberswick Harbour, long views across reed beds and water once a thriving port trading in butter, meadows. The landscape is made up of cheese, bacon, corn, timber and fish. The grazing marsh, fields of deep lush grass, name Walberswick is believed to derive enclosed by deep ditches, some filled with from the Saxon Waldbert or Walhbert - and flag iris sedge or bushes of elder. Here are “wyc”, meaning shelter or harbour raised levees; earth ridges devoid of trees, suggesting that there was a harbour when marking the course of the slow meandering Saxon held sway. The quay has been in rivers. Between the marsh and the sea is a continuous use since then. The fishermen’s strip of sand dunes and a wide beach huts and goods stores are evidence of this through which the harbour channel passes. 19th-century activity. Close by to south on a low hill and among trees lies Walberswick, with a car park; Southwold’s quay was at Blackshore, one busy in the summer months. On the mile upstream from Walberswick Quay, at Southwold side close to the harbour mouth the time when the River Blyth meandered is a summer caravan park. in a long loop around the north, west and south of Southwold, reaching the sea at From most locations on the footpath on the Dunwich. Southwold’s haven was within a north side of the harbour, there are fine branch of the river to the north of the town views of Southwold, with two church known as Woodsend and latterly known as towers, a lighthouse and two water towers Buss Creek. The herring fishing boats or spread across a low hill to north. From the ‘Herring Buss’, when not moored in the footpath north of the Harbour Inn, are fine creek, were pulled up on the beach under views of the Reydon Marshes and of the sand and shingle cliffs on which the Tinker’s Marshes. There are also views up town was built. The mouth of the old river 5 Fig 7, Extract of James Walker’s Map drawn in 1840 Fig 8, Historic Ordnance Survey Map of Walberswick Quay In 1904 6 History, medieval to 1757. was constantly moving and silting up with have been for defensive reasons against disastrous consequences for Dunwich, these pirates that Royal Ordnance, in 1745 whose harbour was silted up and quays provided the Southwold Corporation with flooded by a storm in 1328 and, as a the six, 18 pound cannons now on Gun Hill. consequence of other storms, had by 1540 In 1736 local land owners and merchants lost hundreds of houses and its marketplace built a new quay on the north bank of the to the sea. river at Reydon with warehouses, granaries and a timber yard. The quay was 4 miles In or about 1489, Dunwich Harbour, which closer to Reydon and Wangford than the was the Haven Port and formed the only Blackshore Quay and attracted much of access out of the sea for Southwold and Southwold’s commerce. However a new Walberswick, became unusable to the lease of life came to Southwold’s fishery King’s ships. The King granted a Royal and to the port in 1750 with the Charter to Southwold and transferred the Government’s decision to make the town Haven Port status to Southwold Harbour. the centre for the Free British Fishery; an William Gödel, one of the first two Bailiffs initiative set up to reduce Dutch dominance of the town, left in his will of 1509, the of the herring fisheries. Also local commons, town marshes and the harbour to merchants and landowners recognised the the Town of Southwold. importance of a viable harbour for the exploitation of the opportunities for trade in One hundred years later the way out to the coal and corn.