CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux

Overview This character area is defined by its situation and topography on the slopes of the Jordan valley. The landform slopes gently at first, from higher ground on Paradise Road to the 'Bottreaux' area around the filling station, steepening in gradient west of upper New Road and descending into the steep valley side to the houses Cherry Moon and Illypit. Development across the character area is a mix of the 20th and 21st-century, mainly individual dwellings of a broad diversity of designs and sizes. The scale of buildings relative to plots increasing in more modern builds, as does fenestration, both number and size. The transport pattern is distinctive, of short private lanes extending into different parts of the hillside, enabling discrete development blocks.

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 2

Key Characteristics • Sloping ground on the sides of the Jordan valley and the Jordan river. • Large, mostly detached, individual dwellings constructed in discrete blocks accessed by private lanes off the main arterial routes.

• A wide variety of differing styles and designs of 20th and 21st-century homes. • Decreasing plot size versus buildings size in more modern 21st-century buildings with a corresponding increase in fenestration to maximise views. • Elevated positions along the slope provide stunning views over the Jordan valley, St Symphorian's Church, and distant coastal and sea views.

Designations Listed buildings • Paradise II • Outbuilding 5m north of Paradise II • Gate and railing to the east of Paradise II

Other • The Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty • Boscastle Conservation Area - partially

Design cues

• Detached properties on individual plots • Well planted gardens with mature • Space around the plots result in low-density broadleaved trees and Monterey pines break housing up the development • Use of slate in building facades • Tree cover increasing towards the Jordan • Slate roofs in place of concrete tile on more river. modern properties

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Forrabury and Minster Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 3

Buildings

Development extends from Paradise Road down the hillside to Road, into the Bottreaux area along the western slopes of the Jordan valley, onto the upper part of New Road, and down steep slopes toward Cherry Moon. Properties in the character area are of such a wide variety of modern designs that they cannot be described in terms of their common characteristics. They are all relatively modern, large, and usually detached, constructed in the 20th and 21st-century.

On Paradise Road, there are several different styles and designs of properties of different periods, from post-WWII to the 21st-century. Some are bungalows, some two-storey, mainly rendered and painted white or cream with some slate hanging and composite cladding. Roofs are

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Forrabury and Minster Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 4

hip or hip and valley with gables covered in slate and, more commonly, concrete tile and pantile.

The sizeable modern executive home on Paradise Road is a more typical replacement dwelling. It occupies more plot width than some

of the earlier properties, in an elevated position

above the road. The most striking feature is the upper window in the gable end, which is very large, occupying almost the whole of the gable, and is indicative of the increasing size of the windows in modern properties, where views are available.

To the southwest of Bottreaux garage, there is a significant development at 'Bottreax Rise' that is still under construction at the time of writing. The imposing development is comprised of two and three-storey, terrace and mews style homes, clad in white render. The uncharacteristic scale overshadows attempts within the design to reflect the local historic vernacular. Development is continuing to the rear of the current built form

on Bottreaux Rise, infilling the gap to Paradise Road in CA04.

Bottreaux filling station is a rather run-down modern petrol station, housing a mechanics garage. Retro petrol pumps are no longer in service, and a former convenience store is now closed with metal shutters, potentially offering improvement opportunities. Next to the garage, an access road has been created off the junction enabling the development of three large, detached dwellings on large individual plots.

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Forrabury and Minster Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 5

Further along, off Doctors Hill, is an executive style development at 'White Smock Meadow', a private road not accessed as part of the VCA survey. Along Tintagel Road, two large, detached properties are accessed from a lane extending from the western end of Paradise Road.

Down the valley slope, on the upper part of New Road, several modern properties infill the space between Potters Lane houses in CA06 and the historic houses associated with CA04 on Fore Street. Again, there are no unifying characteristics in the built form. Some of the most recent properties are extremely large, modern deco style, flat-roofed properties with large, double-height single pane fenestration.

Elsewhere, modern dwellings have sprung up in the grounds of earlier properties, such as the slate clad, slate-hung, and rendered gable,

situated in the former grounds of the large Properties on the steep slopes to Cherry Moon Victorian Villa, Melrose House. are two-storey detached, similarly diverse in design. Each has design detail that reflects historical vernacular, such as granite lintels and slate hanging. However, this is not effective due to the lack of cohesion in design between houses.

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Forrabury and Minster Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 6

Spaces

Plots sizes vary across the character area, although the rule of thumb is that building size relative to plot size increases greatly in the more recent developments. More modest post- WWII bungalows occupy less space within the large plots.

Bottreaux Rise is the most densely packed estate development in the character area, built on the old Bottreaux Garage. This development differs from the rest in that it is not a group of detached dwellings but discrete blocks of terraces and mews homes with small yards and no gardens.

The modern developments taking place on upper New Road and homes on the valley side to Cherry Moon, are more true to character, being large individual dwellings within their own plots. Several developments on the upper part of New Road are located in the garden plots of older properties such as Boscastle House in CA07 and Crooked Meadow House. As such, many slate walls or Cornish hedge garden boundaries are much older than the properties themselves. A tall retaining wall supports the gardens to the south of New Road against the slope, which is quite ornate with herringbone and vertical coursing. It has been taken out in places to allow for driveways and garages for the garden properties.

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Forrabury and Minster Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 7

Views

This character area is located on sloping topography on the sides of the Jordan valley. The views afforded by the elevation and uninterrupted vistas enjoyed by most properties, as the slope drops away, is a defining feature of the area.

Most dwellings have spectacular views out across the Jordan valley in the foreground, across to the Valency valley, along the coast, and out to sea.

There are views of Symphorian's Church and the sea beyond the roofscape of the bungalow housing in CA09. While openly available from the houses, these views are only partly available at street level due to the built form and well-treed vegetation.

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Forrabury and Minster Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 8

Landscape and green infrastructure

There is a strong sense of increasing woodland cover of the woodland Jordan valley as the slope descends and steepens. On Paradise Road, gardens are well stocked with a variety of broadleaved trees and mature pines, and this helps to integrate built form into the wooded valley landscape.

Tree cover is maintained down the valley into the New Road and the steep lane to Cherry Moon, in sharp contrast, at the moment, to the development at Bottreaux Rise. However, landscaping for this ongoing development is not yet complete. Here, an extensive cutting into the hillside is supported by substantial gabion retaining walls, providing a flat area elevated above the B3226. The site formerly contained a garage and car park, and now facilitates the new development.

Gardens are generally well manicured with mown lawns and well-stocked borders with plenty of ornamental fruit trees and shrubs and colourful perennials. Garden boundary walls of slate stone with spar capstones or Cornish hedges are also well- vegetated with lots of ferns and lichens, giving away their age. In places, wildflowers such as red campion spring from the Cornish walls and hedges, providing splashes of colour. The gardens of upper New Road have an air of formality with large, manicured lawns, structural grasses such as large pampas grasses, and some topiary.

The River Jordan flows from the upper slopes at Paradise Road and down past the filling station and under the road and Gunpool Lane, emerging past Orchard Lodge and away down the valley. The river is canalised close to the road with slate stone and concrete walling and a mass of iron railings.

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Forrabury and Minster Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 9

Transport and Access Paradise Road is a semi-rural road that runs from High Street at the southern edge of Boscastle, dipping down into the wooded Jordan valley. It emerges in a long straight, single lane with passing places available in the large driveways of the properties and joins Tintagel Road at its western end.

Elsewhere the main arterial roads of the B3266, Doctors Hill, and the B3263, New Road, all meet at the junction in front of the filling station. The traffic generated makes the core of the character area a busy place and quite precarious for the pedestrian.

The doctor's surgery area is under pressure from parked cars, which reduces the B3266 to a single lane, making it difficult for cars to pass each other. This situation is likely to be exacerbated when cars from Bottreaux Rise join the thoroughfare.

Aside from the main arterial roads, the character area is defined by short private access roads, which have enabled bitesize pieces of the valley side to be developed in stages. These include the access road from Paradise Road to and Heathdene; White Smock Meadow; the access road alongside the filling station to Trebrae House, Hillcroft, and Hillbury House; Bottreaux Rise; the access lane on upper New Road between Robin Hill and Twillick and, on the other side of the road to Cherry Moon.

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Forrabury and Minster Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 10

Aesthetic and tranquility Away from the main roads, CA08 remains relatively tranquil. Paradise Road has a semi-rural feel, aided by its well-treed gardens, its wooded aspect on the valley side, and spectacular far-reaching coastal and valley views, which have made this character area so desirable. Within the private lanes, this sense of tranquility also lingers for similar reasons.

This character area's aesthetic is weakened by the confusion of designs of properties and the increasingly massive scale of modern developments, which also impacts the setting of Boscastle's historic buildings. Tranquility is highly impacted by the busy road, speeding traffic, and proliferation of parked cars.

Pressures and Condition

Modern developments, such as those at Bottreaux Rise, are out of scale with the rest of the village, negatively impacting character and having a significant visual impact.

Lotting up of the grounds of Boscastle House has created a building plot, upon which has been constructed a very modern dwelling at the boundary of CA08 and CA07. While it is not out of scale with the other properties at Barn Park, the contemporary design does not reflect historic vernacular.

Two very large, flat-roofed, Bauhaus style properties are currently under construction between Potters Lane and New Road, which are of a significantly different design and scale and very out of character. Modern replacement dwellings are resulting in a gradual reduction of plot size relative to building size, creating gradual urbanisation.

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Forrabury and Minster Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 11

Piecemeal development has resulted in a wide variety of design styles, many of which have attempted to address vernacular in various ways. These have been mostly unsuccessful, mainly due to the large scale of properties and the lack of unifying features.

The Jordan river is canalised to the side of the Bottreaux Garage.

Parking bays and garages have been created along upper New Road to facilitate parking for development in the former gardens of older properties.

There is significant parking pressure around the doctors surgery.

There has been a loss of commercial buildings from 'Top Town,' such as the former Bottreaux Garage. The current filling station is not in operation, and the convenience store on the site has also closed. This leaves the area without a local shop, aside from the shops in lower village some distance away at Bridge, which also houses the Post Office. The scarcity of service increases dependency on the car, necessitating travel to for essentials and even Wadebridge to access a supermarket.

Planning guidelines

1. Resist further development within 5. Ensure new development carefully considers gardens and significant increases in the parking issues and ensure no net loss of scale of replacement dwellings to parking. maintain a low density, open character, and prevent further urbanisation of the 6. Take a strategic and planned approach to valley slopes. sustainable travel in Boscastle, including speed control, car parking provision, and 2. Consider producing a design guide for traffic management to ease vehicle pressure, Boscastle, which explores a new historic focusing on safe walking provision. vernacular. Seek to build cohesion through the unification of scale, mass, 7. Positively support proposals for a high- architectural detailing, and materials. quality redevelopment of the filling station area to provide a new village centre for 'Top 3. Take opportunities to open the Jordan Town.' Ensure design reflects historic river as a positive element of green vernacular, incorporates high-quality green infrastructure in the heart of this infrastructure, and provides the local character area. community with a greater range of services 4. Ensure landscape schemes include and business accommodation. extensive planting of native broadleaved trees to strengthen wooded character and mitigate the visual impact.

Boscastle Village Character Assessment CA08 Paradise and Bottreaux www.gainconsulting.co.uk 2020, for the Forrabury and Minster Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 12