Conservation Area Appraisal Mells
September 2010
www.mendip.gov.uk CustomerCustomer Services Services 01749 648999 01749 648999 This appraisal aims to identify the essential elements that give an area its character. It is, therefore, a snapshot in time.
Elements and details of an area may be important even if they are not specifically referred to in the text.
Any comments, observations or suggestions relating to this document should be sent to:
Customer Services Mendip District Council Cannards Grave Road Shepton Mallet Somerset BA4 5BT
Tel: 01749 648999 Fax: 01749 344050 Email: [email protected]
www.mendip.gov.uk
September 2010
This document has been written on behalf of Mendip District Council by:
John Wykes (Planning Consultant)
Editing and design by Mendip District Council
2 www.mendip.gov.uk 2 Contents
1. Introduction ...... 4
2. Location and Landscape Setting ...... 6
3. History and Development ...... 8
4. Character of Mells ...... 16
5. Spatial Analysis ...... 17
6. Character Analysis ...... 24
7. Local Building Patterns ...... 28
8. Synthesis of Appraisal ...... 42
Appendix 1: Drawings ...... 43
Summary of Key Characteristics ...... 45
3 Customer Services 01749 648999 3 1. Introduction
1.1 The Mells Conservation Area was 1.4 The purpose of this appraisal is to first designated in September 1969 by define the qualities of the area that Somerset County Council. make it worthy of conservation area status. A clear, comprehensive 1.2 Section 69 of the Planning (Listed appraisal of the character of a Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act conservation area provides a sound 1990 imposes a duty on Local basis for development control Planning Authorities to determine from decisions and for developing initiatives time to time which parts of their area to improve the area. It will also enable are „areas of special architectural or the development of a robust policy historic interest, the character or framework for the future management appearance of which it is desirable to of the area, on which applications can preserve or enhance‟ and to designate be considered. these areas as conservation areas. 1.5 This appraisal has been produced 1.3 Planning authorities also have a in accordance with the English duty to protect these areas from Heritage publication: „Guidance on development which would harm their Conservation Area Appraisals‟ (August special historic or architectural 2005). character and this is reflected in the policies contained in Mendip District 1.6 This appraisal was endorsed by Council‟s Adopted Local Plan. the council on 29th September 2010 as a material planning consideration, and will be taken into account when assessing local planning applications.
4 www.mendip.gov.uk 4 1. Introduction
St Andrew’s Church
Se lwood Street
G
a
y
S
t
r
e
e
t
Mells
l il H s ne t opLa n T e T
Little Green
Holes Lane
Mells Green
Key Conservation Area © Crown copyright. All rights reserved 100019309 2009 Ordnance Survey Map showing Mells Conservation Area Boundary
Customer Services 01749 648999 5 2. Location and Landscape Setting
2.1 Mells is situated about two miles parkland at Mells Park to the west. (5km) west of Frome and three miles This latter area is an important (6km) south-south-east of Radstock, in example of 18th- and 19th-century the valley of the Mells River (also garden design, containing many referred to as the Mells Stream). The ornamental and specimen trees. A topography is one of low, rounded large former quarry is situated to the hills, rising to 145m AOD (Above south of the village and a working site, Ordnance Datum) at Newbury Hill to Whatley Quarry, to the south-east, on the north of the village and about the road to Frome. 130m at Mells Green to the south. The watercourse is incised into the valley 2.3 The village is characterised by floor, particularly at the eastern end of extensive areas of green space within the settlement, and in the conservation its core, along the watercourse and on area its east-west course is crossed the southern valley side, at Mells and by four road bridges and a footbridge. Little Greens. Private gardens, Most of the road approaches to the especially around the Rectory and at village descend steeply to the valley Mells Manor, add to the feeling of floor. buildings set in a verdant landscape with only a sense of a more urban 2.2 The valley floor is well wooded and group of buildings on the Selwood and there are larger areas of woodland at New Street junction. Tedbury Camp to the east and
Woodlands End and the green spaces of the valley floor
6 www.mendip.gov.uk 6 3. History and Development
3.8 There are 59 entries in the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest within the Mells Conservation Area, accounting for individual buildings or structures (some entries cover more than one building/structure). The Parish Church and Mells Manor are listed Grade I; Mells Barn, the „Talbot‟, the War Memorial, the Lock-up, and three of the New Street houses are listed Grade II*.
3.9 The Manor House gardens, within the conservation area, are a Grade I site on English Heritage‟s Register of St Andrew’s Church, Parks and Gardens and Mells Park, west tower and porch only partly within the conservation area at its western extremity, is a Grade II site.
Map Progression
3.10 Although its original purpose was 3.12 The c1969 Ordnance Survey an interest in land ownership from map shows comparatively more where tithes should be collected, the substantial development; however the tithe map of circa 1840 for Mells local authority housing of the Fairview/ shows sufficient information to Park Hill area lies just outside the compare with the subsequent conservation area to the north-east on Ordnance Survey mapping. Mells has land to the north of the Post Office, seen very little development since the and the similar build, Longfield, with its settlement was shown on the tithe new access roads, behind the map of circa 1840. The pattern of Selwood Road housing, lies just to the streets within the village is clear and west of the conservation area has essentially remained unchanged, boundary. and the clusters of buildings indicated in c1840 are in existence today. 3.13 The only significant development within the conservation area has been 3.11 The first significant addition to the along the southern side of Top Lane village is shown on the ordnance and a small cluster either side of the Syurvey map of circa 1930 where a junction with Holes Lane. These short ribbon development of local dwellings are detached homes, mostly authority type housing was built along set back from the lane in reasonably the south side of Selwood Road. large gardens, retaining to some extent the character of the rural lane.
11 Customer Services 01749 648999 11 2. Location and Landscape Setting PLC. www.getmapping.com Imagery copyright Imagery copyright Getmapping
Key Conservation Area
Aerial Photograph showing Mells Conservation Area Boundary
Customer Services 01749 648999 7 3. History and Development
3.1 There is a rich prehistoric archaeology along the course of the Mells River, exemplified by Pleistocene animal bones and human evidence at Lime Kiln Hill Quarry; two promontory forts at Wadbury and Tedbury; a possible Romano-British enclosure south-east of Little Green; and scatters of Romano- British pottery north of the village. There are also the remains of possible a settlement west-north-west of the Manor New Street and St Andrew’s Church House of indeterminate date.
3.2 Mells was one of Glastonbury Abbey‟s many granges until the Dissolution in 1539. The wealth of monastic patronage is seen in the size of the surviving Tithe Barn and in the original form of the Manor House. Around 1470 Abbot John Selwood laid out New Street with its tenements and inn as a planned, speculative development, part of a larger, unrealised scheme. The Parish Church‟s grandeur derived from local, lay contributions, mainly from the Mendip wool trade.
3.3 Lay ownership and patronage were Entrance to Mells Park important from the mid 16th century onwards with the rebuilding and extension of the Manor House and a relocation of the main house to Mells Park in 1724 by Thomas Strangways Horner. (Thomas Horner purchased the estate in 1543 and bequeathed it to his nephew, Sir John Horner.) The Park was previously a deer park, enclosed in the early 17th century and the new house benefited from the development of a picturesque landscape created by Thomas Horner at the end of the 18th century.
Mells Manor
8 www.mendip.gov.uk 8 3. History and Development
3.4 The Manor House became a production of broad cloth in the wider farmhouse, suffering some reduction area around Frome. There was a in its buildings, until the Horners water-powered woollen mill at the moved back in 1900. Mells Park was western end of the village near Bilboa rebuilt after a fire in 1917 to the and a dye mill at Woodlands End. designs of Sir Edwin Lutyens who There are lime kilns east and south- designed the garden with Gertrude east of the village and there are Jekyll, although local sources state several abandoned limestone quarries that the Manor House gardens in these areas. A notable 18th- and themselves were designed by Norah 19th-century industry was the Fussells Lindsay. Lutyens also provided Edge-Tool Works with six sites in the designs for alterations and restoration village and adjacent area. The Upper of the Manor House and for its garden. and Lower Mill sites were in existence In the late 19th and early 20th before 1804 and were both centuries Mells was a centre for abandoned by 1894.The Great Elm artistic patronage with works by Burne site also has substantial remains of -Jones, Sir Alfred Munnings, Sir buildings and associated processes. In William Nicholson and Eric Gill. addition, coal mining at Lower Vobster continued into the 20th century; an 3.5 The Parish provided almshouses abortive canal was part constructed on on Top Lane in 1708 and there seems the Parish‟s northern boundary, and to have been substantial replanning of the railway reached the village in parts of the village in the 18th century 1851. Whatley Quarry is an important with demolitions and the loss of the economic activity in the 21st century. village green, adjacent to the Old Rectory, as well as diversion of roads. 3.7 In 1923 a large part of the Estate The main east-west route formerly lay was sold. There has been residential to the south of the present Selwood development in three distinct areas of Street, running along a terrace below the village in the latter half of the 20th the Tithe Barn and through the Old century: at Fairview, on the western Rectory grounds. In the 1830-40 side of Park Hill, in a rectangular period a village school for girls was block; at Longfield, on the western established at Mells Green and, later approach road from Vobster, in the in the century, a boys school built in form of a ribbon and an extension New Street. Prebendary Horner running down towards the cliff above established St Andrew‟s College in Bilboa House; and in a long ribbon 1848 at the Manor House for the along the south side of Top Lane. The training of missionaries and teachers. latter is the most visible from within the conservation area, seen in views from 3.6 The area around the village was the northern side of the valley bottom the location for a surprising amount of and the slopes up Tynts Hill. industrial activity related to the
9 Customer Services 01749 648999 9 3. History and Development
St Andrew’s Church
Se lwood Street
G
a
y
S
t
r
e
e
t Mells
l il H s t pLane n To e T
Key Little Green Conservation Area Boundary H oles Lane Listed buildings ! Grade I Mells Green ! Grade II* ! Grade II
Designated Park and Garden © Crown copyright. All rights reserved 100019309 2009 Statutorily Designated Sites and Features
10 www.mendip.gov.uk 3. History and Development N
c1840 Tithe Map of Mells
12 www.mendip.gov.uk 3. History and Development
Spreads
Pond
FB P onds d n o P
t r
u o
C
s i n n
e T S t A ndrew' s Church
Manor House Manor Garden Cottage SD
104.2m 4 6
T
E
E
R
Shelter T LB S
7 1 2 7 W 5 E 1
100.0m N Glebe Cottage The 8 8 field Talbot Inn
2 Stable Cottage
7 (PH) Garage 9 S ELWO ast OD ST Weir REET 12 Selwood D Cottage 1
ra 4 3
3 in 3 102.0m Selw oo d H 1 2
2 ous e 8
8 El Sub Sta Fairview TC B
Rectory
3
5
3
Cottages 5 War 1 Meml
Tennis Court
3
2
4 6 GP
The Old
2 Pavilion Garston House Re c to ry 2 Re c to ry 97.3m The Gables Stables
The Tythe Barn
2 0 Pa
1 104.5m
s
2 t Garston Cottages 1 s D Ivy o Woodlan 3 ra The Rock in Cottage P
d 5 3 n a The Rectory 1 l s I
Recreation Ground e G h
A T
Y
S e T Ro c k g R a t E t E House o
T C
3 e Po y n tz h T The Barn Cottage Mells 4 1 Ro c k Co tta g e PO
Mullions
6 Poyntz House 0 P a t Holly Grange h
( u m 91.6m ) Shelter D Fn Melcombe GP
G A Y
S T 103.2m ) R um T E Little Thatch ( h Recreation Ground E th T Pa e P o ANE OD L HWO Tyntshill Cottage RAS
Victoria Cottage
1 Ri v e rs i d e 2 rd Fo Tyntshill House ook br FB P rad a Drums Hill St th ( Woodcot um Cottage ILL R ) a s
h
S H w M Rashwood o o Ems Cottage
d
Reading Rooms Lodge C E gypt Cottages DRU o 1
t
t a LL The Firs g I West
D e H P
r S 5 A lmshouses ai T a 3 Hill
n N th E 2 T
Brook Cottage Bridge Cottage
FB Meadowbank ANE Path ( um P L 93.0m ) TO H a Old Prospect le z enda C e Mountjoy ss a l Farm Ro w m s a o lls Stre t Me l e o d to
n k Honeythorne ac N r e T e 94.0m d w o o 93.3m d Pros pec t Co tta g e
es c h ee S e B p Th Prospect Barn rin g fie ld
Beechwood Greystones
Prospect House
Nu rses C o ttag T e he C Woodside Ra ott Kavisa House nda age ls C otta ge 102.6m Laburnum Hous e
Cro fte rs GP Little Green
Kerry Cottage Laburnum Cottage The LB Ol d F o rg e H O LE S L A N E
T As hc roft Trenwith E it l le Little Green Cottage de C st o rb o n H tt er e o ag ry r n e e r
C K o t h t L a a a n g Sunnyside C u e Brierley o r i t e w ta l a g r e a Acre Wood The Smithy KN AP TON S H ILL
U n KNAPT O d ON S H v e ILL e rh r i P onds hi ll l l
R o se C o tta g
e
2 1 Underhill Cottages
Rock Edge
c1880 Ordnance Survey Map of Mells
Customer Services 01749 648999 13 3. History and Development
P ond
FB P onds
d n o P
t r
u o
C
s i n n
e T S t A ndrew's Church
Manor House Manor Garden Cottage SD
104.2m 4 6
T
E
E
R S helter T LB S
7 1 2 7 2 W 1 5 E 1
100.0m N Glebe Cottage The 8 8 Longfield Talbot Inn
2 Stable Cottage
7 (PH) 9 Garage SE TV Mast LWOO D STR 103.3m Weir EET Selwood 12 D Cottage 1
ra 4 3
3 in 3 102.0m Selw ood H 1 2
2 ous e 8 8 Wadbu El Sub Sta Fairview TC B
Rectory
3
9
3 5
5 Cottages 3
War 1 1
Meml 2
Tennis Court
3
2
4 6 GP The Old
Re c to ry 2 Pavilion 2
5 4 Garston House Re c to ry 97.3m The Gables Stables
The Tythe Barn
2 0
1 104.5m Park Hill House
s 2 t
0
E Garston Cottages 1 s 4 Ivy l D o Woodlands End Court S 3 ra The Rock ta in Cottage P S ub
d
5 3 n a The Rectory 1 l s I
Recreation Ground e h G T A
Y
S Ro c k e T g a R t t E House o E C T 3 e Poy ntz h T The Barns Cottage Mells 4 1 Ro c k Cottage The PO
Mullions
6 Poyntz House 0 P a t Holly Grange Bilboa h
( Cottage u m 91.6m ) Shelter D Fn Melcombe GP
G A Y
B iboa House S T 103.2m Su R ) E um T Little Thatch ( he Recreation Ground E th n T a n P y P ba NE o LA u n W OD nd HWO Tyntshill Cottage k RAS
Victoria Cottage
1 Ri v e rs i d e 2 rd Fo Tyntshill House ok bro FB P rad a Drums Hill St th Woodcot ( L u Cottage IL R m a ) H s h S Ra s h wo o d w M o U o Ems Cottage d R Reading Rooms Lodge C E gypt Cottages D o 1
t
t a LL The Firs g I West
D e H P
r S 5 A lmshouses ai T a 3 Hill
n N th E 2 T
Brook Cottage Bridge Cottage FB Meadowbank P ANE at L H 93.0m h ( um) OP T a z Old Prospect e ale C end l Mountjoy Farm Ross a w am s o s Stre t ll o Me l e d
to
n k Honeythorne ac N r e T e 94.0m d w o o 93.3m d Pros pec t Cottage
es c h ee S e B p Th Prospect Barn rin g fie ld
Beechwood Greystones
Prospect House
Nu rses C ot tage Th e Woodside Ra Cot Kavisa House nda tag e ls C otta 102.6m ge Laburnum Hous e Lim CroftersGP Little Green
Kerry Cottage The Laburnum Cottage 112.0m LB Ol d F o rg e H O LE S L A N E
T As hc roft E i Trenwith l tl de e Little Green Cottage C r s b to o e t r ne H t ry o ag r n e e r
C K o Mells Green t h t L a a a n g Sunnyside Brierley C u e o r i t e w ta l a g r Acre Wood e a The Smithy K NA PT ON S H ILL
U n KNAP O d TON S H v e ILL e rh r i P onds hi ll ll
R o se C o tta g
e
2 1 Underhill Cottages
Rock Edge
c1930 Ordnance Survey Map of Mells
14 www.mendip.gov.uk 3. History and Development
H
K
R Pond A P
FB Ponds
nd o 11 P
t r u o
C
is n n e T St Andrew's Church
110.8m
Ma no r Hou s e Manor Garden Cottage SD 104.2m
4 T 6
E
E
R
T 12 Shelter 7 1 2 S LB
5 W 7
E Longfield Glebe Cottage 100.0m 1 N
The 8
2 8
7 Talbot Inn
(PH) Stable Cottage 9 TV Mast Garage SEL WOOD Weir STRE ET 103.3m
12 Selwood
3 3 D r 4 Cottage
a 1 2 in 3 8 102.0m Selwo od H 1 ouse 2 8
El Sub Sta Wadbury Cottages
9
3 Rectory Fairview TCB 3
Cottages 5
5 3
War 1
Tennis Court 1
Mem l 2
4 6 3 GP 2
Pavilion The Old
5
4 Garston House Rectory
Rectory 2 2 Stab les 97.3m The Gables Woodlands End The Tythe Barn
1 104.5m 2 0 4
El 0 Garston Cottages s Park Hill House S 3 t
t 2 s a D Iv y 1 Su ra The Rock o Woodlands End Court
b in Cottage P 5
3 d n The Rectory a l s Recreation Ground 1 I
G e A h Y T
S
T e R g Rock a E t
E t House o Wadbury Poy ntz T C 3 Cottage e The Stables 4 h Mells T The Barns 1 Rock
Cottage The Old Dairy 6
0 Poyntz House PO P Mullions Bilboa a t Cottage h Holly Grange ( u m 91.6m ) Shelter D Fn Melcombe Melcombe Weir G GP B i boa House A Y S T 103.2m uice Recreati on Ground R Littl e Thatch m) M E ( u S ell E h T u s at h Stre T P n am e n y ANE P b D L o a OO Tyntshill Cottage u n SHW n k Woodlands RA d
Victoria Cottage
1 2 Riverside o rd k F P Tyntshill House roo a Drums Hill d b FB Issues th tra ( u Woodcot S m Cottage L ) R IL H a s S h M Rashwood w U o Reading Rooms R Lodge o Ems Cottage D d Lodge C Eg y p t C ottag es L o L 1 t I D t H ra a P The Firs
in g S a West
e T t h 5
N 3 Almshouses E 2 Hill T
B rook Cottage B ridge Cottage Mells Park FB 93.0m Path ( ANE Meadowbank um) P L TO H a Old Prospect le z da C sen e ream Farm os a l lls St R w Mountj oy Me s t o l Holmwood e o t d k o ac n r N Honeythorne 94.0m T e e d w 93.3m o o d Prospect Cottage
es ch ee S e B p h r T in Prospect Barn g f ie ld Beechwood Greystones
P rospect House N Chantwood urse s Co ttag R Th e an e C W oodside d a otta K avisa House ls C ge otta 102.6m ge Laburnum House
CroftersGP Limekiln Hill Quarries Little Green (Limestone)
K erry Cottage 112.0m The Laburnum Cottage LB Old Forge H O L E S
LA N E
T i Ashcroft Trenwith E tt Littl e Green Cottage ld le C e s o rb to t n H ta e e o rr g y rn e e r C Mells Green K L o a h t S unnysi de Brierley C u a ta o r n g t e i ta l w e g a ells Church of England e r Acre Wood a The S mi thy First School KN APT O N S H ILL
U n O d v e e rh KNAPT r h i P onds O NS H i ll ILL ll
R o s e
C Hillside o 124.7m t ta g
e 2
1 Underhill Cottages
Rock Edge
TC B
134.0m
GP
Hillview
Cuckulds Corner
crest St A nthonys
c1969 Ordnance Survey Map of Mells (Plotting sheet)
Customer Services 01749 648999 15 4. Character of Mells
4.1 The village has a marked character Reading Room. In the remainder of the of small groups of buildings set in a conservation area there are isolated mature landscape of river channel, historic buildings, such as the School on meadows, other green spaces, private Mells Green or Prospect House on Top gardens and fine groups of trees. There Lane set amongst modern development. is a reasonably continuous run of The valley bottom, by the main River historic buildings from Woodlands End and the mill leat, has several individual (where there is a strong feel of an arrival buildings of importance, such as the or entry point), along Selwood Street, to Reading Room and Bilboa House. the junction with Gay Street, including an important historic focus around New 4.3 In the greater part of the Street, the Parish Church and Manor. conservation area, outside the Selwood/ Gay Street‟s western side down to Tynts Gay Street core, the quality of the Hill is another coherent group of listed landscape setting is the main asset, properties with the large open space of either as waterside meadows and trees; the Old Rectory‟s grounds in the angle large private gardens; designed between the two streets. Even within parkland; open common, or belts of these building groups, gardens and the woodland. Here individual buildings green space of adjoining countryside appear within landscape, enhanced by flow between individual buildings with land forms or trees and contrasting with mature trees surrounding and separating the relative urbanity of the village core properties. Stone boundary walls also on the northern slopes of the valley. The mark differing ownerships or link groups valley slopes and bottom are also of historic properties. characterised by descending and ascending roads, cut across contours or 4.2 There are minor clusters of historic climbing out of the valley. buildings at Little Green, set informally around a crossroads and along Rashwood Lane down Drum Hill to the
Selwood Street, towards the New Street junction Bilboa House and landscape setting
16 www.mendip.gov.uk 16 5. Spatial analysis
5.1 Each settlement differs in its relationships between buildings, public space, gardens and open countryside and within conservation areas (usually the historic core), there are unique progressions of spaces with varying degrees of enclosure and exposure. These perceptions depend upon the height and density of buildings, their position relative to the highway, the Gay Street character of boundaries, and the dominance or dearth of trees. Views out to countryside or into the village core are also important, as are the effects of topography – the rise and fall and alignment of roads and paths.
5.2 These factors are all facets of townscape, a description of the mixture of buildings, streets and spaces that make up the village environment, using three elements:
The sequence of views and events obtained in passing through an area; The feelings of relative exposure and enclosure; Little Green The important details such as colour, texture, scale, style, personality and the myriad of little details that make up the local distinctiveness of the area.
5.3 Mells has an interesting plan form with the linear Selwood Street composed of two clusters of buildings between Wadbury Farm and the Tithe Barn, and at the junction with New Street, where a late-medieval planned layout, continuous terraces and the close-grouping of inn, Parish Church and Manor House create the effective centre of the village. The remainder of the village is formed by a pattern of rural lanes running down to the River, such as Gay Street adjacent to the North side of Woodlands End, Old Rectory, and across it, or running looking towards Park Hill
17 Customer Services 01749 648999 17 5. Spatial analysis
parallel to the valley bottom, notably descends northwards to the Lodge at Holes Lane, Top Lane and Rashwood the entrance to Mells Park and returns Lane on the south side. Development is eastward, crossing the River, and then in the form of ribbons of plots, one deep along the north bank back to the to the lane, with some concentration at starting point. the various junctions between the lanes, 5.6 There is a steep descent down such as at Little Green. Parts of the Limekiln Hill into the village from the southern side of Top Lane have double- south-east to a level area at Woodlands depth plots. End where six roads and lanes meet just north of the River in a level space 5.4 The village has had a long surrounded by areas of grass, hedges relationship with its Manor, first and stone walls. To the east the narrow monastic and then private, but the Elm Lane to Great Elm is firmly estate character is a subtle one with bounded by cottages and stone walls; Mells Park positioned at the western to the north Park Hill rises steeply; and end of the village and the Manor House to the south Top Lane and a lower road rather tucked away behind walls by the on the north side of the River run Church. The economic and, no doubt, parallel to the watercourse. The valley physical influences of the Estate on the bottom has long stretches of water form of the village are important but are meadow and trees which often restrict not immediately obvious to a visitor who views across the valley. By the bridge lacks knowledge of the historical across to Top Lane there is a small background. Over much of the village green space with benches and access green space dominates, separating to the waterside. development into relatively isolated clusters, and the overall plan form can 5.7 There is a group of historic buildings be described as dispersed, with a major on the north side of the space created node or focal point in New Street and at the road junction, with the Post Office minor ones at Woodlands End, Gay at road level and the three-storey Rock Street and around the crossroad at House at a higher level and dominating Little Green. the area. To the south the triangular Mark Horner Memorial provides a 5.5 It is possible to bring these suitably picturesque eye-catcher. characteristics and other townscape Heading west into Selwood Street there details to life by describing a route, or is a rise in level and a double meander transect, through the village. Routes in the road line creating visual from any of the main entry points would enclosure on the right (north) where be instructive but the chosen one is Rock Cottages stand elevated on a from the eastern, Woodlands End, part grassed bank. To the left (south) Holly of the village; along Selwood Street to Croft Cottages are set below the road New Street and the Parish Church; level. south along Gay Street to Tynts Hill; across the river by footbridge; west 5.8 The road curves to the right and along Top Lane to the Little Green forms a roughly triangular space at the cluster of buildings; then south-west to junction with a lane to Buckland Dinham the top of Mells Green. The route
18 www.mendip.gov.uk 18 5. Spatial analysis
to the north. The space is dominated by the impressive War Memorial on its northern side. Selwood Street then runs fairly straight with high stone walls and the gable end of Mells Barn (the former tithe barn) to the south and a lower wall and large trees to the north. Also on the south the gable end of no.5 Rectory Cottages shows a group of pigeon holes.
5.9 To the right are two attractive cottages with differing architectural details and then the elegant frontage of Selwood House which heralds the right- angled entry into New Street. This is a narrow corridor of „planned‟ houses with The War Memorial details altered over time and with one Victorian insert, albeit in an appropriate revivalist style. The entry point shows a fine composition of the Church tower rising above the western terrace seen in sharp perspective. At the northern end a pair of gate piers, wrought ironwork gates and pedestrian side gates frame and filter a view of the southern flank of the Church, with a glimpse of the elaborate vestry, then the swagger porch and finally a tremendous view of the west tower.
5.10 The churchyard is adorned by some large Yews but the northern part with its assemblage of famous burials is more open with a formal avenue of smaller Irish Yews leading to a gate and views of countryside beyond. The Manor is largely hidden behind a high stone boundary wall but its gables and chimneys are seen from the western side of the churchyard.
5.11 Returning down New Street and turning right (west) the urbane ashlar View from churchyard front of the „Talbot‟ dominates the street down New Street with an interesting counterpoint to the
19 Customer Services 01749 648999 19 5. Spatial analysis
partly „sunken‟ nos.1-4 Rectory Cottages to the south, with the road at the level of the door canopies of the buildings. There is then a small garage building and a car park, but, behind, there is a fine view of the Manor‟s gabled skyline and the pinnacled Church tower. The entry to the Manor is marked by a pair of gate piers topped by heraldic talbots. In front is a small triangular green with a large tree at the junction with Gay Street running at right angles to the south. The route to Vobster continues westwards towards Glebe Cottage with large trees on both sides of the road.
5.12 There is a view into the treed Entry to Mells Manor grounds of the Old Rectory on the eastern side and then the high boundary wall climbs the rising road level whilst, on the other side, a hedged field and trees provide a visual contrast. This was the site of the former pre-18th- century village green. There is an attractive group of thatched and tiled cottages on the west side (Garston Cottages, Poyntz House and Melcombe) and then, over the crest of the slope, the picturesque village Lock- up at the corner of Rashwood Lane. The Old Rectory‟s boundary wall performs an elegant curve and a rocky grotto, once one of the supplies of water, becomes apparent. On the right Tynts Hill has a pair of thatched cottages set on a bank and the lane curves round to a river-crossing point and Doctor‟s Walk on the north bank. A narrower track plunges straight down to the valley bottom to Bridge Cottage and a footbridge over the River. This climbs sharply to Top Lane whose line of modern houses and bungalows is seen through trees. The rising levels of Gay Street
20 www.mendip.gov.uk 20 5. Spatial analysis
5.13 There are intermittent views from Top Lane back over the valley bottom to the Tynts Hill and Gay Street properties. At the end of Top Lane there is a crossroads with Holes Lane and a characterful cluster of historic buildings, notably along the south-west limb. A curved terrace leads in from Holes Lane (which falls steeply towards the valley bottom) and there is a narrower track Gay Street, looking towards Tynts Hill back, creating a triangular „island‟ plot and the river valley around Kerry Cottage. The Little Green road to Leigh-on-Mendip rises into an area of unenclosed common and there is another crossroads with an access on the right to Mells Green. This is a very distinctive open landscape with no boundaries to the road, the 17th-century and Tudor-Revival School, long views down over the village to higher ground to the north, and woodland towards the watercourse.
5.14 The foot of Holes Lane is then met by the Lodge entrance into Mells Park. This gives a view of a shallow valley and parkland trees whilst, on the other Mells Green side of the main road, there is a view down to Bilboa House, set below a rocky crag. Returning east along Holes Lane and then across the River to the foot of Tynts Hill there are glimpses of the watercourse and its meadow strip through trees, another differing landscape experience to the village core or areas of upland common. The Reading Room stands up well on Doctor‟s Walk by the former mill leat, and the northern side of the valley is dominated by a steep bank covered with trees.
5.15 There is a further riverside walk back to Woodlands End, along Bottom Lane, overhung by trees and with views The Reading Room and meadows of the River and its meadows to the south.
21 Customer Services 01749 648999 21 5. Spatial analysis
5.16 There are a number of landmark buildings: the Parish Church tower (seen from several distant views and from limited areas within the village); Rock House and the Mark Horner Memorial at Woodlands End; the War Memorial, Selwood House and the „Talbot‟ on Selwood Street; the upper parts of Mells Manor from the western entry to Selwood Street; the Reading Room and Bilboa House in the valley Village School bottom, and the Lodge and gated entry to Mells Park off Holes Lane. The Primary School is very prominent at the higher end of Mells Green. The Old Rectory is surprisingly less visible, largely hidden behind its boundary walls.
22 www.mendip.gov.uk 22 5. Spatial analysis
E St Andrew’s E E Church E E E
22
22 2 E 2
E E E 2 E E
ESeEl woo E d SEtrEee E t E
E 2 22
E E E E E E G E E E E E a E 8 22 E E y EE 8 E S 88
t
r
e
e E t E
Mells E
2 EE E E E E E E 88 E E E 8
E 2 E 2008 100019309 reserved All rights copyright. Crown ©
8 E E 8
E l E E E E E E E
l E Ei E pLane H To E E E E E E E E E E s E E E E E E E t E E E EE n E E E E E 2 E 2 E e !! E E E T 8 !! E E E E E
E E E E E E
E E E E E
E E 88 E E E
E E E E
Key
E E E E E E E E E Conservation Area Boundary Little E E
Green E Tree Preservation Order
E E 8 8 E E 88 8 Unlisted positive building* 88 E 88 Holes La † E ne ! Unlisted negative building E E 2 Mells GreenE 2 Landmark building E E E Focused view E E E E Wide view E Area of landscape value
Ordnance Survey Map showing spatial analysis
* This term refers to a building that, while not considered to meet the strict criteria for statutory listing, contributes positively to the character or appearance of the conservation area. † This term refers to a building that is not statutorily listed and is considered to detract from the character or appearance of the conservation area.
Customer Services 01749 648999 23 6. Character Analysis
6.1 Mells has a predominantly rural on New Street. The Manor adjoins the character with countryside and green churchyard’s western boundary but its space flowing through the village. It main entrance lies to the west of the has, nevertheless, a number of core and its high boundary walls restrict distinctive character areas formed by direct views of the house and its differing historical factors and the gardens. The Old Rectory’s walls effects of topography. provide a similar screening function on the Selwood Street/Gay Street junction and on the east side of Gay Street. 6.2 Selwood Street and New Street, Individual and small groups of trees the Parish Church and Manor, and enhance views from the public realm, Gay Street: the most densely including the churchyard. Topography, developed ‘core’ with a definite entry also, has telling effects, particularly on point at the Woodlands End meeting of parts of Selwood Street, where cottages routes, a linear progression of larger are either elevated above the road or ‘gentry’ houses and smaller former farm partially sunk below it, and on the houses and cottages along Selwood southern end of Gay Street, where Street and Gay Street, and an there is a steep descent to the valley interesting planned development block bottom. © Crown copyright. All rights reserved 100019309 2009 2009 100019309 reserved All rights copyright. Crown ©
Key Conservation Area
24 www.mendip.gov.uk 6. Character Analysis
6.3 Tynts Hill, Rashwood Lane, Drum Hill and the line of the River and mill leat: characterised by a looser grain of development with a minor cluster of cottages on Tynts Hill and on the south side of Rashwood Lane and sporadic historic buildings along the watercourses of the valley floor. The quality and dominance of the waterside and valley slopes landscapes, with associated meadows and trees, have Tynts Hill previously been noted and these qualities may be experienced by driving down and up the roads across the contours or walking down to the valley floor and along the course of the River.
© Crown copyright. All rights reserved 100019309 2009 2009 100019309 reserved All rights copyright. Crown ©
Key Conservation Area
Customer Services 01749 648999 25 6. Character Analysis
6.4 Top Lane and Little Green: a ribbon of modern properties interspersed by occasional older buildings along Top Lane, perched on a shelf above the River, such as the Almshouses and Prospect House, and a small cluster of cottages around the junction with Holes Lane at Little Green. The latter has an intricate little piece of townscape created by short rows of cottages on the highway edge and Holes Lane crossroads at Little Green curving road lines that produce partial closure of views. © Crown copyright. All rights reserved 100019309 2009 2009 100019309 reserved All rights copyright. Crown ©
Key Conservation Area
26 www.mendip.gov.uk 6. Character Analysis
6.5 Mells Green and the entrance to Mells Park: a completely different area of hillside common with wide green spaces, absence of field boundaries and expansive views of woodland and distant hills. The parkland is mostly hidden to view by treed boundaries but the Lodge is an entry and transition point between the conservation area and the designed garden landscape. © Crown copyright. All rights reserved 100019309 2009 2009 100019309 reserved All rights copyright. Crown ©
Key Conservation Area
Customer Services 01749 648999 27 7. Local Building Patterns
7.1 The Parish Church of St Andrew is a late-15th- and early-16th-century ensemble of tall west tower, clerestoried nave and aisles (which continue as lateral chapels to the chancel), and a two-storey south porch and vestry. The west tower is particularly notable as a fine example of the late Perpendicular group of East Mendip towers with two tiers of triple windows, tall corner pinnacles, bold and rich buttresses and a rather surprisingly plain embattled parapet - total tower height is over 100 feet. It has affinities with the towers of Bruton and Leigh-on-Mendip; the latter having a more elaborate pierced parapet and intermediate pinnacles. St Andrew’s Church 7.2 Abbot Selwood‟s New Street development was a part of an intended cruciform layout but the construction of six new houses and the incorporation of two existing properties and the Talbot Inn in an overall symmetrical and balanced layout, firmly focused on the Church‟s south flank, are a noteworthy example of late medieval town planning. The new houses (of which three remain) were probably intended for clothiers and merchants, and had wide- fronted, three-room plans with a half- octagonal stair turret at the rear. The The Talbot Inn “Talbot” is contemporary and, although altered and extended in the 17th and 18th centuries, it has a two-storey main façade with symmetrical openings and central carriage arch (all later details, but possibly reflecting the medieval arrangements) and a U-shaped plan enclosing a central courtyard.
7.3 The other obvious surviving medieval structure is the Village Hall (Mells Barn), formerly a 14th- and late- 15th-century tithe barn, of six bays and The Tithe Barn (Mells Barn) with evidence of a cruck roof and
28 www.mendip.gov.uk 28 7. Local Building Patterns
windbraces. Prospect House in Top Lane was a late medieval hall house altered in the 17th century with the insertion of a floor in the former hall and rebuilt or added wings.
7.4 Mells Manor House was originally a late medieval farm or manor house, extended to an H-plan by the end of the 16th century, of which one five-bay, two- Prospect House storeys-and-attic wing remains. This shows many of the details typical of Somerset houses of the mid 16th century: coped gables, diagonal corner and intermediate buttresses, string courses and stone-mullioned windows with drip moulds over. The related gardens retain contemporary planning, such as enclosing rubble and brick walls, creating a series of compartments. Bilboa House is a smaller gentry house, built by Glastonbury Abbey as their guest house or steward‟s house in Mells. It has a six- The Almshouses bay front, a roughly central doorway and three-light mullioned windows on two floors. Tynts Hill House has a 17th- century T-plan with the cross stroke expressed by a projecting gable. Nos.1- 4 Woodlands End, including Holly Croft Cottages, were originally an eight-bay early-17th-century house. The Almshouses in Top Lane is a substantial ten-bay, two-storey structure.
7.5 A specialised building type is represented by the 17th-century bridge at Doctors Walk with a series of segmental stone arches separated by triangular cutwaters and topped by a high parapet. The nearby former mill is ruined but appears to have consisted of three-storey buildings, a water wheel and a system of hatches and weirs to The Lock-up control water flow. Also of interest is the
29 Customer Services 01749 648999 29 7. Local Building Patterns
17th-century lock-up at Gay Street, a small rectangular room with a pyramidal roof, similar in size to nearby „blind houses‟ at Bradford-on-Avon, Nunney, Kilmersdon, Frome and Castle Cary (circular in plan).
7.6 Many village houses are 17th- century in appearance and details, characterised by two storeys, narrow one- or two-room frontages and Nos.1-4 Rectory Cottages informal planning: Nos.1-4 Rectory Cottages is a short terrace, each cottage of one bay and irregular, with a projecting gabled wing on no.2. Poyntz Cottage retains its thatch and is one- storey-plus-attic and with an L-shaped plan. Rock Cottage at Woodlands End is also L-shaped and thatched and the wing is fully gabled. Garston Gate and Garston Cottage (no.3) have a gabled wing and first floor windows in the form of coped gables. Garston House is similarly thatched and with first floor eyebrows but seems to be more regular Garston House in plan. The School on Mells Green has a central coped gable which gives a sense of order to the elevation.
7.7 Cottage plans are two or three rooms in a row, often with lower outshuts attached to an end or the rear. Larger houses, such as Claveys Farm House at Mells Green are detached, up to two storeys and a gabled attic, and wider, being up to four bays.
7.8 The 18th century saw a continuation of vernacular forms. Selwood Cottage and its neighbour have mullioned windows and casements, the upper floor with half dormers, (probably reflecting the former thatch detail of eyebrow dormers), with only an approximate regularity of window and The Reading Room’s sash and door openings. The former Reading mullioned windows
30 www.mendip.gov.uk 30 7. Local Building Patterns
Room has an interesting mixture of vernacular and „polite‟ details with sashes on the first floor and stone mullions on the ground.
7.9 Some of the 18t-century cottages, such as The Island, Little Green and St Anthony‟s, are noticeably picturesque in character and it is possible that this was not entirely the result of conservatism in Melcombe local building tradition. Rock House at Woodlands End has circa-1840 Tudor Revival details added to an earlier three -room and cross-passage plan. A large rear outshut contains the kitchen, stair hall, scullery and pantry.
7.10 In „polite‟ architecture Selwood House has a grander, regular three- storey main façade but the six bays mean that the central entrance is slightly offset. Even the Old Rectory with its ashlar front and full Classical details has only approximate symmetry. Melcombe has full symmetry with a central doorway and circular-headed window above. Former school, New Street 7.11 The Victorian contribution includes the former school in New Street, interfering with the medieval set-piece but attractively detailed in Tudor Revival style, single-storey and with two main (class) rooms. There are individual cottage infills on Rashwood Lane and Little Green using local stone, vernacular forms and details, although brick dressings and pantile roofs may add further visual interest.
7.12 The 20th century saw the addition of major elements in the village with the rebuilding of Park House in 1925, designed by Lutyens, incorporating an 18th-century service court but adding a Top Lane seven-bay, U-shaped Mannerist
31 Customer Services 01749 648999 31 7. Local Building Patterns
Classical house. Lutyens also added several other structures: a mechanical gate in the churchyard wall (although there is a possible alternative designer for this); alterations and additions to Mells Manor House; gates and gate piers and a garden shelter; a Classical War Memorial, and a Horner Memorial Shelter at Woodlands End. Lutyens showed his mastery of vernacular, Classical and Mannerist styles in these works. The modern infill, particularly along Top Lane, tends to be of incongruous forms and details to the historic village with a use of reconstituted stone.
7.13 Walls. The predominant building Horner Memorial Shelter by materials are local Inferior Oolite Lutyens at Woodlands End limestone from the former Mells Down quarry, usually seen in rubble form, and Doulting-type limestone, both in ashlar and rubble form, with the use of the former on major buildings or in dressings on smaller houses and cottages. Thus, details like quoins, window and door surrounds, string courses, drip moulds and gable copings may be built of fine quality ashlar. The stone is a fairly coarse-grained oolitic limestone with good weathering qualities. Buff-coloured when quarried, it weathers to a pleasant, though sombre, grey. Bath Stone is used in the 1920s refurbishment at Park House and Lutyens also imported Purbeck stone, as well as Doulting, on the War Memorial. The grotto in Gay Street is made of a Triassic algal limestone of distinctive knobbly form, known as „flow stone‟, „landscape marble‟ or, formally, Cotham Marble. It is also known as „Wadham Stone‟ due to its use on the garden walls of Wadham College, Oxford, built by Somerset masons and Local limestone rubble and dressings, endowed by the Strangways and nos.1-4 Holly Cottages Horner families.
32 www.mendip.gov.uk 32 7. Local Building Patterns
7.14 Render is seen in a few buildings, either giving an extra layer of protection to underlying rubble or following a fashion for a smoother, more urbane character. It is scribed to simulate ashlar at Tyntshill House; it is plain at Claveys Farm House. Brick is rare, confined to chimneys and a gate and stretches of boundary wall at the Manor House. Tyntshill House 7.15 Windows and Doors. Types and details vary according to the history and status of buildings and a wide range is seen in the village. Some medieval cusped lights and sunken spandrels survive in New Street, set in plain architraves. The 16th- and 17th-century norm (and, indeed, well into the 18th century) was the ovolo stone-mullioned window, often with a projecting drip mould over, with returned square or diagonal labels. Occasionally windows and doors are linked by a continuous drip mould. Sometimes segmental stone relieving arches are seen over the stone windows. Canted stone bays appear rarely, such as at Tyntshill House (one storey), the Manor House (two storeys) and Rock House (three storeys). Mullioned windows usually contain leaded lights or metal casements (diamond pattern at Selwood Cottage).
7.16 In the 18th and 19th centuries wooden casements were common on smaller buildings with differing patterns and densities of glazing bars and window panes. The vertically hung sash window was, from the late 18th century, fashionable on „polite‟ architecture. There are, however, combinations of sashes (eighteen panes) and mullioned Mullions and labels with windows on the Reading Room and casements, New Street sashes and casements on more prestigious buildings such as Selwood
33 Customer Services 01749 648999 33 7. Local Building Patterns
House. The Old Rectory has the full Mells Green, has a (late-17th-centruy?) architectural panoply of moulded semi-circular stone hood on elaborately architraves and sills and emphasised scrolled stone brackets. Later 18th- keystones. Melcombe has an arched century houses, such as Selwood House, central window with „Gothick‟ glazing have simple moulded surrounds capped bars. Several buildings have later by a slab hood supported by stone Victorian plate glass sashes with no brackets. Wooden hoods, curved and glazing bars apart from the two horizontal straight, with stone brackets are also meeting rails seen (Melcombe). Rock Cottages at Woodlands End have wooden canopies 7.17 The stylistic revivals of the 19th and on cast iron brackets. The Old Rectory early 20th centuries reinforced the has a semi-circular door head with a vernacular influences with the use of moulded surround and a radial fanlight. large mullion and transom windows, 7.19 Porches make an occasional complete with drip moulds and labels at appearance, varying from stone-coped the New Street former school and gabled Tudor-type, plain stone cubes, Lutyens used Tudor and Classical details pentice-roofed examples and later with equal facility. wooden ones with pitched roofs.
7.18 Door surrounds are also varied with 7. 20 Doors may be vernacular vertically late medieval or Tudor arches of flat planked types, with cover strips or profile at New Street, the Manor House exposed nail heads or later four- or six- (including entrances in its garden walls) panelled (sunk, raised or fielded) and some of the 17th-century houses and examples. Small glazed lights may be cottages; straight lintels with a plain included in both types of doors. surround or some slight decoration such as beading or a chamfer; or a segmental archway. A number of the 17th-century thatched cottages have thatched canopies or hoods. Claveys Farm House,
“Gothick” sash at Melcombe Stone canopy on brackets at Selwood House
34 www.mendip.gov.uk 34 7. Local Building Patterns
7.21 Roofs vary from the use of lead on the Parish Church; the wide use of clay plain tiles (with decorative fish-scales at Bilboa House and Mells Barn), often with two or three courses of stone tiles at the eaves; whole roofs of stone tiles, a splendid material, seen at the „Talbot‟ and the New Street group, Melcombe, Claveys Farm House, the former Reading Room, the Lock-up and Thatch details at Little Green Lutyens‟ Horner Memorial Shelter and Manor House garden shelter. There are a few examples of pantiles seen at Holly Croft Cottages. Slate is more common on „polite‟ architecture of the early 19th century, exemplified by Selwood House and the Old Rectory.
7.22 Thatch is, perhaps, the material seen throughout the conservation area, traditionally of combed wheat reed, with characteristic detailing: flush ridges, although decorative ridges have been introduced; wavering eaves lines and swept „eyebrows‟ over first floor windows.
7.23 Roof forms vary from gables with stone coping (and kneelers in one or two cases); subsidiary gables to accommodate upper floor windows; gable ends with overhanging eaves; and hipped roofs. Chimneys are an important feature, varying from stone ashlar types, hexagonal ones at the Manor House, diagonally-set rectangular groups at the former school in New Street, rubble, render and plain brick examples. Pots are of cylindrical thrown clay or may be rectangular tapered types.
Coped gables, Garston Gate, Gay Street
35 Customer Services 01749 648999 35 7. Local Building Patterns
7.24 Boundaries are of particular importance to the character of the village, enclosing space, providing privacy, and, vitally, linking groups of buildings. Walls tend to be built of local limestone rubble, roughly shaped and brought to courses, ranging from low walls to long stretches of over three metres in height. There are graceful ramps in the churchyard to accommodate changes in height and a Boundary Walls, High Street much larger one in the Old Rectory boundary in Gay Street. There are a prodigious number of openings in walls: Tudor four-centred arches around the Manor House, segmental arches and flat lintels elsewhere, and brick, rusticated piers also around the Manor House gardens. Nearby there are stretches of brick walling and the more common stone rubble.
7.25 Other walling has „cock-and-hen‟ coping with vertical undressed stones. Walling has other interesting details, such as the run of half-round buttresses at the Manor House and varieties of coping (flat, weathered or moulded). Gate piers are seen in some of the larger properties, particularly the Manor House and The Old Rectory. The churchyard also has impressive piers at its main entrance. Piers are usually made of ashlar or dressed stone, with moulded tops and a variety of finials: pyramidal, obelisks or heraldic talbots (dogs) at the Manor House. The Estate is active in repairing walling with recent work along Lower Road and below Tynts Hill.
36 www.mendip.gov.uk 36 7. Local Building Patterns
7.26 Other details are impressive in their range and quality, including:
An iron lamp overthrow at the churchyard entrance, a lamp bracket attached to the Gay Street boundary of The Old Rectory, a scrolled gate with a dipped top rail to a pedestrian entry to the Old Rectory, a simple wrought iron handrail and posts at Tynts Hill, and an iron sign bracket at the „Talbot‟ Various Lutyens details, such as the ingenious mechanical gate between the churchyard and Fairfield (currently dismantled, the Gate piers to chuchyard Lutyens derivation is given in the listing description but Thomas Lyme of Malmesbury is also suggested, from local information), oak doors in boundary gates, the McKenna tomb chest (there are other interesting burials, notably Siegfried Sassoon), War Memorial and Horner Memorial Shelter and the Mark Horner memorial well at Little Green Two sets of ruins in Rashwood Lane and Doctor‟s Walk, the latter with extensive evidence of the former mill Various date plaques, including 1598 on Garston Gate; 1887 on the former New Street school; and 1908 on the Memorial Shelter at Woodlands End (lettering by Eric Gill) A number of metal Somerset County Council directional signs with pyramidal finials throughout the village A K6 telephone box at the top of Mells Green The roadside grotto near the Lock- Finely lettered headstones up
37 Customer Services 01749 648999 37 7. Local Building Patterns
7.27 Trees and Green Spaces. Mature trees are an important asset throughout the conservation area: on the approach roads from the east, particularly around the quarry on the Frome (Murder Combe) road; around the Woodlands End entry point; on both sides of Selwood Street, particularly where planting from the Old Rectory and Mells Manor gardens make a contribution to views along Selwood and Gay Streets; in the wider grounds of Trees at the western end of the village the large houses; in Mells Park (large belts and clumps of trees); and along the valley bottom, along the water course, on the slope up to Top Lane and bordering Holes Lane. There are also thick belts and individual trees on the east side of Mells Green; around the Little Green development cluster; and on the north side of Rashwood Lane. The yews in the churchyard have value in complementing the Church and boundary walls. Yew in the churchyard 7.28 The conservation area has a number of publicly accessible green spaces, such as Mells Green, the linear meadows along the River, the large recreation ground west of Gay Street, and the adjacent pasture to the south- east off Rashwood Lane. The churchyard has amenity and visual value and the fields to the north, in the south-west angle of the Vobster road and Gay Street (on the site of the former village green) are part of this larger undeveloped area. Waterside green space The Nursery on the south side of Selwood Street is also a green space.
7.29 The two large private gardens, Mells Park and the Manor House, have considerable historic value and the larger Park has a wider visual value, forming part of the setting of the village. Smaller private gardens add to the beauty of Mells with walled and hedged areas of shrubs and climbers on Selwood Street, Gay Street and at Little Green. Important space west of Gay Street
38 www.mendip.gov.uk 38 7. Local Building Patterns
7.30 Surfaces. The village is fortunate in retaining several areas of traditional stone paving in the form of rectangular setts, probably local Inferior Oolite. This is seen on Selwood Street, around the New Street junction, and on the west side of Gay Street. There is a small area by The Pound on the Great Elm road. Most other surfaces are of tarmac.
7.31 Contribution of unlisted buildings. Despite the large number of listed buildings, the conservation area has a number of other locally important unlisted buildings which may have architectural value in their own right and/or may form part of a larger group Traditional surface by The Talbot of attractive buildings. These are:
Sunnybank and The Pound on the Great Elm road, just on the edge of the current conservation area boundary, rubble and tiles and pantiles, prominent chimneys, single-storey shed; (group value) Mullions, a substantially altered house to the west of Wadbury Farm, rubble and plain tiles, central porch and modern drip moulds and labels to ground floor windows; (group value) Post Office, Woodlands End The Post Office at Woodlands End, single-storey rubble, plain tiles, two small, multi-paned shop windows with bracketed canopies; (group value) The Gables, a cottage with three gablets on the east side of the Selwood Street/Buckland Dinham lane junction, facing the War Memorial, rubble and tiles, half dormers, casements; (group value). No.5 Rectory Cottages, Selwood Street, a rubble detached cottage The Gables with large quoins, central door, casements with wood lintels and
39 Customer Services 01749 648999 39 7. Local Building Patterns
pigeon holes in one end gable; (group value) No.2 Rashwood Lane, coursed rubble with brick dressings, segmental heads to ground floor windows, later 19th-century; (visual and group value) Bridge Cottage, at the foot of Tynts Hill, 17th-century rubble and thatch L-shaped cottage, eyebrows, casements, pigeon holes to rear wing; (extensively altered/extended but of group value). Prospect Cottage on south side of Top Lane, west end, double hipped roof, central porch, drip moulds and labels to all four Bridge Cottage casements, 17th- or early 18th- century?; Several cottages around the Top Lane/Holes Lane junction at Little Green: Tittlestone House, at south side of cross roads with coped gable ends and casements with wood lintels; Laburnum Cottage on the east side with hipped and half-hipped thatched roof, eyebrow and casements; Horner Cottage and Khaniwara, a thatched row set back from south side of Little Green road, casements and porches, informally picturesque and attractive; The Old Forge, a large symmetrical house in an attached group opposite, central door and casements, mid-19th-century; (all of group value, producing good townscape). The Lodge entrance to Mells Park, Holes Lane, mid-Victorian ashlar, single-storey, hipped tile roof, porch with cambered arch, twin ogee-headed casements The Old Forge, one of several important under drip moulds; architectural unlisted buildings at Little Green value and good entry feature to the Park.
40 www.mendip.gov.uk 40 7. Local Building Patterns
7.32 Extent of intrusion or damage. that a full repair would remove the The village appears to be well original Gill work). There are also areas maintained. Modern development is not of traditional stone paving, notably in Gay particularly obtrusive or damaging apart Street, that have been repointed in hard from that on the south side of Top Lane, cement rather than lime mortar. which is characterised by the use of incongruous materials and building forms 7.34 Existence of Neutral Areas. The as well as set-back vehicular entrances impact of parked cars and weak and lay-bys. boundaries suggest that there is scope for improvement at Woodlands End and 7.33 Other issues include the visual to the west of the „Talbot‟. New Street, an impact of parked vehicles due to the lack undoubted architectural highlight, has of off-street parking and visitors‟ cars, rather disappointing tarmac pavements particularly on New Street, to the west of and road surface, although the original the „Talbot‟, at Woodlands End and in cobbles are reported to exist underneath. Gay Street, by the Lock-up; the missing mechanical gate in the churchyard; and 7.35 Condition of Built Fabric. The the former water points, including the overall condition of buildings seems to be example at Little Green and the grotto in good apart from the worries expressed Gay Street. The Eric Gill carved above about some of the public realm inscription in the Horner memorial shelter structures that are such important assets at Woodlands End appears to be eroded for the conservation area. (in 2004, the Estate employed a stone mason to repair the stone but he advised
Site of churchyard mechanical gate Area to the west of The Talbot
41 Customer Services 01749 648999 41 8. Synthesis of Appraisal
8.1 Historical and topographical factors around the main development areas. It have created several areas of differing could be argued that an extended area architectural and landscape character, might include some of the wider with a coherent historic core along landscape setting of the village, Selwood Street, New Street and Gay particularly the large area of green Street; a smaller focus at Little Green; a space to the west of Gay Street and large area of unenclosed green space open countryside to the north and north- at Mells Green, and extensive areas of west of the Manor. Any alterations or woodland and valley bottom meadows. extensions should be the subject of The core has a marked consistency of local consultation. quality architecture and townscape with highlights in the Parish Church, Mells 8.5 No changes are proposed to the Manor, the medieval planned layout and boundary of the Mells Conservation surviving buildings of New Street, and Area. several 17th- and 18th-century „gentry‟ houses, as well as attractive vernacular 8.6 The Conservation Area Appraisal is cottages. The architecture is to be read in conjunction with local complemented by stretches of stone planning policies and Planning Policy walling, some idiosyncratic pieces of Statement 5: Planning for the Historic street furniture, and mature tree Environment. planting.
8.2 There is a marked contrast in development density and „feel‟ in much of the remainder of the village with a predominance of landscape, mostly designed but natural in character, with sweeps of woodland, waterside meadow and hillside common. Buildings are very much objects in a landscape, the ownership by a private estate and the proximity of ornamental parkland encouraging „picturesque‟ visual effects.
8.3 The village is, on the whole, well cared for, but there are a few detriments related to car parking, spaces with poor or non-existent boundaries and apparent decay of some of the rich heritage of public shelters and watering points. Some of this, sadly, is due to vandalism.
8.4 The conservation area boundary includes all of the important buildings Churchyard chest tomb and walling to the and structures, but is drawn tightly Manor House
42 www.mendip.gov.uk 42 Appendix 1: Drawings
43 Customer Services 01749 648999 43 Appendix 1: Drawings
44 www.mendip.gov.uk 44 8. Summary of Key Characteristics
A formally planned “precinct” ay New Street, related to a high quality parish church and the enclosed garden and buildings of Mells Manor.
Vernacular buildings with stone-coped gables, tile or thatch roofs, stone- mullioned windows and informal planning.
18th- and 19th-century houses with more obvious symmetry in layout and design, w9ith sash or casement windows and, in some cases, Classical details.
19th-century Tudor Revival buildings that relate positively to older buildings.
A strong late-19th- to early-20th-century architectural input, notably from Lutyens, with equal facility for Tudor and Classical Revival styles, and elements of Arts and Crafts picturesqueness.
In the core, apart from New Street, informal short terraces and detached buildings linked by stone walling, positioned on the road line or set behind small gardens.
Stone-coped roofs with graded stone tiles, clay plain tiles or pantiles, and thatched roofs with gables, hips or half-hips, with soft, undulating forms and details.
The use of local limestone in rubble, dressed stone and ashlar forms: dressed stone for higher status buildings, and render over rubble.
Traditional side-hung, painted timber or metal casements or vertically hung timber sashes, single-glazed with narrow glazing bars.
Painted timber plank or panelled doors.
Cast iron rainwater goods supported on brackets or gutter spikes.
Well defined boundary walls of roughly coursed or random rubble limestone, with flat, moulded or “cock-and-hen” capping; ashlar gate piers with pyramidal or decorative caps.
Avenues and groups of trees, related to large gardens or around important spaces.
Views or surrounding countryside, waterside meadows and upland common reinforce the rural character of the conservation area.
45 Customer Services 01749 648999 45
www.mendip.gov.uk Customer46 Services 01749 648999 www.mendip.gov.uk 46