Hill House Sapiston

Heritage Impact Assessment HILL HOUSE SAPISTON Michael Collins May 2021 Listed Building Planning Consultant PO Box 383 Eye Suffolk IP23 9AN t. 07809-131768 e. [email protected] Hill House, Sapiston HERITAGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT Hill House, Sapiston INTRODUCTION 001 Heritage assets are an irreplaceable resource and should be conserved in a manner appropriate to their significance. Conservation is the process of managing change to a heritage asset in a way that sustains and, where appropriate, enhances its significance. Significance is derived not only from a heritage asset’s physical presence but also from its setting. Being able to properly assess the nature, extent and importance of the significance of a heritage asset is important to understanding the potential impact of any proposal. What matters in assessing whether a proposal might cause harm is the impact on the significance of the heritage asset. Actions to conserve heritage assets need to be proportionate to their significance and to the impact on that significance. Conservation is achieved by all concerned with a significant place sharing an understanding of its significance, and using that understanding to judge how its heritage values are vulnerable to change; to take the actions and impose the constraints necessary to sustain those values; and to ensure that the place retains its authenticity – those attributes and elements which most truthfully reflect and embody the heritage values attached to it (‘Conservation Principles’; Historic England, 2008). 002 Designated heritage assets are those assets which have been recognised for their particular heritage value and which have been given formal status under law and policy that is intended to sustain those values. Hill House is a building listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 for its special architectural or historic interest. The report focuses on this building as a heritage asset that is affected by a proposal which is the subject of an application for listed building consent. The report adopts a narrative format which describes what matters and why in terms of the significance of the affected heritage asset. The report also considers the potential impact of the proposal and the justification for any harm as part of a staged approach to decision-making concerning change that affects a heritage asset. 1 Hill House, Sapiston ASSESSING HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE 003 An assessment of the significance of a heritage asset should be undertaken as part of a staged approach to decision-making in which assessing significance precedes the design of any proposal. Significance is defined in national planning policy as the value of a heritage asset to this and future generations because of its heritage interest. That interest may, inter alia, be architectural or historic. The first is an interest in the design and aesthetics of a place which can arise from conscious design or, equally, from the way in which the heritage asset has fortuitously evolved over time. It is specifically an interest in the art or science of the design, construction, craftsmanship and decoration of buildings. The second is an interest in past lives and events and heritage assets can illustrate or be associated with them. Hill House. 14.12.1983. II. House. C17. One-and-a-half storeys. Timber-framed and plastered. Thatched roof with ornamental ridge. Two internal chimney- stacks. Gabled porch with thatched roof. C20 casement windows. One gabled dormer on front, one eyebrow dormer on rear. A C19 single-storey lean-to extension along the rear wall in red brick with pantiled roof and another along the east gable wall (NHLE 1225780). 004 The Secretary of State has a duty to compile a list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest as a guide to the planning authorities when carrying out their planning functions. The term special architectural or historic interest of a listed building is used to describe all or part of what is referred to as the heritage asset’s significance. Hill House was entered on the List in the 1980s and was classified as a grade II listed building for being of special interest and warranting every effort to preserve it. The building is a designated heritage asset for the purpose of planning policy. 005 The parish of Sapiston was added to the Euston Hall estate in the mid- eighteenth century at about the time that the Hall was itself being remodelled for Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton (1683-1757). Charles was the grandson of the Earl of Arlington who had acquired the manor of Euston in 1666. The Earl himself had remodelled the Elizabethan manor house and obtained a licence to impark 2000 acres of land. The remodelling of the Hall for the 2nd Duke was undertaken between 1750 and 1756 but only the north wing and part of the west wing of Matthew Brettingham’s mansion remains standing following a fire in 1902. The Hall continues to be the seat of the Dukes of Grafton. 2 Hill House, Sapiston Fig.1 Survey of Euston Hall estate (1828) Fig.2 Detail of plot 67 (1828) 3 Hill House, Sapiston Fig.3 1st edition OS map (1883; surveyed 1882) Fig.4 2nd edition OS map (1904; revised 1903) 4 Hill House, Sapiston 006 Euston Hall stands on the east bank of the river Black Bourne. About two miles upstream from the Hall the same river formed the boundary between the parishes of Honington and Sapiston. The crossing point of the river (Sapiston Bridge) was recorded in an early nineteenth century survey of the estate which was undertaken for George FitzRoy, 4th Duke of Grafton (1760-1844). The 1828 survey also noted a pair of cottages which stood at the edge of the village and which were photographed from the vicinity of the river in the early twentieth century (c.1930). The cottage which stood on plot 66 was demolished in the mid-twentieth century but that on plot 67 remains standing. 007 The cottage on plot 67 was shown on the 1882 survey as having been subdivided into a terrace of three dwellings by that date (plot 113). The footprint of the building appeared wider as a result of a new single- storey addition to the rear which had been placed along the length of the building and which had replaced an earlier extension. The early twentieth century photograph recorded the cottage in its converted form, complete with three entrance doors and rear additions. Also shown on the 1882 survey was the new school which had been built on plot 67 in 1841 as part of estate improvements by the 4th Duke. 008 The cottage on plot 67 predominantly housed farm workers and was later known as Hill Cottages. One inhabitant of the cottage in the nineteenth century appears to have been James Borley (c.1810-91) who was documented throughout his lifetime as an agricultural labourer (1841x91). The Borleys were first recorded in Sapiston in the 1730s and a building known as Borley Cottages previously stood in Bardwell Road (c.1844). This building housed James’ brother, Drury, in the mid-nineteenth century and records suggest that it was previously the home of their parents, John and Rose Borley. 009 James Borley married Maria Simpson in 1841 and they had three children who were all born in the 1840s (Maria, Benjamin, and Ellen). Maria (c.1820-99) was the daughter of John and Maria Simpson who had been the subject of a Removal Order to Sapiston in 1830 and who, in 1841, appear to have occupied Hill Cottages. James and Maria resided with them at this date and afterwards remained there in their own right (1851x91). Their eldest daughter, Maria, and her husband, George Gaught, both died in the 1880s and, in 1891, their grandsons, Arthur and Ebenezer, were residing with them at Hill Cottages. 5 Hill House, Sapiston Fig.5 Pair of cottages (plots 66 and 67; photographed c.1930) Fig.6 Subdivided cottage (Hill Cottages; photographed c.1930) 6 Hill House, Sapiston Fig.7 Hill Cottages (photographed 1970) Fig.8 Hill Cottage (photographed 1972) 7 Hill House, Sapiston 010 Hill House appears to date from the early seventeenth century and comprised a typical three-cell domestic plan form in which a central hall was flanked by a service room to the left (east) and a parlour to the right (west). The hall and parlour were separated by a chimney- stack which was constructed within the hall bay and positioned against the high-end wall. The chimney-stack possessed back-to-back fireplaces and the hall, which would have operated as a kitchen, was provided with one of greater width beneath a timber lintel for cooking purposes. The parlour was heated by a smaller fireplace and would have been used as the main bedroom at that date. The parlour has carved ceiling joists which is indicative of the increasing use of such a room by that date for the purposes of sitting and entertaining. The upper floor of the building would have been used for storage purposes. 011 The building was subsequently converted into a terrace of three dwellings in the early nineteenth century. The subdivision of the building obeyed the cell divisions of the original house and each dwelling was provided with its own entrance door, staircase and fireplace. The back-to-back fireplaces of the earlier chimney-stack served those dwellings that occupied the former hall and parlour, whilst an eighteenth century gable end stack provided the dwelling in the former service cell with its own fireplace. The chambers were divided longitudinally to provide each dwelling with a pair of unheated bedrooms on the upper floor.

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