Strategy for the Historic Environment

Strategy for the Historic Environment December 2016 Contents 1. Purpose of the Strategy 1 2. Development of Hartlepool 1 3. The Historic Environment of Hartlepool 6 4. Challenges Facing the Historic Environment in Hartlepool 7 5. Opportunities for the Historic Environment in Hartlepool 10 6. Identifying Potential Development Sites 12 o Allocated Sites o Opportunities to enhance heritage assets through the planning process o Actions 7. Reviewing the historic environment 13 o Conservation Areas o Locally Listed Buildings o Heritage At Risk o Actions 8. Engaging with the Community 16 o Conservation Area Advisory Committee o Newsletter o Provision of advise to households o Neighbourhood Planning o Additional Planning Documents o Actions 9. Conclusion 18 Appendix 1 – Assessment of Allocated Sites 19 Appendix 2 – Action Plan 41 Appendix 3 – Conservation Area Appraisal – Programme of Work 42 Glossary 44 1. Purpose of the strategy This strategy adopts a positive approach to the conservation and enhancement of the historic environment for the enjoyment of residents, businesses and visitors to the Borough. This will be achieved by, Examining the historic environment in Hartlepool including the challenges and opportunities it faces. Outlining a plan to review the state of the historic environment. Identifying potential development sites, their constraints and opportunities. Considering how the public can be involved in the historic environment. 2. The Changing Landscape of the Borough The borough is characterised by a varied landscape with a long coastline dominated by the rising ground of the limestone escarpment of the Durham Plateau to the north-east. To the east the borough is heavily urbanised with Hartlepool, West Hartlepool and Seaton Carew merging into each other with little to mark the breaks. The southern part of the borough is characterised by industrial developments of various types ranging from industrial estates to the chemical, petroleum and marine engineering complexes of the Tees Estuary. In contrast the western part of the borough retains a rural character with village communities and active farms. Despite the boundaries merging in places each area has a distinct identity and a sense of place is experienced when visiting individual localities. The earliest human activity in the borough is evidenced by Mesolithic flint tools recovered from the coast at Crimdon Dene and from beneath the peat beds of the Submerged Forest which lie on the coastline between Seaton Carew and Hartlepool Headland. The peat beds are of international importance because of the information they contain about the end of the last glaciation and changes in the coastline and vegetation that resulted. Farming in Hartlepool is thought to have commenced around 3,500 BC but little evidence remains other than isolated finds of the polished stone axes used partially as tools and partially as status items. The more intensive human use of the landscape began in the Bronze Age with the widespread clearance of woodland and the laying out of field boundaries for the first time. Evidence of settlement of this period and the field systems has been found at Catcote on the outskirts of the present town. Bronze Age exploitation of the Tees marshland and the coastline has been documented from archaeological finds from the peat beds and in the estuarine marshes. The Iron Age, starting around 800 BC, marked an intensification of the use of the landscape with a fully mixed farming economy taking over and a higher population. Farms and small settlements would have been dotted across the whole of the area and new sites are being found regularly. There is however a pattern to the distribution of the known settlement sites with a clear preference for settlements to be sited beside water courses. This distribution 1 also seems to show a clustering which suggests that there were major centres in the Hart, Catcote, Claxton and Newton Bewley areas. The importance of the area around Hart in Later Prehistory continued into the Saxon and Medieval periods and it became the administrative centre for a geographic area known as Hartness. This covered the area between Castle Eden in the north to the Tees in the south and originally included Billingham. Hartness was probably an estate of the Northumbrian Royal Family and in the 640s AD an Anglo-Saxon Monastery was founded within it on Hartlepool Headland. This was one of the earliest monasteries in Northumbria and was led for a time by St Hilda, it was later paired with a monastery at Whitby when Hilda founded the monastery there. Archaeological excavations on the headland have revealed a lot of information about this monastery which is recognised as being of national and international importance due to its part in the development of Christianity in northern Europe. In addition to the monastery on Hartlepool Headland there were major administrative and religious centres at Hart and Greatham both of which have remains of this period in their churches. The Norman Conquest brought the greatest changes to the area since the Iron Age. Hartness was eventually given to the Brus family who held it along with lands to the south of the river in order to control the use of the Tees by hostile forces. The settlement pattern of the area was changed from one of small hamlets and individual farmsteads to one dominated by large planned villages. The villages of Dalton Piercy, Elwick, Greatham, Newton Bewley and Stranton all date in their present form - two rows of farmsteads either side of a village green - to the first half of the 12th century AD when they were deliberately laid out by Norman overlords. Hart has developed in a slightly different way reflecting its major administrative role and the focus of attention on the church and manor house there. Photographs showing the centres of Elwick and Dalton Piercy The Norman origin of these settlements is still clearly visible in their shape, and in remaining medieval structures such as churches, and in the case of the Hart the site of the Manor House (a scheduled monument). In addition traces of medieval farming practice can still be found around the villages in the 2 characteristic undulations of ridge and furrow. The medieval industry of salt manufacture was carried out along the edge of the Tees marshes and the remains of this still survive at Seaton Common and Greatham Creek. Once the villages and their fields had been established the Brus family founded the medieval town on the headland at Hartlepool sometime from 1150 – 1180 AD. The earliest town was laid out along Durham Street leading to an earlier church on the site of the present St Hilda’s Church. In its earliest days the town struggled to survive but was promoted by the Brus family who funded a new larger church at the end of the 12th Century (the present St Hilda’s Church) and followed this investment in the town by funding the construction of the Franciscan Friary in the mid 13th century. The medieval town began to develop from about 1250 AD and had its greatest prosperity in the 14th century when it acted as a major staging and supply port for the English forces during the Scottish wars. As a result of its role during the Scottish wars and attacks by the Scots, Hartlepool was one of the few towns in the North of England to be given permission to build defensive walls and these were constructed throughout the 14th Century. The surviving, seaward stretch includes the Sandwell Gate, which probably dates to the late 14th century, and has a unique construction with the two breakwaters either side of the gate. The Sandwell Gate is a scheduled monument. Following the end of the Scottish Wars the town went into a slow decline as the surrounding villages continued to prosper. The 17th and 18th centuries witnessed many changes as a major farming revolution led to the enclosure of the medieval open fields and the creation of the patchwork system of fields. New livestock breeds and practices were developed and the wealth generated allowed people to re-build their timber houses. The villages on the limestone plateau to the north-west (Hart, Elwick, and Dalton Piercy) tended to re-build in stone whereas those to the south used the local clay to make bricks. The 19th century ushered in further changes in farming practice and in the physical organisation of farmsteads as courtyard farms replaced the 17th & 18th century linear farm, however more extensive changes took place in the town as industrial development took off. The transport of coal from the Durham coalfields led to the development of the railway network and in the case of Hartlepool the Victoria Dock replaced the medieval harbour with coal staithes and railways leading to it. Competition led to the creation of the town of West Hartlepool and the construction of a new system of docks. 3 Like many ports and harbours on the east coast of England there was high levels of trade with Europe and the Baltic. The harbour also accommodated extensive ship building facilities. West Hartlepool was established to service this trading and manufacturing economy. The street pattern around this area developed on a grid iron street pattern. Most of the high density development was residential but with commercial, retail entertainment and community uses being part of the urban mix. The north side of the Tees Estuary began to see the development of a chemical industry as brine was pumped out of underlying deposits in the late 19th Century and a Zinc Works was established at Seaton Snook in the early 20th century. In parallel with the industrialisation of the coastal zone the residential areas of the town developed.

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