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The Natural History Museum : The Evolution of the Grounds and their Significance 37 Conclusions on Historical Development 38 The Natural History Museum : The Evolution of the Grounds and their Significance 7.1 The very existence of the grounds flowed 7.5 The Museum extended permissive access from the refusal of the Commissioner of to local residents who used it occasionally. Works at the time (Acton Smee Ayrton) to finance the Museum so that it had an adequate capacity. A bigger building was projected. The smaller one funded by the 7.6 Notwithstanding Waterhouse’s public Office of Works occupied less of the site, statement to the contrary, the landscape and so the grounds left over had to be appears to have been an expedient design. landscaped. It simply reproduced the prevailing line of the building alongside the prevailing line of the road, and at the corners near the pavilions generated a simple, square 7.2 A large portion of the site was therefore left pattern from the intersection of the unoccupied which faut de mieux became tramline-like paths. public gardens, though it was always hoped that funds would be forthcoming and they would eventually be built on. It is not right, therefore, to say that Waterhouse intended 7.7 The landscape scheme was, like the his building to sit within a landscaped building, intended to be strictly setting. His masters refused to pay for a symmetrical, but the introduction of a larger building, leaving him with the task of picturesque landscape layout in the late doing something with the grounds. The C19, after the building was completed, 1911 controversy over the relocation of the upset this planned formal balance. spirit building was motivated, on the Museum’s side, by the wish to keep the area unbuilt on so that future expansion on an adequate scale could proceed at a 7.8 The steady expansion of the Museum future date. The grounds were not planned eroded the surviving design still further, as with the intention of being a public park, but new development encroached onto the in the late C19 people came to use the building itself. Thus, the landscaping is a groundsasanamenity. partial remnant of a remnant. Waterhouse’s relict layout has not been reconsidered to take account of the new building footprint or, indeed, the way the space is used. 7.3 Likewise there was no intention to keep the Upstanding, structural features (sculpture eastern gardens inviolate. The eventual and fountain) do not now relate to any construction of the Palaeontology Building historic landscape design. was wholly in line with the original intention to utilise as much of the site as possible. 7.9 The heavy structure planting on the principal boundary reflects his landscape 7.4 Waterhouse’s scheme was for a concept. His other proposals were not symmetrical, geometric network of paths implemented in full. and over the years there were proposals to modify it with a variety of ornamental planting, none of which was realised. In the end, only the armature of his path and greensward network came to be realised, and this allowed easy extension to the subway access which also followed later. The grounds were not intended as a public park. They were intended as a landscape buffer between the road and the building, and the soft landscape elements offset the picturesque qualities of the building attractively and so add to its special interest. Conclusions on Historical Development The Natural History Museum : The Evolution of the Grounds and their Significance 39 40 The Natural History Museum : The Evolution of the Grounds and their Significance The Natural History Museum : The Evolution of the Grounds and their Significance 41 Statement of Significance 42 The Natural History Museum : The Evolution of the Grounds and their Significance 8.1 PPS5 advises decisions about the historic 8.5 Historical value is, however, a relevant positive aesthetic value in itself and as 8.15 The landscape, however, was never environment be taken on the basis of consideration, and this has two aspects. seen in relation to the main building. designed to reinforce those values information about its history and an Here we consider the potential historic expressly, simply to provide a buffer and analysis of special interest or significance. interest is associational, with a notable landscape setting. The paths were never person (Waterhouse) and with an element and are not aligned with any particular of great cultural value (the Museum). 8.10 Neither can the compromised aesthetic approach in mind – in fact the transition value identified here be recovered through from paths on the grounds to the ramps and 8.2 Practical guidance on the definition of restoration. The more picturesque surrounding roadways is not well resolved significance for planning purposes is set landscape to the western grounds has itself or integrated. out, amongst other places, in English 8.6 The historical value of the grounds is become of aesthetic significance, and the Heritage’s Conservation Principles (CP 1, undermined by changes to them over the eastern grounds layout is not recoverable 2008). last century or more. Waterhouse’s due to later building. intentions were never realised – he 8.16 As an area of public resort, and particularly envisaged ornamental beds with fountains for museum visitors, the space has an – and the armature of paths he did promote obvious utility for a wider public, but the 8.3 This document identifies a ‘family of have themselves been significantly altered, 8.11 The aesthetic value of the grounds derives expedient nature of the layout, and its heritage values’, essentially criteria, by so that the current landscape setting is far from more abstract values, principally the limited aesthetic value, mean that this which significance may be expressed. from how he envisaged it. That landscape interaction of a highly picturesque building aspect of its significance derives from the These criteria are: design itself, in its conception, was typical form with natural landscape elements, sheer fact of it being an open space near to for its date. notably the trees. The contrast in texture a major cultural institution. and material between featureless greensward and terracotta is pleasing too. Evidential Value – ‘derives from the The transition from the grounds level to the potential of a place to yield evidence 8.7 Thus the historical value of the grounds is ramped access to the Museum is, however, 8.17 Accordingly, we have concluded that the about past human activity’ (para 35 of relatively minor and derives mostly from the poorly resolved and pinched. This east grounds have limited significance. CP). This is reserved primarily for involvement of the Museum’s original reinforces our conclusion that the object of They were not innovative in their design or archaeological assets, where the architect, Alfred Waterhouse, in their the landscape was purely visual, to provide noteworthy; they have only modest physical remains are the only layout. Their association with the Museum a buffer and some softer vegetation to historical associations and these evidence for past activity – the itself over time is likewise historic, but both offset and enhance the lively naturalistic associations of setting are in any event historical record we have reviewed associations are limited because of the detailing of the building. The particular compromised by truncation and later scale and nature of change. landscape ideas, as proposed and as development which has changed the here demonstrates that the physical executed, did not, however, develop the balance of building line to path and space. remains are not unique records; content of the museum architecture. The most significant component of the landscape is the boundary treatment which Historical Value – ‘derives from the 8.8 As a consciously designed landscape, the survives in a form which reflects way in which past people, events and grounds (east and west) have some Waterhouse’s particular intentions, which aspects of life can be connected potential aesthetic value. However, the 8.12 But these positive aesthetic values would was to provide screened glimpsed views of through a place to the present. It landscape design itself was not innovative arise from new landscape elements that the building from surrounding footways and tends to be illustrative or associative’ for its date and only a pared down version had similar effects. The nature of the so introduce picturesqueness into a (para 39, CP). of it was executed. Furthermore, that landscape design eventually executed does building that was otherwise rigidly conception for two halves was itself not have high aesthetic value intrinsically symmetrical in its plan. Aesthetic Value – ‘derives from the changed. Only one half survives, and that because of its particular historical ways in which people draw sensory half is itself truncated. Neither was the circumstances. and intellectual stimulation from a landscape itself influential (these are all place’, and can be the result of a considerations outlined in CP, see paras 49 8.18 Overall, then, the eastern grounds conscious design. (para 46, CP) and 50). The only element of Waterhouse’s contribute relatively little to the cultural conception to be executed as intended and 8.13 Finally are communal values, which significance to the site; the paths record Communal Value – ‘derives from the to survive is the boundary/embankment generally derive from collective experience part only of Waterhouse’s intention, and meanings of a place for the people treatment: heavy iron railings, raking and or memory and are often associated with without the elaborate planted beds and who relate to it, or for whom it figures sloping beds for shrubbery, interspersed buildings and spaces that have symbolic features he intended (and never executed), in their collective memory or with plane trees that have now matured.