Boston Manor Park Conservation Management Plan Final Report Consultants Peter McGowan Associates with Morag Cross in association with Jura Consultants and LDN Architects May 2011 London Borough of Hounslow English Heritage Boston Manor Park Conservation Management Plan Final Report Consultants Peter McGowan Associates Landscape Architects and Heritage Management Consultants 6 Duncan Street Edinburgh EH9 1SZ 0131 662 1313 • [email protected] with Morag Cross in association with Jura Consultants and LDN Architects May 2011 Boston Manor Park 1 Conservation Management Plan May 2011 Contents Boston Manor Park site location (circled in red) 4 1 Introduction 5 1.1 Background 5 1.2 The Park today 5 1.3 Historical outline 6 1.4 Access 6 1.5 Ownership, boundaries and report coverage 7 1.6 Approach and presentation 7 2 Understanding the Park 8 2.1 Site, landform and geology 8 2.2 Urban context, urban design analysis 9 2.3 Noise 10 2.4 Zones of distinct landscape character 11 2.5 Landscape development of Boston Manor Park: summary chronology 16 2.6 Survey of designed landscape features 36 2.6.1 General 36 2.6.2 Archaeology 36 2.6.3 Water features 36 2.6.4 Built features 38 2.6.6 Access and circulation 45 2.5.7 Park facilities 49 2.5.8 Woodland, trees and gardens 52 2.5.9 Veteran and specimen trees 57 2.5.10 Planned or notable views 58 2.6 Planning designations and nature conservation 60 2.7 Park use and Friends 60 2.8 Park management 61 2.9 Strategic context 62 3 Analysis and Statement of Significance 64 3.1 Analysis, Park in its cultural context 64 3.2 Statement of significance, levels of significance 65 3.3 Statutory designations as a basis for significance 66 3.4 Statement of Significance 67 4 Management Issues and Threats to Significance 70 5 Conservation and Management Objectives and Policies 72 5.1 Conservation Goal 72 5.2 Conservation and Management Objectives 72 5.3 Conservation and Management Policies 72 5.3.1 Conservation of whole site and its character 72 5.3.2 Woodland and trees 73 5.3.3 Circulation 73 5.3.4 Built and water features 73 5.3.5 Archaeology 73 5.3.6 General improvement and intrusive features 73 5.3.7 Visitor access and experience 74 5.3.8 Sports and play facilities 74 5.3.9 Increasing understanding 74 5.3.10 Sustainability and climate change 74 6 Conservation and Management Proposals 75 6.1 Woodland, trees and garden spaces 75 6.2 Circulation 75 6.3 Built and water features 75 6.4 Archaeology 76 2 Boston Manor Park Conservation Management Plan May 2011 6.5 General improvements and intrusive features 76 6.6 Visitor access and experience 76 6.7 Sports and play facilities 76 6.8 Increasing understanding 76 6.9 Management and maintenance 76 6.10 Cost and funding 77 6.10.1 Outline costing 77 6.10.2 Sources of funding 77 7.0 Conclusion 78 Appendix 1 79 Historical maps and plans Appendix 2 109 Full development chronology from research Appendix 3 153 Sources and references Figures – survey and management plans 161 (at back of report) Figure 1 Site boundaries Figure 1a Designated area boundaries and features Figure 2 Urban form analysis Figure 3 Landscape character zones Figure 4 Water features Figure 5 Built features and enclosures Figure 6 Access and circulation features Figure 7 Woods and planted features Figure 7a Veteran trees Figure 8 Park facilities Figure 9 Significance by area or feature Figure 10 Management zones Figure 11 Core management proposals Boston Manor Park 3 Conservation Management Plan May 2011 Boston Manor Park – view of Rose Walk or Spine path in 1960s and 2010 4 Boston Manor Park Conservation Management Plan May 2011 Gunnersbury M4 Boston Manor Park Brentford Thames Syon Kew Gardens Boston Manor Park site location (circled in red) Boston Manor Park 5 Conservation Management Plan May 2011 1 Introduction 1.1 Background Hounslow Borough Council with financial support from English Heritage has commissioned a suite of reports for Boston Manor House and Park. The reports include a Conservation Management Plan for the House, Conservation Management Plan for the Park and an Options Appraisal. These reports have been produced by a single team of consultants and each report has been informed by the other. In recognition of the varying range of interests in Boston Manor the findings have been reported in three separate volumes. For a full understanding of Boston Manor House and Park all three volumes should be read. The Options Appraisal relies on the findings and policies presented in the Conservation Management Plans. The Conservation Management Plans also consider the relationships between the House and the Park and vice versa. In preparing the Conservation Management Plans the study team has had access to previous studies and reports on Boston Manor. The most significant of these is the Richard Griffiths Architects’ Condition Survey, October 2007. This was commissioned on behalf of GlaxoSmithKline for the benefit of Hounslow Borough Council. The study team has also had access to the additional report by Richard Griffiths Architects and Alan Baxter Associates on the Boston Manor House Repair Recommendations, October 2009. These have informed the Conservation Management Plan for the House and have provided the basis for the costings included in the Options Appraisal, updated by recent inspections of the House. The Condition Survey and Repair Recommendations reports are extremely detailed and have not been reproduced within the suite of reports but are available from Hounslow Borough Council. Boston Manor Park has provided the setting for the house through its long history and has seen substantial change in this highly urbanised locality. It is now a greatly valued and well-used public park. The park also has been the subject of a management plan and other studies, and the first purpose of the present CMP is to appraise its needs from a landscape conservation and public use viewpoint to provide the context for decisions about the conservation and future use of the house. The most major change to the park was the construction of the elevated section of the M4 in the early 1960s, but there are continuing pressures on the land of the park for car parking. The issue of ‘planning gain’ for conservation of the house and park from permitting corporate car parking means that the use of the park is integral to the future of the whole complex. The options appraisal is intended to provide the basis for decisions about the long-term future of the house within the context of its public park setting. The three strands of Jura Consultants’ commission have been produced by a team under their direction with LDN Architects providing the main inputs to the house options appraisal and conservation plan and Peter McGowan Associates being principally responsible for this conservation management plan for Boston Manor Park. 1.2 The Park today Boston Manor Park is a park of great significance within the LBH owing to its historic house and the landscape in which it is set. It is the largest public open space in the Brentford area at 13.75 hectares (34 acres). In order to protect the park as an asset it has been designated as a Key Park within Hounslow’s Parks and Green Spaces Strategic Framework. In 2005 Boston Manor Park received a Green Flag Award, which has been retained in subsequent years. 6 Boston Manor Park Conservation Management Plan May 2011 A Management Plan for Boston Manor Park written by John Laing Integrated Services (JLIS) provides guidance for the management and any relevant development of the Park to the year 2013. It is used as a tool to manage the service within the park and adopts the criteria of the Green Flag Award scheme to measure the quality of the service against a nationally recognised standard. The plan will be reviewed and updated on an annual basis. John Laing Integrated Services (JLIS) were appointed in 2008 by LBH to manage the borough’s parks, open spaces, libraries, arts and heritage portfolio, following a tendering process. The maintenance of the parks and open spaces is subcontracted to Continental Landscapes Ltd (CLL). The park also benefits from a very active friends organisation – Friends of Boston Manor – who, among other activities, run the Pavilion café, organise the Brentford Festival in the park, manage tennis courts and training, raise funds for the park, and act as a voice for local users, liaising with the Council and park managers. 1.3 Historical outline BMP has been a public park since 1924 when the house and surrounding 20 acres were purchased by Brentford Urban District Council after the remaining estate was sold by the last of the Clitherow family. For most of its history the park has been privately owned estate landscape laid out as the setting for the manor house, as pleasure grounds and as a working landscape. The Manor of Boston was created by King Edward I about the year of 1280 by separation from Hanwell and granted to the priory of St. Helen in Bishopsgate in the late 12th century, which held it until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. Boston Manor House was built in 1623 by Lady Mary Reade, a young widow who remarried not long after its completion to Sir Edward Spencer of Althorp. During the Civil War in 1642, the battle of Brentford took place nearby. In 1670 the estate of some 230 acres was sold to James Clitherow, an East India merchant for £5,136, who extended the house to the north.