Heybridge Basin C.1910 (Essex Record Office)

EB022d HHEEYYBBRRIIDDGGEE BBAASSIINN Conservation Area Review and Character Appraisal EB022d Front cover: Heybridge Basin c.1910 (Essex Record Office) Contributions to this document were made by the following officers of Essex County Council Historic Buildings and Conservation Section: Corrie Newell BA RIBA IHBC Robin Carpenter AADipCons IHBC Karen Fielder MA, PgDip © Essex County Council and Maldon District Council, 2006 Maps reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey® on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. © Crown Copyright. Licence number LA100019602 Aerial photograph © UK Perspectives EB022d CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Character Statement 2 2 ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT 3 2.1 Location 3 2.2 Historical Development 3 2.3 Cartographic Evidence 5 3 TOWNSCAPE 7 4 USES 9 5 MATERIALS AND DETAILING 12 6 AREA ANALYSIS 16 6.1 Lock Hill and Canal 18 6.1.1 The River Blackwater 23 6.1.2 Basin Road 24 6.2.3 Back Lanes 32 7 RECOMMENDATIONS 34 7.1 Changes to Boundaries 34 7.2 Additional Planning Controls 35 7.3 Risks 36 7.4 Enhancements 37 8 CONCLUSION 38 9 APPENDIX 39 9.1 Policy Content 39 9.2 Bibliography 39 9.3 Entries from the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest 40 9.4 Building Audit Table 43 EB022d This page is intentionally left blank. EB022d 1. INTRODUCTION Conservation Areas are ‘Areas of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance.’ (Planning [Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas] Act 1990). The Conservation Area in Heybridge Basin was first designated on 21st January 1975, since when there have been no revisions to the boundaries. It covers the historic settlement, which at the time of designation encompassed the majority of the village. The Conservation Area centres on the settlement of Heybridge Basin, at the position where the Chelmer & Blackwater Canal reaches the River Blackwater. It adjoins the Chelmer & Blackwater Conservation Area on the south following the canal along Lock Hill. The rest of the Conservation Area follows Basin Road, with small lanes to each side. There are 8 listed buildings within the Conservation Area (although this includes single entries for groups of buildings). All are grade II listed but the listings date from as early as 1971 so are overdue for reassessment. There are no scheduled monuments within the Conservation Area, although there is a scheduled mound directly to the north so ancient remains may exist below ground within the Conservation Area. Designation of a Conservation Area places firmer planning controls over certain types of development, including extensions, boundary treatments, the demolition of unlisted buildings and works to trees. However, it does not prevent any change to the area and it may be subject to many different pressures (good and bad) that will affect its character and appearance. Although Heybridge Basin is a relatively remote village, it still faces some continuing pressure for change, notably there is continuing pressure for housing development. Probably the greatest threat to the character is the continuing need for ‘modernisation’ and ‘improvement’ of existing buildings, where alterations could result in considerable loss of character by carrying out works as permitted development within the provisions of the General Development Order. Maldon District Council commissioned Essex County Council to prepare the conservation area appraisal and review in May 2005, and the research and fieldwork were carried out between November 2005 and November 2006. The appraisal provides a brief development history of the current settlement. This is followed by a description of the townscape and assessment of character. The contribution of different elements of the townscape to the character is identified through detailed street by street analysis. Any issues which may affect the protection of character will be highlighted and opportunities for enhancement identified. This appraisal also considers alterations to the boundary of the conservation area. The appendix includes a Building Assessment table, a basic survey of specific features of individual buildings, identifying modern alterations which by different degrees are out of keeping with the character of the Conservation Area. 1 EB022d 1.1 Character Statement Heybridge Basin is a seaport and village which has grown up on reclaimed marshland around the Sea Lock of the Chelmer and Blackwater Canal. Its buildings date from the development of the canal in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with some twentieth century replacement buildings. The predominant buildings are modest and brick-built in the local vernacular tradition of the period. It is an isolated settlement, with a single access road (Basin Road) through flat grassland, with some further twentieth century ribbon development immediately outside the Conservation Area. Although dependent and dominated by the transportation of goods along its waterways when originally built and for most of its existence, Heybridge Basin now relies on tourism with lessening evidence of its commercial past and increasingly greater difference in character of the settlement in summer and in winter. Fig.1 Heybridge Basin Conservation Area 2 EB022d 2. ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Location Heybridge Basin is located on the western side of the low lying Dengie Peninsular. Somewhat remote, the village is linked to Maldon and Heybridge by the canal and by Basin Road leading to the B1026 Goldhanger Road. The nearest towns are Heybridge and Maldon, to the west and south west. 2.2 Historical Development Heybridge Basin dates from the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century construction of the Chelmer & Blackwater Canal. Its name is derived from the nearby Heybridge and the Canal Basin at the heart of the new village. Prior to this, the area was common land and marshland known as Colliers Reach and Borough Marsh and prior to the 1790s there were no buildings. The Basin was constructed in 1796 and the canal opened on 3 June 1797 on land bought from the Dean & Chapter of St Paul’s. It was developed to provide a link between the growing County town of Chelmsford and the seaborne goods it required for prosperity. The bridges & locks were designed by the engineer, John Rennie FRSE (1761-1821) who was responsible for the design of many maritime buildings including lighthouses. The works were supervised by his assistant Richard Coates (as resident engineer), and were carried out using local red bricks and Dundee stone. The majority of the buildings in the conservation area date from the early nineteenth century. The first buildings were from the late eighteenth century – the Jolly Sailor was the first in the early 1790s (and predated the canal serving colliers resting up at Colliers Reach), then following construction of the canal were ‘The Old Ship’ public house (now Myrtle Cottage & Ship Cottage) and the two groups of cottages adjacent to the basin, which all date from the 1790s. Attached to the cottages was ‘The Chelmer Brig’ public house which was partly rebuilt in 1858 as the ‘Old Ship’ (the original ‘Old Ship’ having closed), the remnant of the original pub becoming number 1 Lock Hill. There were also wharves and a granary to the west of the cottages, demolished and replaced by boatsheds in the mid twentieth century. A new road was constructed in about 1811 to connect the settlement to the Goldhanger Road and at the same time constructing a new sea wall and reclaiming more of the marshland, extending the settlement to the north beyond the original sea wall. By the 1840s there were twelve cottages, stables, a foundry, shipwrights, two pubs and a chapel (Came, P & Harrison, D). During the most profitable period of the canal (during the early to mid nineteenth century) most of the buildings within the Conservation Area were built, primarily with yellow Stock bricks and Welsh slates. Coal was the main cargo of the canal, but the barges also carried stone, slate, iron, bricks, sand, lime, fertilizer, crops, timber, grain, flour, malt and cloth. By the end of the nineteenth century the canal trade was in decline due to competition with the railway and the Company had diversified by also growing willows for cricket bats along the canal edge. Although the sea lock was enlarged to take larger European 3 EB022d timber ships shortly after the second World War, it could not halt the decline and finally commercial activity ceased in 1972. With this, the historic uses within the settlement and its self-sufficiency diminished, with most of the village trades dying out in favour of residential uses. This has continued to the current day and the canal is now more important for recreation, such as pleasure boating and fishing, and moorings have been developed along the basin. The village has expanded in the latter twentieth century, with a growth in residential development both adjacent to and within the conservation area. Fig.2 Map showing earliest dates of buildings 4 EB022d 2.3 Cartographic Evidence The earliest surviving cartographic evidence for the settlement of any clarity is the Chapman and André map of 1777 (fig.4). This shows the conservation area as marshland, prior to any development. Early maps from the Navigation Company exist, though no longer at the Essex Record Office. The first survey of 1799 by Matthew Hall (fig.5 Harrison, D, redrawn by Came, P) shows the buildings prior to the new road and only to the north bank of the canal. A survey of circa 1811, attributed to John Clarke, lock keeper, (fig.6 Harrison, D, redrawn by Came, P) shows the new road (now Basin Road) with the settlement spreading to its south, and the houses on the south of the canal. The tithe map of circa 1847(fig.7) is much damaged but shows development spreading further northwards with houses and the chapel along Basin Road.

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