Land at Hollands Farm, Bourne End, Buckinghamshire Hedsor and Riversdale Conservation Area Setting Assessment
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Land at Hollands Farm, Bourne End, Buckinghamshire Hedsor and Riversdale Conservation Area Setting Assessment REF: P17-1325RME DATE: November 2017 Pegasus Professional Expert Declaration Rosemary Meara, Principal Heritage Consultant, Pegasus Group Rosemary Meara is a professionally accredited Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (MCIfA). She has a First Class Honours degree in Archaeology and has been a heritage professional since 2005. Rosemary Meara has acted as heritage consultant on a numerous development sites in England, including a number of large-scale residential developments. Assessment of the significance of the heritage resource and potential impacts on this resource as a result of development, including impacts resulting from alteration to setting, and formulation of mitigation strategies is an area in which she has expertise. Gail Stoten, Director (Heritage), Pegasus Group Gail Stoten is a professionally accredited Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (MCIfA) and has been elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA). She has a First Class Honours degree in Archaeology and has been a heritage professional for 16 years. Assessment of the setting of heritage assets in an area in which she has expertise. She has completed many specialist assessments of setting, including those for development in the vicinity of Warwick Castle and Park and for development proposed around Listed farm buildings and adjacent to a Conservation Area at Foldgate in Ludlow. Pegasus Group Birmingham | Bracknell | Bristol | Cambridge | Cirencester | East Midlands | Leeds | London | Manchester Page | 1 Introduction 1.1 This document provides an assessment of potential impacts to the significance of the Hedsor and Riversdale Conservation Area as a result of development of the proposed allocation site at Hollands Farm, Bourne End, Buckinghamshire (henceforth ‘the site’). The site lies to the east of and south of the main built up area of Bourne End, north of Hedsor Road (Plate 1). The site comprises fields, under grass at the time of the site visit. Plate 1: Site location plan 1.2 The Site red line runs along the boundary of, and at one point crosses over into, the Hedsor and Riversdale Conservation Area. The focus of this assessment is the impact of the proposals on the significance of the Conservation Area through alteration to setting. This assessment utilises the methodology recommended by Historic England in the Historic Environment Good Practice Advice in Planning Note 3: The Setting of Heritage Assets (2015). This recommends a staged approach of which Step 1 is to identify the heritage assets affected and their setting. Step 2 is to assess ‘whether, how and to what degree settings make a contribution to the significance of the heritage asset(s)’. The guidance includes a (non-exhaustive) check-list of elements of the physical surroundings of an asset that might be considered when undertaking the assessment including, among other things: topography, other heritage assets, Pegasus Group Birmingham | Bracknell | Bristol | Cambridge | Cirencester | East Midlands | Leeds | London | Manchester Page | 2 land use, green space, functional relationships, degree of change over time and integrity. It also lists points associated with the experience of the asset which might be considered, including: views, intentional intervisibility, tranquillity, sense of enclosure, accessibility, rarity and associative relationships. Step 3 is to assess the effect of the proposed development on the significance of the asset(s). Step 4 is ‘maximising enhancement and minimising harm’. Step 5 is ‘making and documenting the decision and monitoring outcomes’. The assessment below focuses on Steps 2 and 3. 1.3 This assessment focuses on the Hedsor and Riversdale Conservation Area, its associated historic buildings, including Listed Buildings and other buildings identified as of heritage interest. This assessment has been informed by the Draft Riversdale & Hedsor Road Conservation Area Appraisal (author not stated) published online for consultation by Wycombe District Council1. It has also been informed by the following sources: • Historic England National Heritage List for information on designated heritage assets; • Online sources including historic Ordnance Survey mapping and satellite imagery; and • A site visit from public rights of way. 1.4 While acknowledging this is an indicative layout only, this assessment considers potential impacts with reference to the illustrative layout published in the Wycombe District Local Plan Regulation 19 Publication Version (October 2017) (Appendix A). Hedsor and Riversdale Conservation Area 1.5 Hedsor and Riversdale Conservation Area (also referred by Wycombe District Council as the Hedsor Road and Riversdale Conservation Area or the Riversdale & Hedsor Road Conservation Area) was designated in 1986 and extended in 1991. The Conservation Area contains six Grade II Listed Buildings and is considered to be a designated heritage asset of less than the highest significance. Grade II Listed buildings are also considered to be designated heritage assets of less than the highest significance. 1 https://www.wycombe.gov.uk/pages/About-the-council/Have-your-say/Consultations/Consultation-Hedsor- and-Riversdale-conservation-area-appraisals.aspx Pegasus Group Birmingham | Bracknell | Bristol | Cambridge | Cirencester | East Midlands | Leeds | London | Manchester Page | 3 Plate 2: Designated heritage assets in the vicinity of the site (orange shading = Conservation Area; purple shading = Registered Park and Garden; blue shading = Scheduled Monument; triangles = Listed Building (blue Grade I, Yellow Grade II*, Green Grade II)). 1.6 Hedsor and Riversdale Conservation Area is summarised in the draft Conservation Area Appraisal as comprising “three distinct historic areas of mainly 19th and early 20th century character, interspersed with a few earlier buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries”. Expansion of the settlement from the mid-19th century followed the establishment of the railway, which crosses to the north-west of the settlement. The draft Conservation Area Appraisal identifies three character areas: Upper Bourne End, comprising linear settlement along Hedsor Road, which extends into the southern area of the site; Abney, comprising the northern part of the Conservation Area; and Riversdale, comprising the southern part of the Conservation Area. The latter two character areas run adjacent to the River Thames, with settlement at Upper Bourne End forming an eastern extension. The draft Conservation Area Appraisal also notes that these character areas “have particular special interest as they illustrate how pre- industrial rural landscapes were developed following the arrival of the railway” (p3). Pegasus Group Birmingham | Bracknell | Bristol | Cambridge | Cirencester | East Midlands | Leeds | London | Manchester Page | 4 Plate 3: Hedsor and Riversdale Conservation Area adjacent to the site. The division between the character areas is marked as a purple line. 1.7 The proposed area of residential development is separated from the Abney and Riversdale character areas by intervening built form. This assessment therefore focuses on the Upper Bourne End Character Area. 1.8 The Upper Bourne End character area (Plate 3) encompasses settlement along Hedsor Road, which historically formed the boundary between Wooburn Parish (to the north) and Hedsor Parish (to the south). There are a number of buildings of historic interest (Plate 4) identified in the draft Conservation Area Appraisal. These include buildings on the northern side of Hedsor Road, which back onto agricultural land within the site. Extant buildings with identified 18th-century elements include May Cottage (Grade II Listed) and Jasmine, on the south side of the road, and The Meads, The Garibaldi, Old Cottage and Erleigh Cottage to the north. 1&2 Southview Cottages and Shalimar are of late-18th or early-19th century date, as is 1&2 Hedsor to the south. These buildings are recorded along with Long Boyds (late 19th-century) on the late 19th-century Ordnance Survey mapping (Plate 5), which shows that by this time Upper Bourne End comprised a number of short terraces and detached properties, forming a linear settlement along Hedsor Road. Southfields was established in the early 20th-century, filling the gap between settlement at Upper Bourne End and Holland Farm to the west. Pegasus Group Birmingham | Bracknell | Bristol | Cambridge | Cirencester | East Midlands | Leeds | London | Manchester Page | 5 In the later-19th and earlier 20th-centuries the setting of Upper Bourne End to the north and south comprised agricultural fields and orchard. As is seen in many parts of the country, orchards were removed in the 20th-century, with some associated loss of field boundaries. The field immediately north of Bourne End is now in pastoral use, sub-divided by post and wire fence. 1.9 The draft Conservation Area Appraisal comments that: “Upper Bourne End (Area A) largely conserves its rural setting as it comprises a ribbon of development along the eastern part of (Upper) Hedsor Road, a ‘finger’ of built environment. This form of ‘ribbon’ development was a characteristic that can be found all over the country where the margins of fields were developed, often by cottages to rent, to boost agricultural incomes which line losing significant productive areas of a farmer’s fields. As a consequence the fields come right up to the rear boundaries of the