Chilham Parish 3

Chilham Parish Design Statement 2 CHILHAM PARISH DESIGN STATEMENT CHILHAM PARISH DESIGN STATEMENT 3 Contents Introduction INTRODUCTION 3 An initiative was launched in 1996 by AB the then Countryside Commission (now Agency) to involve villages in their own LANDSCAPE 3 development and future planning. Landscape 1 CD Every village was encouraged to pro- CHILHAM duce its own Village Design Statement, and many have now done so. The Parish of Chilham lies in the valley uplands, narrow lanes, sunken paths, HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE VILLAGE 5 Cover photographs: of the River Stour between Canterbury ancient woods and hedgerows, historic QUALITIES AND CHARACTER 8 A Surrounding countryside Chilham Parish Council set up a sub- and Ashford on the northern edge of the villages and distinctive wildlife. In the B Chilham committee in October 2001 to organise North Downs. Chilham village occupies a Parish, therefore, most of the views to C Old Wives Lees and implement a Design Statement for promontory in the river valley and is the south and west are over protected OLD WIVES LEES D Shottenden Chilham. Because the Parish comprises overlooked by Old Wives Lees and landscape: those to the north from Old HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE VILLAGE 11 three disparate villages, Chilham, Old Shottenden, situated on higher ground Wives and Shottenden are mostly over Wives Lees and Shottenden, within its QUALITIES AND CHARACTER 12 to the northeast and northwest, respec- areas lacking any protection and under boundaries, it elected to describe the tively. Chilham is located at the junction the control of three different local document as a Parish Design Statement. of the A28 (Ashford–Canterbury road) authorities. Between the two parks of SHOTTENDEN and the A252 (Maidstone–Canterbury In October 2002, following postal invi- Chilham and Godmersham, along the road). Narrow lanes from the A252 con- HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE VILLAGE 14 tations to every household in the Parish boundary line, are exceptionally nect Chilham with Old Wives Lees and Parish, a Workshop was held in the fine views of Kentish landscape, espe- QUALITIES AND CHARACTER 14 Shottenden. Village Hall attended by sixty people. cially of the Godmersham Downs and Children at the primary school held a Due to its position, the Parish therefore mansion. FUTURE TECHNOLOGY 15 similar Workshop. lies just within the northern boundary of The North Downs Way runs through the the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding The Parish Design Statement has been Parish from Mountain Street, Chilham, Natural Beauty (AONB). The Kent BIODIVERSITY 15 written in full consultation with resi- up Long Hill to Old Wives Lees and Downs have been protected by the 1949 dents and submitted to Ashford leaves the road near Pamphletts Green National Parks and Access to the Borough Council for adoption as sup- crossing the Parish boundary into CARE OF OLD AND LISTED BUILDINGS 15 Countryside Act, which enabled them to plementary planning guidance. Chartham and on to Canterbury. be designated in 1968 as an AONB, to According to archaeologists this is one protect their diverse landscape of chalk HOUSEHOLDERS’ OWN DESIGN ASSESSMENT 16 of the most important ‘ancient track- ways’ in Britain because it was a main 1 Views from Old Wives route by which early man gained access DESIGN GUIDELINES 17 Lees to Britain from the Continent. Along 2 North Downs Way at Mountain Street and Mountain Street, it coincides with the USEFUL CONTACTS 19 castle wall Pilgrims route to Canterbury. The landscape of the Parish, with its vil- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 19 lages, downland, farmland, orchards and the river, lakes and water meadows along the Stour Valley, is characteristic of the Downs. There are extensive areas of deciduous woodland in the southeast, south, southwest and northwest of the Parish, of which the dominant species are oak, ash, beech, sweet chestnut and sycamore. At the end of Mountain Street, Kings Wood, a working forest of about 574 hectares (1418 acres) man- aged for deciduous and coniferous timber production, wildlife conservation and recreation by Forest Enterprise, is a treasured area of natural heritage in the Parish, a valuable resource for parish- 2 ioners and visitors. 4 CHILHAM PARISH DESIGN STATEMENT CHILHAM PARISH DESIGN STATEMENT 5 History and Development er that century, now named Cumberland House. In the Square, the dominant of the Village house of Wealden Hall plan is what is now called Tudor Lodge and Talisman Pre-historic archaeological remains and shop, thought to have been built the Neolithic long barrow known as between 1370 and 1410. The original Julieberries Grave are confirmation of the farmhouse buildings of what is the White ancient habitation of Chilham for many Horse Inn public house are dated 1422. thousands of years. Evidence at the castle exists of Roman foundations, thought The Norman castle was demolished in the to be a small hill fort; and the site was early seventeenth century and replaced subsequently occupied by Saxon kings. by a large red brick mansion, completed in l616 for Sir Dudley Digges, and reput- The modern village evolved from former edly designed by Inigo Jones. In the habitations which grew up around and eighteenth century, a great brick wall depended upon the castle for protection 1 enclosing the castle’s grounds was built, and employment. The church, built on separating the grounds from the village. Saxon foundations, is mentioned in the Domesday Book, and a list of its incum- The re-facing of the timber houses with bents starts in 1280. brickwork in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, plus the red brick wall The central core of the village forms a of the castle, changed the look of the vil- square on a small plateau between the lage from daub and plaster to church and the castle. It was created predominantly brick. Large dramatic during the great Tudor building era, chimneys were built. 2 probably built on many of the old existing foundations. The then wealth of oak About 1820, the village school moved 1 An early house of Wealden Hall plan enabled substantial timber framed hous- from its class in the south porch of the 2 A brickwork re-faced es to be erected. In what is now The church to a small brick and stone timber house Street, the fifteenth century Burgoyne dressed building in School Hill. Extra 3 The May Fayre in 1 Chilham’s symbol of The upland areas of the Stour Valley The three villages are united by the Chilham Square a heron reflects its (which, like many houses in the Parish, classrooms were added in 1861 in a consist of chalk deposits overlain by landscape in which they lie and each vil- © Countryside long asociation with retains its historic name), with its large red and yellow brick building with Agency/Tina Stallard clay with flints, which provide the dis- lage has many treasured views. Any the ancient heronry pinched Wealden front, was a farm. a plate traceried window. 2 Fishing at Chilham tinctive soils of the North Downs. The new development should seek to pre- Lakes Opposite is another hall house, built lat- floor of the Stour Valley is composed of serve and respect these. alluvial soils deposited by the river over millennia. These deposits have long been economically “The promontory of the chalk downs, important as a source of gravel overlooking a bend in the River Stour, and a for the building industry and indeed straight view down to Canterbury half a dozen continue to be worked elsewhere miles away, was an important defensive in the valley. Chilham Lakes are position”. Pevsner N.E. and E. Kent. p.274 a legacy of earlier workings and this area is now a wild- fowl sanctuary and an 3 amenity much appreciated by walkers, bird-watchers and fishermen. The lakes, with their reed beds, fringing alder trees and poplar plantation, form a distinctive and beautiful landscape at the foot of the Downs, despite being 1 bounded on one side by the railway line 2 and the A28. 6 CHILHAM PARISH DESIGN STATEMENT CHILHAM PARISH DESIGN STATEMENT 7 Outside the centre of the village, Hurst Ribbon development has occurred in Farm, at the end of Mountain Street, is Hambrook Lane, with a mixture of mod- by John Tradescant (senior), were In 1534, the church was left a legacy Grade I Listed and is the oldest and one ern and copybook design housing redesigned in the eighteenth century towards the construction of the great of the most important set of domestic styles. The flat roof of the doctor’s sur- under the guidance of Capability Brown perpendicular west tower, 68 feet tall, gery built about 1960, now looks out of buildings in the Parish. and include a fine terrace leading down which dominates the village to great keeping in Chilham. A fire station was to a fishing lake. effect. It is chequered with flint and local Gradually, with increased population, built at the bottom of Taylors Hill and a stone and also contains some Roman many of the large dwellings were sub- police house in Bagham Lane. Recent After its sale in l949, the fabric of the bricks or tiles. It has magnificent view of divided; infill between the existing additions to the village include the building gradually deteriorated. On its the Downs, the beautiful Stour Valley, buildings led to a more compact village Sports Hall in 1998 and, in 2002, one of re-sale in 1997, the new owner under- and even of the Bell Harry Tower of and in the nineteenth century more cot- the war-time air raid shelters at the took restoration work. As English Canterbury Cathedral. tages for estate workers were built in school was converted to a classroom Heritage was not involved, much of this Mountain Street and Hambrook Lane.

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