• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Appendix D1 Village Character Assessment Village Character Assessment Copyright C East Bergholt Neighbourhood Plan EAST BERGHOLT NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN CHARACTER ASSESSMENT INTRODUCTION AND CONTENTS This report analyses the village character using the seven criteria in the “Oxford Toolkit” as recommended for the purpose by Babergh District Council. These are: Spaces, Buildings, Views, Greenery & Landscape Features, Light/Dark, Noise & Smell and Spirit of Place. These criteria are then applied to fifteen areas making up the entire built up area of the Parish. In an anti-clockwise direction from the village centre these are as below, can be seen on the map opposite, and are the detailed reports in the same order on the following pages: 1. The Street 2. Cemetery Lane 3. Rectory Hill 4. Flatford Lane and Hamlet 5. White Horse Road, Notcutts, Orvis Lane, Manningtree Road, Cordwinders and Dazeley’s Lane 6. Gandish Road and Gandish Close 7. East End Lane, Broom Knoll, Straight Road, Park Road and Mission Lane 8. Heath Road, Mill Road and Putticks Lane 9. Quintons Road 10. Chaplin Road and Richardsons Road 11. B1070 from Hadleigh Road to Carriers Arms, including Foxhall Fields, Moores Lane and Beehive Close 12. Elm Road, Elm Estate, School Lane, Whitesfield, Askins Road and Aldous Close 13. Hadleigh Road, Collingwood Fields and Hop Meadow 14. Gaston Street 15. Fiddlers Lane, Fiddlers Close and The Link The photograph pages show a sample of the diverse properties in each of the 15 areas. A summary of these assessments and the conclusions drawn can be seen in the Neighbourhood Plan. EAST BERGHOLT EAST END EAST BERGHOLT CHARACTER ASSESSMENT – THE STREET SPACES: The Street is the functional centre of the village housing a small array of essential shops, the Anglican Church and the Red Lion Inn. It represents the best of evolving village development in the form of diverse building styles, some properties set back with gardens and others built directly onto the road. BUILDINGS: The Street provides a feast of architectural style, size, colour and age. At the Hadleigh Road junction a high brick wall and gate give glimpses of an impressive Tudor house set in large gardens. Opposite is a group of interesting houses and the remains of the village lock-up. The free car park is largely shielded from view by the 17th century Red Lion Inn and Red Lion Cottage. Opposite a low mansard roofed cottage sporting the sign “Dealer in Hatts” indicating a stage in its history. The houses facing this cottage have significant religious history and their Suffolk brick facing hides 17th century timber framed construction. Clustered around the junction with Cemetery Lane are a number of buildings in commercial and retail use and very much the centre of the village. Opposite is the impressive jettied 16th century Fountain House and adjoining Dunthorn Cottage, home and workshop of John Constable’s friend and mentor. Facing this cottage, now a craft and hardware shop is a short spur of attractive cottages, the first of which has had many uses, including a bank and, currently, a baker’s shop. The Street bends sharply here and the character changes somewhat. The west side is dominated by a very large Georgian house with a cupola similar to that on the Church. Once the home of Randolph Churchill it originally fronted onto a small village green, now part of the garden. The village sign occupies the remaining vestige of the green. Facing this large property is the site of the Constable family home, plaques on the railings mark its position now occupied by two detached 20th century houses. There is a handsome timber framed house, Little Court, with 18th century brick façade and a traditional group of Alms Houses behind which may be glimpsed allotments which wrap behind them and meet the Churchyard. VIEWS: The Street provides so many interesting cameo views that only the longer view back towards Gaston Street seems significant. The random and unstructured features of the village centre are what make it so interesting, showing how it has evolved over centuries to accommodate local needs. The view at the southern end is dominated by St Mary’s Church, a fine “wool church” that has achieved fame due to its incomplete tower and the heavy set of five bells therefore contained in an oak “cage” and rung by hand since its erection as a temporary measure in 1531. The church projects out into the road which has to loop around the unfinished tower. The churchyard has many visitors to the bell cage and graves of Constable’s parents. GREENERY & LANDSCAPE FEATURES: Whilst The Street has a high level of greenery in private gardens, the architecture and general village centre ambience is the most prevalent feature. LIGHT/DARK: The Street has an open light feel as the larger structures are set well back from the road. NOISE & SMELL: The Street is widely accepted as being the functional centre of the village. Cars are essential features of modern life but the village was not designed with them in mind. Despite the problems of noise and parking, the village centre still manages to function well. SPIRIT OF PLACE: The Street provides an ambience of good village life, of interaction and community. It is considered to be the Village. The Street EAST BERGHOLT CHARACTER ASSESSMENT – CEMETERY LANE SPACES: Cemetery Lane is a quiet, narrow lane starting at the centre of the village and leading eventually to footpaths in the Dedham Vale. Buildings are confined to the beginning of the lane and the spacing of buildings is variable, some directly onto the road and others set back with impressive gardens. The lane has a very informal character with an interesting array of buildings of various scales and spacing so no two views are the same. As with so many areas in the village, telegraph and overhead electric cables have a negative impact. BUILDINGS: The buildings in Cemetery Lane are dominated by a large Victorian, red brick Congregational Church and the blank flank wall of the shop funnels the view towards that. The lane starts, however, with two small cottages with small neat gardens, one of which was the original studio used by John Constable. Next to it is a light industrial workshop and beyond that a high red brick garden wall and gravelled entrance to properties which cannot be seen. The gateway to West Lodge, however, affords a glimpse of the substantial garden with mature trees and shrubs. Beyond the church is a scattering of cottages and larger houses. Although totally unplanned in appearance the impression is what you would expect for a rural village and is altogether pleasing. As implied by the name the lane leads to a large cemetery with attractive old brick wall fronting onto the lane. VIEWS: The views at the beginning of the lane are restricted by walls and for much of the lane by hedges and trees. Eventually it leads to very wide rural views over the river valley. Near to the village end of the lane, there is a point where a beautifully framed view of Dedham Vale can be seen; this is an iconic Constable Country view. The roof scape is dominated by the Congregational Church. GREENERY & LANDSCAPE FEATURES: The feeling of the lane is that it is leading out of village into the countryside, emphasised by the gentle downhill slope. The cemetery on the right hand side marks the end of the general housing and the sides of the lane are then informally hedged. LIGHT/DARK: A green and shady lane. NOISE & SMELL: A very quiet and peaceful lane, with the exception of the area at its start. There is always a lot of activity associated with the shop and the engineering workshop but these do not detract. SPIRIT OF PLACE: Rural, quiet and supremely unplanned. Cemetery Lane EAST BERGHOLT CHARACTER ASSESSMENT – RECTORY HILL SPACES: Starting at the Church it is very open with the Churchyard (several tall yews) and Church Plain. The houses facing onto the Plain have small gardens enclosed by railings and Old Chapel House has white posts and chains which appear to claim ownership of the pavement at its frontage. The high convent walls and hedges of Old Hall reflect that its community of nuns was once enclosed. Further down the hill the houses and cottages string out, with the gaps between for the most part very large. The Hill winds down to the valley of the Riber Brook and up again to Burnt Oak Corner, pinched in at the end of the Church Plain, wide open to the south side with open fields, and well wooded at both ends with tunnels of trees. Cars necessarily park on the Plain and these and white markings detract. BUILDINGS: The area is framed by the unfinished tower of St Mary the Virgin. Friary Cottage stands on the corner of Flatford Lane in a substantial garden bordered by a soft brick wall and tall hedges with many mature trees. The conventual buildings, added to the Old Hall manor house in 1857, are Italianate in style with austere striped brickwork and probably incongruous in appearance to visitors to the area. A further incongruity left over from the use of Old Hall as a religious house is the small graveyard containing remains of the Friars who took over when the nuns departed. The houses facing onto the plain are older than their frontages would suggest and form a pleasing group with their front gardens enclosed by railings. Houses wind down the hill from the sixteenth century right up to the twentieth are mainly set back from the road, several with railings and walls, and placed in substantial gardens of mature trees and shrubs.

Load more

  124

Copy Link