Historic England Response on Watermans Site Proposals
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LONDON OFFICE Mr Stephen Hissett Direct Dial: 020 7973 3785 London Borough of Hounslow Development Control Our ref: P00639153 The Civic Centre Lampton Road TW3 4DN 14 September 2017 Dear Mr Hissett Arrangements for Handling Heritage Applications Direction 2015 & T&CP (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 40 AND 40A HIGH STREET (ALBANY RIVERSIDE) BRENTFORD TW8 0DS Application No 00607/T/P1 Thank you for your letter of 10 August 2017 notifying Historic England of the above application. Historic England first commented on pre-application proposals at the Waterman’s Site in August 2016. The proposals were presented internally to our regional casework review panel, and the applicants also presented to our most senior casework committee on site at Kew Gardens in September 2016. Following that meeting further advice was issued on 7 October 2016. Having been consulted on subsequent amendments to the scheme Historic England provided a third letter of advice on 4 August this year. Summary Throughout the course of our pre-application consultation we set out our serious concerns over the impact of the proposals on the setting of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, World Heritage Site, and in particular the Grade I listed Scheduled Monument of Kew Palace. The setting of the Palace and World Heritage Site is of the highest quality and is an essential part of the experience and enjoyment of this world famous site. It also plays a major part in understanding how Kew and the ‘Arcadian Thames’ played such an important role in drawing the royal court and centuries of royal, scientific, and artistic patronage to this area of London. We consider the encroachment of urban, modern construction such as the large blocks of flats proposed for the Albany riverside will fundamentally undermine the existing quality of the setting of Kew Palace, including in views currently untouched by modern development, and will set an uncontrollable precedent for further new buildings within the hinterland of the World Heritage Site. 1 WATERHOUSE SQUARE 138-142 HOLBORN LONDON EC1N 2ST Telephone 020 7973 3700 HistoricEngland.org.uk Historic England is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. 2000 (FOIA) and Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). All information held by the organisation will be accessible in response to an information request, unless one of the exemptions in the FOIA or EIR applies. LONDON OFFICE Historic England Advice Significance The Albany Riverside site is currently occupied by the Waterman’s Arts Centre and a two storey office building. It is not included within any conservation areas and contains no designated heritage assets. Historic England has no objection to the redevelopment of these building in principle. The development site is in close proximity to a number of highly designated assets. These include: The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, World Heritage Site The World Heritage Site Buffer zone The Grade I Registered Park and Garden, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Kew Palace, Grade I listed and a Scheduled Ancient Monument The Orangery at Kew, Grade I listed Kew Palace Flats, Grade Kew Green Conservation Area Royal Botanic Gardens Conservation Area This is not a comprehensive list but it is enough to demonstrate the very highest levels of protection and significance afforded to the area to the south of the development site. There are only eighteen World Heritage Sites in England and their recognition by UNESCO is a sign of truly exceptional international significance. The building we now refer to as Kew Palace is also known as the Dutch House and is the principal standing remnant of a much larger complex of buildings used as a country retreat by the Georgian royal household between 1728 and 1818. The history of this site as a place of pleasure and relaxation away from London and Westminster began long before when Kew existed as a quiet neighbouring parish to the major Tudor palace at Richmond. Life continued in that pattern at Kew in the 1630s when Samuel Fortrey, a City merchant, commissioned the building of the Dutch House as his own rural retreat. At that time the Dutch Republic was emerging as a global empire surpassing that of the English with huge commercial power. Dutch cultural influence grew with it, especially in Protestant England, and the architecture of the Dutch House reflects this. Its distinctive gables are the most striking evidence of this fashion, but in its construction the pioneering use of ‘Flemish’ bond in the very high quality brickwork marks one of the first major projects in English architectural history of a building technique that would come to dominate brick building for the following centuries. I emphasise here the very high design quality of the Dutch House in order to 1 WATERHOUSE SQUARE 138-142 HOLBORN LONDON EC1N 2ST Telephone 020 7973 3700 HistoricEngland.org.uk Historic England is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. 2000 (FOIA) and Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). All information held by the organisation will be accessible in response to an information request, unless one of the exemptions in the FOIA or EIR applies. LONDON OFFICE demonstrate the early history of sophisticated courtly fashions that can be found at Kew. Its proximity to the royal palace at Richmond allowed these advertisements of taste and status to reach their intended audience, and the building’s position close to the Thames ensured both that it was seen by important passers by and that it could be easily accessed from London. In 1728 the estates at Kew were annexed to the Royal Palace at Richmond by the recently crowned George II and Queen Caroline. Their three daughters moved into the Dutch House, while Prince Frederick of Wales and Princess Augusta moved into and enlarged the (now lost) 'White House' positioned just to its south. The occupation of Kew by the royal household, as opposed to merely expanding Richmond Palace, allowed them to use this adjoining site in a separate and less formal manner. Its position at the northern edge of the park of the Palace of Richmond removed the inhabitants from the formality of court and provided an opportunity for newly fashionable Picturesque landscaping to influence the establishment of the gardens. The relaxed enjoyment of Kew and the attractiveness of its outdoor setting is exemplified in Philip Mercier’s 1733 musical portrait of the Prince of Wales with three of his sisters grouped in front of the Dutch House. The presence of Prince Frederick at Kew has importance for a number of reasons. Frederick was the heir to the Hanoverian dynasty, but was also the chief opponent to his father’s government. He used the arts and his royal patronage in a very public and politicised fashion. He was lavish with his expenditure, and at the forefront of emerging tastes. As a consequence, the alternative court which surrounded him at his retreat at Kew will have expected to find the highest possible standards of luxury and display amongst the wooded groves of the parkland. It was Frederick who initiated the first serious landscaping works around Kew, and these were continued in earnest after his death by his widow Augusta. Over the course of the eighteenth century this brought to Kew the work of Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, William Chambers, and Lancelot 'Capability' Brown: a litany of the most highly regarded English landscape designers and architects. Augusta as dowager Princess of Wales established the first botanic garden at Kew in 1759, and this role expanded under the influence of Sir Joseph Banks between 1772 and 1820. Banks' extraordinary talents in establishing a world class collection at Kew were complemented by his successors to the extent that today Kew contains some of the largest botanical collections in the world. Associated with this long history of the highest quality architecture and landscaping is an equally impressive roll call of cultural and scientific achievement at Kew. Great literary figures such as Voltaire, Alexander Pope, Horace Walpole, and Daniel Defoe visited the palace and gardens, and the Arcadian landscape has inspired a literary 1 WATERHOUSE SQUARE 138-142 HOLBORN LONDON EC1N 2ST Telephone 020 7973 3700 HistoricEngland.org.uk Historic England is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. 2000 (FOIA) and Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). All information held by the organisation will be accessible in response to an information request, unless one of the exemptions in the FOIA or EIR applies. LONDON OFFICE outpouring. In his 1767 poem ‘Kew Garden’ Henry Jones rhapsodised over the natural setting of the site ‘where art and nature must incessant vie’, and later celebrated that ‘here princely states, and rustic plainness verge, in sweet vicinity for ever fix’d’. The palace, gardens and Arcadian Thames feature in paintings, engravings and sketches by numerous artists, including Mercier, Peter Lely, John Gainsborough, Canaletto, William Chambers, and Turner. Turner in particular sketched the relationship of the old Palace and the river. It has been understood for centuries that the environment of these gardens is exceptional and inspiring. As early as the eighteenth century foreign tourists included Kew and its gardens in their itineraries of England and the flow of visitors has not stopped since. The combination of exceptional buildings, landscaping, planting, history and location make Kew a unique and unparalleled site. It is visited by over a million people every year and was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2003. It's attributes of Outstanding Universal Value include but are not limited to the following: A rich and diverse heritage cultural landscape Relationship with the River Thames and wider Arcadian landscape and beyond A series of key vistas Royal residency and patronage of the gardens as evidenced in Kew Palace Historic England attaches particular importance to the contribution that setting makes to the overall significance of Kew Palace and the Kew Botanic Gardens World Heritage Site.