Ilminster Conservation Area Appraisal 2016 ILMINSTER CONSERVATION AREA APPRAISAL SOUTH SOMERSET DISTRICT COUNCIL 2016 1 Ilminster Conservation Area Appraisal 2016 Approved by Area West Committee development plan policies and 7th December 2016 & 28th March 2017 development control decisions and will form the framework for effective management of change. The appraisal will Introduction help provide the District Council and the Conservation areas are areas of ‘special local community with a clear idea of what architectural or historic interest the features and details contribute to the character or appearance of which it is special character of the conservation area. desirable to preserve or enhance’. Section The more clearly the character or special 69 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and interest of a conservation area is defined, Conservation Areas) Act 1990 imposes a the easier it is to manage without duty on local authorities to identify damaging that interest. appropriate parts of their areas, to designate them as conservation areas and to keep them under review. Historic areas The appraisal document follows the are now extensively recognised for the recommendations in Historic England contribution they make to our cultural Advice Note 1 – Conservation Area inheritance, economic well-being and Designation, Appraisal and management quality of life. Public support for the dated February 2016 conservation and enhancement of areas of architectural and historic interest is well established. By suggesting continuity and Summary of special interest - the area’s stability, such areas provide points of key characteristics reference in a rapidly changing world: they Tight urban grain with well represent the familiar and cherished local contained streets dominated by scene. Over 9000 have been designated good quality listed buildings nationally since they were introduced in Sloping topography of the core 1967 and there are over 80 in South town and views out to adjacent Somerset hills and open countryside Distinctive widespread use of local The Ilminster Conservation Area was first Moolham marlstone designated in 1973. The District Council is High quality ashlar stone houses required by the Planning (Listed Buildings and many historic shop fronts and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 to The Market a key focal point in the define the special interest and publish Market Place proposals for the preservation and Minster Church of St Mary enhancement of conservation areas. enclosed within its urban Conservation area appraisals contribute to churchyard the fulfilment of this requirement. The church tower rising over the In order that designation is effective in town and a feature visible from conserving the special interest, planning may points decisions must be based on a thorough Widespread use of ironwork in understanding of the Conservation Area’s railings and cresting to shopfronts character. Appraisals are therefore Regency houses with round- essential tools for the planning process arched central 1st floor windows and to manage informed intervention. Fine Ham stone door cases with They will provide a sound basis, broken pediments defensible on appeal, for the relevant 2 Ilminster Conservation Area Appraisal 2016 Historic development Ilminster sits along a ridge which drops down to the fertile Isle Valley. The town's growth pattern has been dominated by the topography, and its economy by the availability of both fast flowing streams and level meadowland. The area is geologically complex, with marl, limestones, sandstones and chalk strata available for quarrying. There is some evidence of both prehistoric and Roman activity in the area, in the shape of isolated artefact finds. Unfortunately, these are not well provenanced and it is difficult to be certain whether the site of Ilminster itself was occupied in these periods. As it lies astride a ridgeway and, in the Roman period, was Cornhill only a few miles from the Fosse Way, occupation cannot be ruled out. Assessment of the special interest There is documentary evidence of a Saxon minster and settlement at Ilminster Location and context (Ile Mynister - the minster on the River Ilminster is situated along the southern Isle). The earliest certain reference to the side of a ridge close to the point at which site is King Ethelred's Confirmation of 995, the River Isle issues from the narrow which returned the estates to the valley formed between the Blackdown and Benedictine Muchelney Abbey after a time Windwhistle foothills, about a mile east of of disturbance. The wording of this the course of the Isle. The town is document implies an earlier origin for primarily a linear settlement aligned on an Ilminster, and a charter of 693 may record east-west axis, settled in the valley the original estate grant. However, the 725 associated with the Shudrick Stream, with "Charter of King Ine" is now thought to be the core of the town concentrated upon a later forgery, perhaps medieval, or the market place and church, which lie perhaps 10th century and part of the between the stream and the lower slopes dispute which led to the issue of Ethelred's of Beacon Hill. Nineteenth century maps Confirmation (Bond, c1990). The early indicate settlement growth around and estate centred on Ilminster was extensive: adjacent this core, and along the main E- the parish of Ilminster was the most W through route (Station Road and Bay important in the Hundred of Abdick and Hill). Recent residential growth has Bulstone in the late Saxon period. The spread both north, south and southwest of place names of the surrounding area - the town centre, whilst a large Ilton, Dillington, Whitelackington, employment area has developed to the Dinnington, for example - suggest that a west of the town, adjacent the confluence network of estates and estate settlements of the River Isle and Shudrick stream existed: of these, Dillington was certainly corridors, and convenient for access to the part of the abbey’s estates and allied to major road network. Ilminster. 3 Ilminster Conservation Area Appraisal 2016 After the Conquest, attempted rebellion Between the late 15th and the late 17th brought serious consequences for some of centuries Ilminster suffered a series of Ilminster's neighbours, including Donyatt, setbacks. The first of these was a major Dowlish and Whitelackington. But the town fire in 1491, which seems to have itself, being a church possession, was damaged the town's economy. According largely spared. Domesday records an to Collinson (1791), Ilminster was never affluent estate, with a good deal of completely rebuilt after this catastrophe. woodland (some of which may have been Only a few decades later, the Dissolution attached to Neroche Forest to the west), of the Monasteries disrupted the running and the beginnings of a town in the shape of the town. The abbots' rights were split of a market rated at twenty shillings a up into the Lordship of the Manor, the year. Muchelney remained in possession rectorial tithes and the advowson of the of the manorial rights, rents, the tithes and vicarage, and the 16th and 17th centuries the church itself until the Dissolution of the saw a series of absentee Lords of the Monasteries, and presided over the Manor. As well as the disruption of the growth of the medieval town. In 1201, a Civil War, in 1661 there was another major deal struck between Muchelney and Wells fire, this one being followed by appeals inaugurated the 'golden age' of Ilminster read up and down the country. (Street, 1904): the abbots of Muchelney Despite all this, Ilminster was still the gained status as prebends, Wells gained fourth largest town in Somerset in 1670 the rectory and much of the revenues, and (as shown by the hearth tax returns). both institutions protected and encouraged Prosperity continued into the 18th century the town - though they never allowed a and Collinson described two irregular free borough to be established. streets with about 300 houses, many of Ilminster was extremely prosperous by the which were "decent stone and brick". later medieval period, and the 15th century parish church and Grammar School bear witness to this. The town's prosperity was largely based on the textile industry, but it was also an important local market centre. The town was both a market centre (noted for leather in the post-medieval period) and a centre of the cloth industry, ropemaking and gloving (though many of the actual sites of activity were in the outlying areas along the rivers). It was also surrounded by orchards. Ilminster benefited from the increasing traffic on the turnpiked London to Exeter route which passed through the town. Ilminster's population was declining at the beginning of the 19th century, but it took St Mary’s Church off in the 1820s and 1830s. The town then 4 Ilminster Conservation Area Appraisal 2016 thrived throughout the 19th century, aided However, the focus of routes at the market by the arrival of the Chard Canal (briefly) and what was presumably the minster and then the Railway. Braggs Directory gates appears to be early. One of the described a town "much improved by main fields of interest in Ilminster is the many new houses" by the 1840s, and establishment of the early street lines. Hunts 1848 Directory mentions Very little is known about the minster. The improvements to the market. There were topography and street plan suggest the then two weekly markets and quarterly southern, south-eastern and south- and annual livestock fairs, but the western limits, but the northern extent of Directory says that the woollen trade was the precinct is not clear. The Triangle may almost gone, and that the silk factory and represent the vestigial remains of a very maltings were the town's staple industry at open area which was built up in the the time. Population growth continued up medieval and later periods.