Heritage Impact Assessment
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Heritage Impact Assessment Proposed Allocations: FP-H1 and FP-H2 Heritage Impact Assessment Falmouth North & College / Hillhead Falmouth & Penryn Introduction & Purpose The initial desk based heritage assessment1 of the consultation options for Falmouth and Penryn identified the need for additional assessment of the Falmouth North and College / Hillhead Penryn site options. These sites were identified for further assessment due to the close physical relationship between the two sites, and therefore also between the two separate towns of Falmouth and Penryn. Additionally, the presence of a range of designated and non-designated heritage assets to each site warranted further assessment. All three proposed allocations adjoin and together form a larger area for future development; however each proposal is assessed in turn in relation to the potential for any impacts on adjacent heritage assets. This assessment is informed by five key assessment ‘steps’, following the guidance provided within Historic England’s Advice Note 3: The Historic Environment and Site Allocations in Local Plans, and Historic Environment Good Practice Advice in Planning:3, ‘The Setting of Heritage Assets’. A conclusion and recommendation is included to inform the allocations process and the potential inclusion of land within the Cornwall Site Allocations DPD. The findings and recommendations from this assessment will inform the Sustainability Appraisal which considers a range of sustainability considerations relating to the strategy for the town in order to prioritise site options for inclusion within the Cornwall Site allocations DPD. It will also directly inform any resultant policy that would form a part of any site allocation, should the site proceed and be allocated for development within an Allocations DPD. This report assesses the potential for any harm to the significance of the listed buildings adjacent to the sites at Falmouth North and College / Hillhead, and any other assets, as a result of the proposed allocation site. 1 Cornwall Council Heritage Desk Based Assessment of DPD Allocations sites- Cornwall Historic Environment Service N Cahill – September 2015 Plan 1: The College Valley, Falmouth North and Lower Kergilliack Options Plan 1 above identifies the relationships between the three options for growth at Falmouth and Penryn: The College Valley option; the Falmouth North Option; and the Kergilliack option. It should be noted that at the time of writing this report, that planning permission had been granted for 300 residential units on approximately two thirds of the Lower Kergilliack option, and which would result in a smaller area of land being identified as any preferred strategy on that land. This paper is predominantly seeking to consider the relationship of the college and Falmouth north sites with one another and also with designated and non-designated heritage assets within the general vicinity of these sites. Step 1 Identify which heritage assets are affected by the potential site allocation. The desk based heritage assessment undertaken by the CC Heritage team identified a number of heritage assets that are potentially affected by development of the potential site allocation. There are a number of designated assets within the broad study area of Falmouth and Penryn surrounding the options sites the subject of this paper. There are a larger number to the north within and around the historic town centres of Penryn and Falmouth, which are separate to the study area as documented in this report, and are not therefore considered within this paper. This report does not set out detail of the historical evolution of Falmouth and Penryn, or go beyond brief detail of individual assets and their history. There are a number of documents and resources that describe the historical evolution of the towns which can be referred to. There are no designated assets within any of the three urban extension options the subject of this paper. However, immediately to the north of the College valley site are the listed assets of the railway viaduct, and to the east of the Falmouth North site are the designated assets of the Jewish and Congregationalist cemeteries at Ponsharden, and also the residential property known as The Cottage (now known as Ashfield House) Relevant Assets acknowledged as having National importance or significance: The Jewish and Congregationalist cemeteries at Ponsharden The Cottage (Ashfield House) Falmouth College known as Glasney College Penryn Glasney College remains, Glasney Terrace Penryn College House Penryn Penryn South West Railway Viaduct Penryn South West Piers of Former Viaduct Relevant Assets considered of being of Regional or Local importance AEL and Altered AEL WW II defences / structures and remains Separation of Falmouth and Penryn Medieval Deer Park, Glasney Penryn Medieval field systems Post medieval china stone mill Leather Mill / china stone mill Leats lanes and other features suggestive of historic activity Fig. 2 shows the historic assets and the proposed allocations Step 2 Understand what contribution the site (in its current form) makes to the significance of the heritage asset(s) This section of the report sets out the importance of the assets nearby or within the wider setting of the proposed allocation, and summarises any contribution made towards the assets by the proposed allocation site. The Jewish and Congregationalist cemeteries at Ponsharden – Scheduled Ancient Monument The following is a summary of the asset from the Heritage gateway website: The monument includes a Jewish and a Congregationalist cemetery, both founded in about 1780 on a small spur at Ponsharden between Penryn and Falmouth on the south coast of Cornwall. The Jewish cemetery served the late 18th to mid-19th century Falmouth Jewish community. Extending to the east and south, the larger Congregationalist cemetery served that Nonconformist group in this area from the late 18th to early 20th century. Each cemetery contains a single grave added later in the 20th century. These cemeteries were established in about 1780 on land granted jointly to both religious communities by Sir Frances Basset, Lord de Dunstanville. The Jewish cemetery has a roughly rectangular plot, up to 22.5m WNW-ESE by 19m NNE-SSW, on the spur's western slope; the Congregationalist cemetery extends along the spine of the spur and is also near-rectangular, up to 48m NNE-SSW by 25m wide overall, truncated on the north west side by the Jewish cemetery. A steep scarp defines both cemeteries on the NNE side where the spur was cut back prior to 1841 to level the adjacent main road from Penryn to Falmouth; the scarp also created a small off-road bay, which in included within the scheduling but which now forms part of the adjacent verge, to serve the cemeteries' needs. The entrance to the Jewish cemetery is near its north west corner in a short wall extending from the NNE scarp. This wall and the entrance doorway show several structural phases relating to a former building considered to have been a small funerary chapel called an `ohel', shown behind the entrance on mid-19th - early 20th century maps. Surviving remains of this building include its initial- phase brick north wall and a later-phase rubble east wall. Beyond this entrance area, the Jewish cemetery is defined on the WNW and much of the SSW by mortared rubble walls up to 1.25m high. Its joint boundary with the Congregationalist cemetery is a hedgebank up to 1.3m high, with traces of rubble facing on each side. A low rubble wall also follows the top of the NNE scarp above its coursed vertical rubble revetment. The disused Jewish and Congregationalist cemeteries at Ponsharden survive substantially intact despite some limited damage due to prolonged neglect and minor vandalism. Their joint land grant provides an excellent example of the increasing acceptance of, and provisions for, minority religions and religious groups outside the Established Church during the later 18th century. The duration and pattern of use of each cemetery reflect well the periods of the growth, the flourishing and decline of their respective religious communities, each of which played an important and distinctive part in the economy and the social history of the area for which these cemeteries provide one of the few tangible survivals in the present landscape. Each cemetery also has features of significance in its own right. The Jewish cemetery is one of only 25 such extant burial grounds nationally whose foundation pre- dates 1830, of which the seven in the south west of England form the richest and best preserved regional group outside London. The Falmouth Jewish cemetery in particular provides a good, relatively little-disturbed example of such a burial ground, situated outside the urban area as required by Jewish law and with simple upright gravestones in the Ashkenazi tradition but unusual in its NNE-SSW orientation of the graves, against the tradition of aligning graves towards Jerusalem. The surviving evidence for an ohel is very rare. The cemetery also provides important evidence of the social development of the Jewish community both nationally and locally. The well-documented circumstances surrounding its foundation confirm its origins in the mid-18th century expansion of the Jewish community from London into the English provinces. Genealogical studies of those buried in this cemetery have revealed valuable information on family and economic relationships between the Falmouth Jewish community and those elsewhere in England and beyond. Similarly important is the evidence for the community's cultural development, in the clear influence of local non-Jewish traditions in some of the gravestones' shaping and in the gradual introduction of English onto the gravestones after 1838. Similar considerations apply to the significance of the Congregationalist cemetery. Although more frequent than Jewish cemeteries, the rapid decline in use of this cemetery in the late 19th century has, unusually, allowed the overall layout of its surviving physical features to remain unaltered since its detailed mapping in 1880.