Great Coxwell Neighbourhood Plan 2020 - 2031 1 Great Coxwell Parish Council March 2020 Great Coxwell Neighbourhood Plan, 2020 - 2031 March 2020 Contents 1 About Great Coxwell 5 1.1 Character of the parish 5 1.2 Geography 5 1.3 History 6 1.4 Parish Sub Areas (Map 1) 7 Sub Area A (Map 2) 7 Sub Area B 7 Sub Area C 7 1.5 Settlement pattern 9 Sub Area A 9 Sub Area B 9 Sub Area C 9 1.6 Boundaries of the area 11 1.7 Setting 11 2 About The Neighbourhood Plan 13 2.1 Introduction 13 2.2 Vision statement 14 2.3 Five principal themes 14 Built environment 14 Commercial activity 14 Transport and getting around 15 Community life 15 Environment and design quality (Maps 3, 4) 16 2.4 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) 20 2.5 Objectives 22 Built environment 22 Commercial activity 22 Transport and getting around 23 Community life 24 Environment and design quality 24 Great Coxwell Neighbourhood Plan, 2020 - 2031 March 2020 2.6 Delivery strategy 24 3 Policies and Community Priorities 27 3.1 Policies 27 Built environment (BE) 27 Commercial activity (CA) 28 Transport and getting around (TGA) 30 Community life (CL) 31 Environment and design quality (EDQ) (Map 5) 32 3.2 Policies relating to design 36 Vistas 36 Green spaces (Map 6) 36 Wooded areas, trees and churchyard 40 Linear spaces: footpaths, edges and verges (Map 7) 41 Roads and traffic 44 Positioning, plots 45 Drives, garages and parking plot size 46 Plot Size 46 Bulk of buildings 46 Roofs 47 Walls 47 Windows 48 Gardens and landscaping 48 Drainage 49 4 Appendices 52 4.1 List of maps and photographs 52 4.2 Summary of listed buildings and Scheduled Ancient Monuments 55 4.3 Bibliography & summary of evidence base 56 2 5 Section 1 About Great Coxwell 4 6 3 7 Great Coxwell Neighbourhood Plan, 2020 - 2031 March 2020 1 About Great Coxwell 1.1 Character of the parish 1.1.1 This is a quintessential English parish, with a village area, surrounded by agricultural and pastoral land, about 1½ miles from the centre of Faringdon. Farmland, stretching for approximately ½ mile, separates the two places. It is quiet and rural. From the crossroads, the village to the north, west and south is a cul-de-sac and this contributes to its character pedestrian precinct (photographs 23 - 25). Villagers stop to chat to each other. Car drivers are usuallyand influences very considerate traffic flow and and appreciate parking behaviour. that children A large and dogspart ofmay the be village walking is effectively in the roads. a The roads are also frequented by horse-riders; some of these are children. 1.1.2 There is a good community feel – many parishioners know and look out for each other: providing meals, shopping lifts, company, child care. People are friendly and helpful and welcoming to newcomers. 1.1.3 There is an active church, a Women’s Institute, book club, and other community groups running events such as coffee mornings on a weekly basis. Well-publicised Great Coxwell Village Teas are held monthly. A crib scene is staged each year at the Great Barn, and volunteers run special Art Weeks events in the village. There are frequent concerts (ranging from classical to folk) in the village. Artists’ studios in the village are opened for Oxfordshire Art Weeks in May annually. Visitors come from all over the country and overseas to visit the Great Barn, the church, and to enjoy some of the finest views of the Uffington White Horse. 1.2 Geography 1.2.1 This ancient village probably takes its name from the ‘holy’ well or stream rising to the south of the village of Little Coxwell. Great Coxwell and Little Coxwell might originally have comprised one settlement although they were separate entities by Domesday in the 11th century and are physically separated today by the A420 road. 1.2.2 The Great Coxwell village settlement is situated towards the south-east of the parish. The village is rich in historic buildings and vernacular styles (of local materials), with much of it designated as a Conservation Area. 1.2.3 To the north of the village and situated more centrally within the parish lies Badbury Hill, an Iron Age hill fort, a popular beauty spot with views to the Berkshire Downs to the south and across the Thames Valley to the north. (The National Trust has allocated a portion of the wood to the south-west for leisure mountain biking, appointed a ranger and initiated a regeneration programme in the ancient woodland.) This, together with the late 12th century church of St Giles (photograph 2), is situated on an outcrop of the limestone Corallian Ridge known locally as the golden ridge, which runs north-east to south-west through the parish. Much of the historic built environment, including the late 13th century Great Barn (photograph 5), a building of national importance, has been constructed using its stone. The village brook rising on the southern slopes of the Hill runs past and feeds a pond next to the Great Barn, thereafter, bounding and running through and alongside the properties to the west of the main village road, which include the Parish’s third public building, the Reading Room (photograph 3). Paragraph 175 of the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), February 2019, provides enhanced protection for irreplaceable habitats. 1.2.4 The village lies adjacent to the north slope of the Berkshire Downs, an area renowned for 5 Great Coxwell Neighbourhood Plan, 2020 - 2031 March 2020 horse breeding and training. Horses and riders are frequent users of the village street and bridleways. In former times, tracks and small roads led from the village in all directions out into the parish and beyond, and many of these routes still exist as public rights of way. 1.2.5 The main artery for road transport is the A420, linking Oxford and Swindon, which runs along the south-eastern parish boundary, ½ mile from the village (Map 1). 1.3 History 1.3.1 Badbury Hill: The hill fort known as Badbury Hill is Great Coxwell’s earliest monument. In the centre of the parish at its highest point, it was created to oversee and protect a landscape of scattered Early/Mid Iron Age homesteads, at least one of which was situated at the ancient southern end of the village where Iron Age pottery has been found. The western Vale of the White Horse, the western end of the Berkshire Downs, upper Thames Valley and the Cotswolds can be seen from the fort, into which cattle and other livestock would have been driven in times of threat. The National Trust owns and manages Badbury Hill and the ancient woodland surrounding it to the south-west and north-west, with public access, information and footpaths. 1.3.2 The Cock Well: Great and Little Coxwell are mentioned separately in Domesday and had become divided by Late Saxon times, but in earlier Saxon times must have formed two parts of one manor called after the spring, probably one of the county’s many holy wells, still to be seen south of Little Coxwell. The origin of the name is obscure and possibly British. 1.3.3 The stream and Holloway: A (nameless) stream, a tributary of the River Cole, runs south from The well-preserved hollow way gives access to the village from the north of the parish. Badbury Hill. Where the hill slope flattens the village grew up on the east side of this stream. 1.3.4 St Giles Church: The situation of the church of St Giles, on an outcrop of the Corallian ridge overlooking the western Vale and the Downs, suggests an early use of the site; perhaps there was an earlier, timber church here. The present church was built in the late 12th century and is little changed. 1.3.5 Earliest village and East Field: The (nameless) village street, the only village thoroughfare before modern times, narrows and curves around the Corallian outcrop below the church. This is the oldest preserved part of the village, with a village pump on a tiny green in front of one of the houses (please see the Map 4 of Great Coxwell village, showing the boundary of the Conservation Area). 1.3.6 Great Barn and Court House: The Great Barn at the north end of the village is a Grade One listed scheduled monument of national importance. It was built in the 13th century to store the grain belonging to a thriving 13th century estate that once supported Beaulieu Abbey in monks. The adjacent 16th century (possibly medieval) and later Court House may incorporate remainsHampshire. of the Many medieval of the grange.villagers The would Barn have was worked loved by in William the grange’s Morris, fields who for brought the Cistercian his guests to wonder at the structure, calling it 'unapproachable in its dignity'. 1.3.7 Radnor Estate: The Coleshill Estate was the seat of the Earls of Radnor from the 18th century. The Coleshill and Buscot estates (7000 acres, with 11 let farms and 850 acres of woodland) were left to the National Trust in 1956 at the death of Ernest Cook, the last owner. The entire western half of the parish was part of the Radnor estate, is farmed organically, is inalienable and is under the National Trust’s conservation management. 1.3.8 The Chapel and Chapel House: 18th century listed Chapel House on the east side of the village street is a reminder of the Nonconformist Chapel that once stood to its north.