Your Place Matters

Your Place Matters: Community Planning Toolkit for the Future of Rural Buildings and their Setting Authorship and Copyright This toolkit has been written by Emily Hathaway of Worcestershire County Council Archive and Archaeology Service and Jeremy Lake of Historic England.

Copy editing and graphic design This toolkit has been copy edited and designed by Sarah Austin MSc.

Acknowledgements Many thanks to the following individuals and organisations for their constructive comments and suggestions in support of this publication: Lara Bishop, Steve Bloomfield, Pete Boland, Clifton upon Teme Neighbourhood Planning Steering Group, Jack Hanson, Leigh and Bransford Neighbourhood Planning Steering Group, Cody Levine, Adam Mindykowski, Aisling Nash, Maggi Noke, Tom Rogers, John France and Carol Wood.

Thanks also goes to Damian Grady from Historic England’s Aerial Reconnaissance, for his beautiful aerial photographs which capture the diverse character of the county’s settlements and landscapes.

Cover image This photograph of Manor Road in Little Comberton, records buildings in the historic core of the village, dating from the 16th century to the 19th century. The buildings reflect both local vernacular traditions and national trends in architectural style and are set close to the road within narrow building plots that back directly onto farmland creating a sense of connectivity to the rural landscape. Little Comberton, like many small, nucleated villages in Worcestershire, is characterised by a compact and well defined core with clusters of wayside cottages and larger, detached houses and farmsteads, which form a linear building line, interspersed with green space, including traditional orchard. The strong building line contributes significantly to the attractive visual character of the village, which is designated as a Conservation Area. 20th century infill and expansion has developed to the north of the Conservation Area, occurring between the denser area of settlement, around the medieval church, and more scattered settlement to the north, along Wick Road. Photograph © Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service. Section 1 Introducing the Toolkit for your Community-led Plan Overview ...... 1 Planning background ...... 4 Research background ...... 5 Constructive conservation and new housing ...... 5 Living in local landscapes ...... 7 Rural life: putting people into historic places ...... 8 Ways of working and living in rural Worcestershire ...... 10

Section 2 A step-by step toolkit to understanding your area and producing a community-led plan Overview ...... 12 Stage 1: Getting started ...... 14 Exercise A: First impressions ...... 14 Exercise B: Use maps to identify how your area has changed .. 15 Exercise C: Adding the detail ...... 19 Stage 2: Buildings in their setting ...... 23 Exercise D: Buildings in their setting: what are the defining characteristics of your local area? ...... 23 Exercise E: Use field survey to further deepen your understanding of the buildings within your local area ...... 26 Stage 3: Your place, your choice ...... 29 Exercise F: Create a landscape character assessment for your community-led plan ...... 31 Exercise G: Create policies for your community-led plan ...... 33

Section 3 Resources Information services ...... 37 Glossary of terms ...... 40 Reading List ...... 43 Appendix 1. Designation checklist ...... 45 Appendix 2. Landscape Character Assessment: Area case study ...... 47 Appendix 3. Examples of policies from Neighbourhood Plans ...... 57 Appendix 4. Assessing development proposals ...... 61 1

Section 1

Introducing the Toolkit for your Community-led Plan

Overview

All rural places and buildings are a This toolkit is aimed at community reflection of how people have lived, planning groups and the professional worked, thought and related to advisors who support them, and can each other throughout history. Rural also be used by those undertaking settlement is at the core of our research into individual areas. It responds everyday lives and provides a base to a need identified in workshops and from which we view and experience national research (Locus Consulting, the wider landscape. The villages, 2013), for guidance which helps hamlets, farmsteads, and houses that communities and researchers to we call home, connect us to each understand place as the result of past other and to our shared sense of history. change, and the opportunities that this offers for the future. Understanding the series of changes that have created a place over time, It will help you step back and see can inspire and guide future changes, your area in its broad context, and by including the scale, style, form and following the step-by-step exercises, location of new development, as well will enable you to identify the historic as opportunities presented by the character and distinctive qualities of natural and historic environment. your area. Through assessing the character of your local landscape you will gain a deeper understanding that 2

will enable you to identify, evaluate • Use this fresh understanding to and guide opportunities for change. inspire and guide your Community-led This new understanding can then be Plan and help ensure that new used to develop locally tailored and development responds to local informed policies within a community- character and distinctiveness, in line led plan that can be referred to when with national and local planning planning applications are submitted in policy. response to development opportunities. Trouble understanding the terminology? Using a new understanding The roles of different organisations, ‘Your Place Matters: Community and the language used by heritage Planning Toolkit for the Future of Rural professionals, is often specialised. Buildings and their Setting’ has been A glossary in Section 3 of this toolkit designed by Worcestershire Archive provides definitions of terms which and Archaeology Service and Historic may be newly introduced or England, in collaboration with unknown to you. community groups to help you:

• Identify and then champion the distinctive characteristics of your area, focusing on how all buildings of different dates are sited and experienced within the landscape.

• Identify and assess the forms of settlement, buildings and other landscape features that make up the whole environment, afford habitats for wildlife and make it special for people. 3

Using the Toolkit and Guidance documents This Toolkit document is supported by a Guidance document ‘Your Place Matters: A Guide to Understanding Buildings and their Setting in Rural Worcestershire’. This complementary document provides detailed information on the broad range of rural building types and their settings within their settlement and wider landscape.

These two documents are designed to work together through linking relevant information found within the supporting Guidance, with the Exercises found in Section 2 of this Toolkit.

This Toolkit document is also provided with hyperlinked tabs, that when selected will conveniently take you to relevant information found within another page of the document.

Resources Appendix Exercises

Toolkit document, hyperlink tabs 4

Planning background

The Localism Act (2011) gave new It stresses the importance of: rights and powers to local communities over planning and setting the priorities • New development making a for their own areas. The Neighbourhood positive contribution to local Development Plan (NDP) is, at present, character and distinctiveness, the primary mechanism for community- drawing on ‘the contribution made led planning. NDPs should support the by the historic environment to the strategic development needs set out character of place’ (2012, 30). in the Local Plan and plan positively The historic environment is defined to support local development as resulting from ‘the interaction of (as outlined in paragraph 16 of the people and places through time’ National Planning Policy Framework). (2012, 52).

Neighbourhood Development Plans • Conserving heritage assets in a can empower local communities to: manner appropriate to their significance and putting them to • Set planning policies that can be viable uses consistent with their used in determining planning conservation. Heritage assets applications. include listed buildings, and other places and archaeological sites • Grant planning permission through which are considered to have Neighbourhood Development national or local heritage interest. Orders and Community Right to The more important the heritage Build Orders for specific development asset, the greater the weight that which complies with the order. should be given to its conservation and the impact of any development The National Planning Policy on its setting. Framework (NPPF) places good design, local character, and conservation of • Achieving sustainable development the historic and natural environment whereby economic, social and at the heart of sustainable environmental gains are all delivered development and good planning. through the planning system. 5

Historic England (formerly English which takes into account the Heritage) has also developed interdependent relationships between Constructive Conservation as the the historic environment, natural overall term for its positive and environment, economy, health and collaborative approach to conservation well-being, offers a strong foundation that focuses on actively managing for understanding how culture has change. The aims of this approach shaped England’s rich array of are to recognise and reinforce the landscapes, which in turn will help historic significance of places, while strengthen the recognition, assessment accommodating the changes and protection of those buildings, necessary to ensure their continued monuments and areas considered to use and enjoyment. The recent Farrell be most special. Review of Architecture and the Built Environment (also called ‘Our Future in Place’) has also concluded that Constructive conservation protection of the heritage that we and new housing most value, should not be at odds with making the ordinary better, The scale, form and setting of new through seeing, ‘the potential of what development can pose different is already there, the value of place, risks and opportunities to the historic identity and sustainability’ (2015, 108). environment of your area. The intensification of large scale development pressures on Research background Worcestershire’s, often fragile, rural landscapes is driving the need to ‘Your Place Matters’ provides a understand the whole historic framework for deepening an environment so that the historic understanding of a whole place and character of places can be used as discovering and enjoying what makes a framework against which proposed one place different from another. changes can be measured. This It supports new approaches to approach is not intended to fossilise considering the benefits offered by places or encourage imitation, but our environment, as exemplified by rather nurture opportunities following the Ecosystem Services. This fresh approach, principles of constructive conservation. 6

The different types of new housing villages. Yet there is also potential for development that occurs within substantial conservation gain through England are explained below. the resulting restoration project. Further information can be found in, ‘Evaluating the impact of housing Settlement expansion / urban development on the historic environment’ extension, these are key options for (LUC and Haynes, 2014). Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) in delivering projected housing growth Conversion / restoration of where there is no capacity for non-residential historic buildings for substantial infill or redevelopment new housing, these schemes form a within existing settlement boundaries. significant element of new housing Such development has significant development within the rural potential for impacts on the setting of landscape, for example, the re-use historic towns and heritage assets in of industrial buildings and traditional the urban fringe. Once allocated in farm buildings. the development plan, the principle of development in that location is In-fill development, is the insertion of established, it is therefore critical that new development within the form / a strategic assessment is made of grain of historic settlements these potential impacts on the (nucleated, hamlets, isolated houses historic environment. and farmsteads). New settlement is the establishment Insertion of new housing in historic of new, discrete communities outside areas of heritage value, such as established settlement boundaries, historic gardens and designed for example, ‘eco-villages’ and ‘garden landscapes, can potentially act as suburbs’. These pose the additional enabling development to fund challenges of infrastructure, service restoration of an associated building. and amenity provision. Development of this type within areas of sensitive historic landscape character, ‘Enabling development’ is development has significant potential for adverse that would be unacceptable in effects, for example, upon relic field planning terms but for the fact that it patterns and settings of historic town/ would bring public benefits sufficient 7

to justify it being carried out, and and understanding how its component which could not otherwise be parts fit together, is important in order achieved. Housing within the curtilage to manage and design landscapes of historic buildings and designated that are as rich and diverse as they landscapes are often an attractive can possibly be. Appreciation of prospect for developers seeking a what makes an area distinctive will ‘unique selling point’ and have potential benefit from stepping back and value in addressing conservation considering how its patterns of deficits for assets that have no other settlement, its landscape and its viable prospect of a sustainable buildings mix together. future. Close monitoring of delivery against conservation objectives is a The basic patterns of settlement in significant challenge in such cases. rural areas have developed from before the medieval period, varying from areas with large villages and few Living in local landscapes farmsteads to areas with scattered farmsteads, houses and hamlets. The character of our everyday Fields, open land, woodland and landscapes, and what makes them industrial sites developed in close locally distinctive, results from how relationship with these patterns people have lived, worked and of settlement and are crossed by thought over time. This is captured in routeways to enable local land use or a useful definition of landscape access to more distant places provided by the European Landscape including markets. A diversity of crafts Convention as, ‘An area, as perceived and trading patterns, changes in by people, whose character is the religious practice, and increasingly result of the action and interaction of a desire to simply enjoy the benefits natural and/or human factors’ (2007, of living in the countryside, have also Art. 1). This international treaty seeks shaped rural England. Which in turn, to promote landscape protection, have provided the setting for buildings management and planning across of different dates, styles and materials, Europe, and to organise European-wide as well as the fauna and flora, traditions, co-operation on landscape issues. food and dialect, loved by their Seeing the landscape as a whole, residents and visitors. 8

The two photographs below, show Rural life: putting people into contrasts in settled landscapes in historic places Worcestershire. Continuing and new ways of living and working require housing and other facilities that form the building blocks of settlement growth. Besides reflecting the skills and lifestyles of local people, these have all developed in response to changing ideas and developments at a national and even international level. This is The east and south east is dominated by evidenced by: large nucleated villages with few isolated farmsteads, that mostly date from after the • Farming in Worcestershire, as in the enclosure of open fields. Photograph © Historic England NMR29433_013 rest of England, has affected more than 70% of the land area, requiring fields for the efficient management of crops and livestock and farmsteads to house farming families, finish products for market and produce manure to fertilise the fields.

• Farmers and rural communities have also made use of common The remainder of the county has fewer, land for fuel and livestock, the smaller, villages and higher densities of small proportion that now survives isolated farmsteads and hamlets, which being often held in high regard as have developed along an intricate network of roads, in areas with a complex mix of places for recreation and wildlife. woodland, common and heath. The management of woodland for Photograph © Historic England NMR29434_009 fuel and timber has declined since the late 19th century, but is now set to expand. Hedgerow trees are 9

also a significant element of landscape in many parts of the county, and were an important source of building timber.

• Mining, quarrying, manufacture and trade have been enormously important in England’s development from the medieval period in the form of mines, quarries, workshops, shops and road, rail and canal networks.

• Households in areas with the highest densities of rural settlement often practised a variety of trades and crafts.

• Demand for houses with their gardens has generally changed A 17th century farmstead (top photograph) in response to smaller household and 20th century development (bottom photograph) on Rye Street in Birtsmorton. sizes, more living space and the Photographs © Worcestershire Archive and desire of many to live in rural areas. Archaeology Service. This has become increasingly possible by faster means of transport and access to digital communications.

• Places of Worship, community buildings and spaces have also developed in response to the needs and character of communities. 10

Ways of working and living in rural Worcestershire

Farming Horticulture Enclosed land worked by farms Orchards, market gardening and covers more than 70% of the county’s hop gardens developed from the landscape. The largest farms developed 17th century, increasing as the use of in the east of Worcestershire, where common land declined and reaching production of corn was concentrated. a peak in the early 20th century, to The remainder of the county is meet increasing demands for fresh characterised by an underpinning produce in developing rural and urban pattern of small to medium scale markets. Thereafter followed a gradual farms and smallholdings. decline as markets looked increasingly to cheaper imports from countries Farmland has expanded into areas such as the United States, Australia covered by woodland and heathland, and New Zealand. but large blocks of both, (especially in the north and west of the county), Crafts, Trade and Industry remained into the 18th century. Many A large proportion of the rural of the smallest farms and smallholders population made a living in various benefitted from by-employment in trades, industries and the transportation small-scale industry and trades, access of goods. Significant rural industries to common land for their animals, included coal and ironstone mining, and harvesting fuel. Only fragments salt production, quarrying, textiles, of heathland have survived, due to glove making and the manufacture their enclosure in the late 18th and of glass, nails, agricultural implements, 19th centuries. Woodland remained needles, fish hooks and fishing tackle. an important source of building Most rural communities also engaged material and fuel, right up until the in standard trades such as shoe 19th century, and large blocks making, tailoring, carpentry, building continue to dominate industrial trades and the import or export of landscapes, with less productive soils, products for local farms. Also a such as the Wyre Forest. significant percentage of the rural population, and in-particular women, were employed in domestic service. 11

Heavy horses, helping with the harvest, in the fields opposite the Park Gate Inn, Stourbridge Road, Kidderminster. 1928. Worcestershire Photographic Society 899:156, catalogue number 77601 © Worcestershire County Council.

The hop harvest, circa 1912. Worcestershire Photographic Society 899:156, catalogue number 78400. Copyright unknown. 12

Section 2

A step-by-step toolkit to understanding your area and producing a community-led plan

Overview

The Toolkit is divided into three stages, • Identifying and assessing the each comprising exercises that build buildings and other features that upon the question-led approach contribute to local character. advocated in Building for Life 12 (2015), Knowing Your Place (2011), and 2. Evaluate the issues and opportunities Placecheck (1998), (see reading list). for change this historic character offers. In partnership with the supporting Guidance ‘Your Place Matters: 3. Champion your local landscape A Guide to Understanding Buildings within the context of community- and their Setting in Rural Worcestershire’, led plan policies. this step-by-step Toolkit is designed to help you: 4. Guide development proposals to ensure that they respond to local 1. Consider what makes your area character and distinctiveness, in distinctive by: line with national and local planning policy. • Using maps and other information to appraise your whole area and identify how it has changed. 13

As you work through the exercises, make good use of the ‘Your Place Matters: A Guide to Rural Buildings and their Setting’ document, for essential information on the broad range of rural building types, settlement patterns and landscape features in Worcestershire.

The stages and their outcomes are comprised as follows:

Stage 1: Getting Started Stage 1: Outcomes Exercise A: First Impressions. These exercises will enable you to Exercise B: Use maps to identify how gain a good understanding of the your area has changed. character of the landscape and Exercise C: Adding the detail. settlement in your parish. The exercises are research led and will generate evidence that will inform Exercises F and G.

Stage 2: Buildings in their Setting Stage 2: Outcomes Exercise D: Buildings in their setting: Exercises D and E, focus in on the what are the defining characteristics built environment of your parish. They of your local area? encourage you to identify the character Exercise E: Use field survey to further of buildings and their settings, and deepen your understanding of the critically assess their value. These buildings within your local area. exercises will generate further evidence that will inform Exercises F and G.

Stage 3: Your place, your choice Stage 3: Outcomes Exercise F: Create a landscape The information and evidence that character assessment for your you have gathered in the previous community-led plan. exercises will now inform your Exercise G: Create policies for your landscape character assessment. community-led plan. This in turn provides the context for the policies within your community-led plan. 14

Stage 1: Getting started

Exercise A: First impressions

Overview This is a warm-up exercise and can be done inside in one or more groups.

With heritage and landscape in 3. What do you think your local area mind, work in groups and discuss the would have looked like 20 years, following: 50 years and 100 years ago?

1. What makes the place where you 4. What would you like it to look like live, special to you and your in 50 years time? community? Top Tips Think about how you feel when you This exercise works best if a range approach home, and about which of individuals, with a variety of features are familiar to you. ‘Features’ experiences, are represented. If you could be anything; winding, sunken are concerned that different groups lanes, the use of a particular type of are not represented go out and ask building material, or a specific them! view or landmark. Consider which features make your place distinct Collate key words and thoughts on from another. It is the combination paper. This does not have to be a of these features which form the lengthy piece of text, broad statements landscape character of your local area. and even bullet points are fine!

2. How do buildings contribute to A spokesperson, from each group, making your place special? can be elected to report back their group’s thoughts and ideas. 15

Exercise B: Use maps to identify how your area has changed

Overview Resources: The 18th and 19th centuries saw • The National Library of Scotland has the formation of most of the English produced a free resource which landscape as we see it today. The includes a range of digitised, main sources of information for these historic maps (dated 1842-1952), changes are maps documenting the that can be overlaid on a modern details of enclosure in the late 18th map or satellite image, covering and early 19th centuries, and the mid the entire United Kingdom. 19th century assessment of holdings during the survey of the Tithe • old-maps.co.uk is another excellent Commissioners. online archive of maps, dating from the late 19th century to the Changes to the landscape can be late 20th century. understood by looking at, and comparing, historic and modern • Historic Environment Records and maps. The extent of later growth, local Archive Services will have within a historic settlement area copies of historic Ordnance Survey (modern infill) or on its edge (modern maps and earlier maps, such as expansion), can be determined by Tithe maps, which you can arrange overlying a modern Ordnance to see. Survey map on late 19th century or early 20th century Ordnance Survey • Worcestershire Historic Environment maps. Modern development can Record retains a complete either disregard or complement collection of transcribed tithe maps, earlier patterns of landscape and along with their associated schedules. settlement. A number of maps have been digitised and are available to view at The Worcestershire Tithe and Inclosure Map Project . This website also includes some digitised estate maps. 16

Comparing maps showing a dispersed settlement pattern

Pre 20th century building Map © Crown copyright and database Map © Crown copyright and database rights Worcs XXXIII NW, 1905. Ordnance rights Ordnance Survey 100024230. Survey 100024230. The historic map above shows a Christ Church (this was a Chapel of the parish of Broadheath, with Ease, which later became part of the two dominant areas of settlement school), a school, a chapel, The Bell surrounded by clusters of farmsteads, Hotel and a smithy. The second and the fields beyond. The first dominant dominant area is concentrated around area of settlement, in the centre of a remnant of unenclosed common the map, from ‘Peachley’ in the land to the south west. When comparing north west, to ‘The Knoll’ in the south with the modern map above, the east, has developed along the main settlement around the common Worcester to Martley Road and to a appears to have retained its inherited lesser extent along Bell Lane to the character, despite there being south west. This interrupted row is moderate infill and expansion along characterised by clusters of farmsteads the common edge. However, change and dwellings with no individual core to the northern settlement has been or focal point and it appears likely more dramatic, with significant loss of that settlement here developed traditional farmsteads and development around several manorial holdings or of large blocks of uniform 20th century farmsteads. The map indicates that housing north of the main road, thus at the turn of the 20th century, the substantially modifying its earlier, ‘village’ was reasonably serviced with scattered character. 17

Comparing maps showing a nucleated settlement pattern

Pre 20th century building

Map © Landmark digital mapping based on Map © Crown copyright and database Ordnance Survey 2nd Edition, 1904. rights 2016 Ordnance Survey 100024230. (Landmark reference number 39so9350 Original scale: 25” (1:2500)).

The historic core of a nucleated from the beginning of the 20th century settlement is easy to identify on historic to the present day. It is clear there mapping by looking at the pattern has been a loss of traditional orchard, and form of buildings and their plots. as well as a loss of mature parkland In most cases the historic core represents trees to the west of Peopleton, also the extent of a settlement by the an increase in woodland, and beginning of the 19th century, it may transformation of the large farmsteads have a high concentration of listed that developed on the village edges. buildings or be a designated It is also possible to identify the early Conservation Area. 20th century field pattern and note the later amalgamation of fields, and The historic map above shows like many other loosely nucleated Peopleton as it was recorded on the settlements, there has been a growth Second Edition Ordnance Survey of development, as evidenced by map, dated 1904. By comparing this the open areas within the village map with the modern map of 2016, it having been infilled with later housing. is possible to easily identify changes in the landscape that have occurred 18

Now identify how your area has Are houses and other buildings changed over the last century by placed close together or more comparing modern to historic spread out, with defined private Ordnance Survey maps or public spaces in-between?

1. Use your maps to identify the • Access and routeways broad character of your area and What are the patterns of movement examine how it has changed into through, in and around the area? its present form. Are there any areas Are there any significant which have remained unchanged connections and nodes? over the last 150 years? How is the settlement pattern Which areas have changed the connected by routeways for most? vehicles and pedestrians? Can you tell if buildings were 2. Consider change or continuity of intended to face towards or the following features: away from routeways?

• Landscape Top Tips To what extent have inherited It’s easy to get overwhelmed by patterns of landscape changed, too many maps. There is no need to or remained constant, since the examine every map of your parish. end of the 19th century? Some will be more useful than others For example, fields, woodland, and you may wish to narrow down unenclosed land, water courses your list of maps to those that will be and designed landscape. the most help in answering your questions. • Settlement and layout Do houses and other buildings in Remember maps can use different your area mostly cluster in a village scales and different symbols to show (nucleated settlement type), or the same feature. Map regression are they scattered across smaller can be made simpler if all the maps settlements and farmsteads have been reduced or enlarged to (dispersed settlement type)? the same scale. 19 Resources Exercise C: Adding the detail (desk based)

Overview Deepen your understanding of the landscape by using other available resources including Landscape Characterisation, Historic environment and biological record resources, and aerial photographs.

Aerial photographs, like maps, can provide an overview of buildings This aerial photograph depicts a large scale, within their wider landscape and isolated farmstead, located to the west of settlement context. They can reveal the village of Naunton Beauchamp. The current land use practices and farmstead is on the site of a small medieval disclose stories of earlier landscapes, manor, and the earthwork remains of a late 15th or early 16th century moated site are in the form of archaeological remains. recorded to the east (the right). The These can be identified on aerial surrounding landscape is dominated by photographs as earthworks (standing long, linear earthworks (ridge and furrow) remains, visible on the surface of the under pasture. These are the result of ploughing when the land around the ground) and as crop marks, soil marks settlement was open and intensively farmed. and parch marks (buried or levelled Photograph © Historic England NMR 27792/019. remains, hidden under the ground). Medieval building remains, e.g. crofts Aerial photography Resources: and tofts and moated sites, survive as (also see Resources link above) both above and below ground archaeology, reflecting different • Google Earth and Bing Maps are phases in the development and web mapping services which allow pattern of settlement, particularly you to explore your area with an between the 12th and 17th centuries. aerial, bird’s eye and street view.

• Historic England, Historic Environment Records and Archive Services have access to a wide range of historic and modern aerial photographs. 20 Resources

Landscape Characterisation Landscape Characterisation Resources: methodologies are used to assess (also see Resources link above) broad patterns of landscape. They will help you to assess your local landscape • National Character Area Profiles within its wider strategic context. (NCAs) provide a broad understanding of the historic Did you know? development and natural history A landscape character assessment of a landscape. can provide a useful narrative of a landscape; how it has developed • Landscape Character Assessment over time and how it may change in (LCA) is a methodology used for the future. It can be used to describe identifying and describing the specific character areas which have variation in the character of the been identified through their landscape. It also sets out strategies combination of characteristic features. and guidelines for the protection, management and development Landscape character assessments can of individual landscape types. You be undertaken at a range of scales, can explore the Worcestershire from national to local, and provide a Landscape Character Assessment useful planning tool which will enable data here. you to assess your local landscape within its wider strategic context and • Farmstead Characterisation plan positively for the future. considers the reuse of traditional farm buildings and the sustainable Since late 2014 a partnership project, development of farmsteads, funded by the Historic England West through identifying their historic Midlands Regional Capacity Building character, significance and potential Grant scheme has provided workshops for change. The Worcestershire in ‘planning for the historic environment’ Farmsteads Assessment Framework and guidance on ‘Producing a is available here and is fully Landscape Character Statement integrated within the Worcestershire for your Neighbourhood Plan’ for Historic Environment Record. communities undertaking their own Neighbourhood Plans (see Reading List in Resources link above). 21 Resources

Historic environment and biological and professionals seeking to record resources: understand and manage the (also see Resources link above) environment through planning and development control and • The National Heritage List for in agri-environment. As well as England is an online searchable providing you with information, database of designated heritage local records can act as a assets. depositary for your research. Sharing your work will help to • Conservation Areas are areas, cultivate and enrich the identified by local authorities, resource for the benefit of all. which are considered to have special architectural or historic • Many areas also have local interest. Most Conservation Areas organisations to support have a ‘statement’ or ‘area geoconversation. appraisal’. Top Tip • Areas of Outstanding Natural Mapping broad landscape patterns Beauty (AONBs) are nationally and characteristics will help you designated landscapes. Most to better consider the issues and AONBs have a management plan opportunities for change. which sets out its vision for future conservation and management.

• Local Historic Environment Records (HERs) and Biological Records support a database of known records, which are often mapped on an integrated Geographical Information System (GIS). Local records are an essential source of information for local community projects, special interest groups, as well as individual researchers 22

These Historic Environment Record Key maps show the distribution of listed Conservation area Listed building buildings and non-listed buildings, Pre 20th century building recorded on late 19th century Ordnance Survey maps, in both the nucleated settlement (top) and dispersed settlement, (bottom) considered in Exercise B.

The maps clearly show that listed buildings, and pre 20th century buildings, are heavily concentrated within the historic core of the nucleated settlement (which is a designated Map © Crown copyright and database rights Conservation Area), whereas they Ordnance Survey 100024230. are scattered across the wider area of dispersed settlement, reflecting development along main routeways and on the common edge.

Map © Crown copyright and database rights Ordnance Survey 100024230. 23

Stage 2: Buildings in their setting

Exercise D: Buildings in their setting: what are the defining characteristics of your local area?

Overview Buildings form the backdrop of our The setting of buildings - the surroundings rural landscape and are central to in which they were designed to be our lives; they are also incredibly seen and experienced - can have an diverse. Some buildings and spaces, enormous impact on the desirability whether they are nationally designated of a place. Setting is not fixed and or not, are perceived by local may change as a building and its communities and visitors to have surroundings develop over time. special value. ‘Your Place Matters’ Harm to a designated heritage asset, will help you to identify what makes through development within its setting, your area locally distinctive through is assessed against the same policies consideration of all buildings, within in the National Planning Policy their wider settlement and landscape Framework (2012, 31) as for physical context, and not just listed buildings, harm to the significance of designated which are already given great heritage assets generally. consideration in the planning process.

What are the defining characteristics Using the information collated in of buildings and their settings in your Stage 1 and the supplementary local area? guidance ‘Your Place Matters: This is a desk-based exercise which A Guide to Understanding Buildings will help you identify broad patterns and their Setting in Rural Worcestershire’, of buildings in their landscape setting consider change or continuity of the which, in turn, may inform individual following features listed on page 24: character areas within your parish. 24 Appendix 1

1. Domestic Buildings. 4. Buildings with an important community function. As well as houses with their gardens, there will be a wide variety of other Apart from churches and chapels, buildings with their own private, what other buildings have an functional and community areas, important community function? including farmsteads and farmyards, Village halls, sports pavilions and churches and churchyards and other buildings may have a industrial sites with their own significant role in their local working areas. How do different communities. Are they located buildings relate to different spaces in the centre of the settlement, in and around settlement, and to on its edge, or distant from it? wider patterns of land beyond? Are domestic buildings of different 5. Landmark buildings. dates clustered together in distinctive areas? or more spread out? Are there any landmark buildings? Churches and other buildings may 2. The functions of building and spaces. have significance as prominent landmarks in the landscape, or be regarded as particularly significant 3. Public open spaces. in local stories.

Are any buildings sited around or 6. Buildings and Habitat. within public open spaces such as greens, recreation land or Are any buildings or structures known commonland used by the public? to provide valuable habitat for wildlife? Can you tell if buildings were intended to face towards or away 7. Designations. from public open space or historic open land? How do listed buildings and other Are buildings open to public view designated sites fit within the wider set along, or within, their property historic character of the area? boundaries? 25

Top Tip Why not annotate one or two A3 maps with key words and thoughts, as illustrated below for the parish of Lower Broadheath.

Pre 20th century building 26

Exercise E: Use field survey to further deepen your understanding of the buildings within your local area.

Overview Now that you’ve assessed the broad patterns and characteristics of your settlement using your maps, aerial photographs and other available resources, this exercise uses field survey to further deepen your understanding.

Use field survey to further deepen Top Tip your understanding of the buildings For greater detail consider undertaking within your local area. a ‘notation-based’ characterisation Go out and walk, cycle or drive exercise, as illustrated on pages 29 around your parish with the same and 30. Notation mapping is an question ‘Focusing on buildings, effective method to systematically what are the defining characteristics record the features and key of my local area?’ in mind. characteristics that you believe make your area distinctive. This mapping Take a modern and historic Ordnance technique and the symbols used, Survey map with you. As you move have been developed by the Bristol around, take a selection of Historic Environment Record, for their photographs of key buildings / ‘Our Place’, neighbourhood planning groups of buildings / building types, project (2013). in their setting, which reflect the character and local distinctiveness of your parish. Make a note on your map, of where the photographs were taken and the direction you were looking. Also use your map to record key views, to and from, and within settlements. 27

Consider the following questions, • What are the defining characteristics and build upon the information of settlement boundaries? and evidence gathered in previous Are boundaries hedged, fenced Exercises. or walled? Are they functional, decorative or both? 1. Landscape and Settlement: • Is settlement defined by any other • How does the landscape make notable landscaping features, for you feel? Is it open and expansive example verges, borders or trees? or intimate? Things to think about include the topography, height 2. Buildings and their Settings: of boundaries, character of routeways, vegetation and the • Are buildings roadside or set back density of buildings. within their plots?

• How do you think this might have • What are the key characteristics changed over the last 20, 50 or of buildings in your area? Consider 100 years? broad characteristics such as type, scale, massing, height, orientation, • How has this developed over layout and materials. time and has it been affected by recent change, such as new • Are there areas marked by a development, the loss of woodland similarity of date, type or form; or or orchards, the planting of new are they marked by a jumble of woodland or the growth of buildings and styles? roadside vegetation and trees? • How do buildings relate to other • Are there any natural landmarks key features of the landscape, associated with settlement or such as the geology? visible from it? 28

• How do buildings/groups of buildings • How do streetscape features make you feel? Do they make a contribute to the character of the positive, neutral or negative area? For example, letter boxes, contribution to the character and telephone boxes, wells, memorials, distinctiveness of the parish? signage.

• Are any buildings/groups of buildings • Are there any special views looking considered to have special into, out of or through settlement? significance and why? Think about how a building or a group of buildings was designed to • Are there any landmark buildings be seen and experienced. associated with settlement, or visible from it?

Photograph key buildings/groups of buildings/building types in their setting.

Photographs © Worcestershire County Council. 29

Notation mapping symbols for Heritage and Historic Environment. (derived from the ‘Know Your Place, Bristol’ Project). Using these notations populate your map with the features and characteristics that you believe make your area distinctive. Feel free to annotate the map with further information, or create custom symbols where necessary.

Distinctive boundary Significant local open i.e. hedgerow or wall. or green space.

Distinctive line of trees in a Boundary between boundary or in the open. character zones.

Biological landmark. Distinctive group of historic buildings (i.e. by date or style).

Watercourse. Locally significant building.

Distinctive body of water Scale of building i.e. ponds. (number of storeys).

Narrow, enclosed and/or Orientation - the main sunken lane or street. elevation and the way it faces.

Wide, open lane or street. Built landmark.

Extensive view (location Custom notation. point and direction). 30

Detail of part of schematic map with notation.

Stage 3: Your place, your choice

Exercise F: Create a landscape character assessment for your community-led plan

Overview The character and form of different Character Statements should: areas presents different constraints and opportunities for development. • Be concise with a clear structure Identifying and championing the that details key characteristics and distinctive characteristics of your area the future vision and objectives for through strong locally-tailored policy your area. It is a planning document can inspire and guide development and not an academic exercise. to more effectively respond to individual place, in line with national • Aim to build better understanding and local planning policy. between developers, local authority planners, The Parish Council and Assessing issues and opportunities the local community. It should be for change, and deciding whether engaging and accessible to all. development proposals respect local character and distinctiveness, • Reflect the relationships and inter- is not easy and should always be actions between different features. considered with the following This is fundamentally important to questions in mind: describing the character of the area and designing landscapes ‘What makes this place special to that are the richest and most you and your community?’ diverse as they can be.

‘What would you like it to look like in • Aim to reflect the views of different 50 years time?’ groups within the community.

• Consider the social, economic and cultural benefits of retention or change. 32 Resources Appendix 2

Now go ahead and identify, map, and describe the broad character of your parish; including any individual character areas.

Do not make generic statements. A character statement should reflect your local landscape and describe the qualities and characteristics that are valued by local people and visitors. This does not mean that your character statement must provide a hugely detailed explanation of different features.

You should use all of the information gathered in the previous exercises, and focus on how all buildings are sited and experienced. Use maps and photographs to illustrate key features and characteristics.

Take a look at the Reading List, and the Landscape Character Assessment: Area Case Study, in Appendix 2, of the Resources Section, for examples and further guidance.

Maps © Crown copyright and database rights Ordnance Survey 100024230. Photographs © Worcestershire County Council. 33 Resources

Exercise G: Create policies for your community-led plan

Overview Your landscape character assessment is now going to be used to set out policy requirements for new development in your parish. Remember your policy, along with national and local planning policy, will be central to the planning decisions in your area.

Creating your policies • How sensitive is an area to changes Policies should be clear, positive in those patterns? and capable of being delivered. Working through the following • Could new development harm/ questions may help: enhance the setting of a historic building/group of buildings? • Where has development occurred In what ways could harm be up to this date? minimised?

• Where can you see new • Could new development harm/ development going in the future? enhance a significant view, to or from settlement? • Can new development respect and re-inforce existing patterns of • Can new development offer an settlement and landscape? opportunity to meet local needs Think about the scale, form, massing and aspirations? and orientation (relationship to roads and green spaces) of • Can new development explore buildings and the use of building opportunities to retain/enhance materials and significant redundant historic buildings and architectural details. their setting through the principles of constructive conservation? 34 Appendix 3

• Can new public spaces respect Top Tips broad landscape character? Will Looking at the Statements of they require suitable management Environmental Opportunities from arrangements in place to maintain your local National Character Area their use and good conservation Profile may help you to step back long term. and consider the opportunities offered by your local landscape. • Can new development conserve or enhance existing open spaces? Take a look at pages 35 and 36 to see how observations recorded within • Can opportunities to restore or character statements, feed into and re-establish significant landscape inform, the construction of policies for features, such as traditional community-led plans. orchard or a village pond, be explored? See the Reading List, and Appendix 3 in the Resources Section of this toolkit, • Can opportunities to re-link for examples of policies from hedgerow corridors with blocks Neighbourhood Plans of ancient semi-natural woodland, wood pasture and parkland be explored? 35

My Parish

Character statement observations Community-led plan policy

Domestic buildings: • Large blocks of mid 20th century development - bungalows, New development does not need 2 storey semi detached / to imitate earlier architectural detached housing periods or styles but should add to, • Smaller but distinct areas of and not detract from, the quality interwar housing and character of the surrounding • Earlier buildings are more scattered environment. The use of sustainable - large scale farmsteads, materials and design is favoured. 19th century villas and some timber-framed dwellings.

Large mid 20th century planned estates broke away from the New developments should traditional settlement pattern. reinforce the distinctive scattered, ribbon or common edge character Pre 20th century settlement of pre 20th century settlement by predominantly scattered along being small in scale and by retaining roads or common edge. Some the open spaces in-between isolated farmsteads. Houses settlement. The general character, predominately face the road. scale and mass of new developments should fit in with the ‘grain’ of the More ad hoc 20th and 21st surrounding landscape. development respecting common edge settlement pattern 36

Character statement observations Community-led plan policy

Traditional farmsteads historically isolated or in clusters, set within medium scale fields with hedged Opportunities to convert redundant boundaries and surviving traditional farm buildings using the Worcestershire orchard. Many lost as a result of mid Farmsteads Assessment Framework 20th century expansion. Surviving for guidance. farmsteads on settlement edge under pressure from development.

No individual village centre but focal Preservation of surviving traditional areas of community activity around: orchard as community space 1. village hall, green, church and school Developments should support and 2. The Pub, post office, allotments enhance existing community spaces. 3. the Common.

New development should protect and enhance the natural and Narrow lanes with mature hedged historic environment by retaining and boundaries give a sense of enclosed enhancing features of high historic, tranquillity. Good access around nature or landscape value, including settlement via PRoW network. mature trees, hedgerow boundaries, Retains atmosphere of a rural archaeological earthworks, water- settlement despite close proximity to bodies , woodland, traditional urban centre. orchard, community green space and key views. 37 Exercise C Section 3

Resources

Information services

Historic Environment The National Heritage List for England Pastscape Is an online searchable database of Historic England’s PastScape, provides designated heritage assets a quick and easy way to search over (excluding conservation areas). 420,000 records on the architectural and archaeological heritage of Heritage Gateway England, held in the National Record Links and addresses for every of the Historic Environment (NRHE). Historic Environment Record in England. Landscape Worcestershire Historic Environment National Character Area Profiles (NCAs) Record NCA Profiles provide a broad under- The county’s primary source for standing of the historic development archaeological and historic and natural history of a landscape. environment information. NCAs divide England into 159 distinct Address: The Hive, Sawmill Walk, areas, each defined by a unique The Butts, Worcester. WR1 3PD combination of landscape, biodiversity, Telephone: 01905 822866 geodiversity, history, and cultural and economic activity. Their boundaries follow natural lines in the landscape rather than administrative boundaries. 38 Exercise C

Landscape Character Assessments (LCAs) the development of an assessment LCAs identify and describe local framework aimed at informing and variations in the character of the achieving the sustainable landscape, including how the development of traditional farmsteads, landscape is perceived, experienced including their conservation and and valued by people. enhancement, through identifying their historic character, significance Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) and potential for change. HLC delivers a historical element to The above link takes you to the landscape character assessment Worcestershire Farmsteads Assessment by recording change or continuity Framework, which is accessible to the landscape; providing a sense via an interactive map browser and of time-depth, and context for its is fully integrated within the archaeological sites and monuments. Worcestershire Historic Environment The above link takes you to the Record. Worcestershire HLC, which is accessible via an interactive map browser and Characterisation has also been is fully integrated within the applied to the sea (Historic Seascapes) Worcestershire Historic Environment and towns and cities (Extensive Urban Record. Survey, Urban Archaeological Databases and Metropolitan Historic Farmsteads and Landscapes Landscape Characterisation). Characterisation The West Midlands Farmsteads and Heritage and Wildlife Landscapes Project recorded the MAGIC distribution, scale, plan form, date, The MAGIC website provides Natural and the degree of change of all England’s geographic information farmsteads and outfarms shown on about the ‘natural’ environment. the Ordnance Survey 2nd Edition 25” The information covers rural, urban, mapping of circa 1900. Through this coastal and marine environments project, it was possible to gain a across Great Britain. better understanding of farmstead character, survival and current use at a landscape scale. This supported 39

The Earth Heritage Trust County Gardens Trusts (CGTs) The Herefordshire and Worcestershire County Gardens Trusts are locally Earth Heritage Trust is a charity that based charities caring for designed aims to record, protect and promote landscapes. They operate across geology and landscape. The Trust is England and are linked through the currently undertaking an important Gardens Trust (created in 2015 by the new project, ‘A Thousand Years of merger of The Garden History Society Building with Stone’, which aims to with the Association of Gardens Trusts). record, catalogue and untangle the history of stone use in heritage buildings Other sources of interest across Herefordshire and Worcestershire Viewfinder An online database of photographs Worcestershire Biological Records held in the Historic England Archive. Centre (WBRC) They date from the 1850s and The Worcestershire Biological Records document England’s social, industrial, Centre, an independent ‘not for architectural and archaeological history. profit’ wildlife charity, acts as the data storehouse for a wide range of Images of England biological data including plant and A ‘point in time’ photographic library animal records as well as habitat of England’s listed buildings, recorded information. They collect and collate at the turn of the 21st century. data from a wide range of sources including local naturalists, professional Pevsner Architectural Guides ecologists, statutory bodies and other A series of architectural guide books wildlife charities and organisations. describing notable historic buildings.

Worcestershire Wildlife Trust Victoria County History The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts An encyclopedic record, founded in (RSWT) is an independent charity, 1899, of England’s places and people. formed of 47 local trusts. As well as managing over 75 nature reserves, Historic England Aerofilms collection Worcestershire Wildlife Trust is the Over 4 million aerial photographs, county’s leading local charity working covering the whole of England and to conserve and restore wildlife and dating from the early 20th century to wild places across the county. the present day. 40

Glossary of terms

CABE Earthwork Chartered Association of Building Archaeological remains that exist Engineers. above ground, as an upstanding feature, ditch or artificial watercourse. Common Edge settlement Detached or small groups of houses, EcoSystem Services dispersed between fields or small An ecosystems approach provides paddocks, encroaching onto open a framework for looking at whole common, heath or waste. ecosystems in decision making, and for valuing the ecosystem services Cropmark/Parch mark they provide, to ensure that society Archaeological remains that become can maintain a healthy and resilient visible within standing crops, due to natural environment now and for the subsurface differential growing future generations. conditions. Thus, buried ditches and walls can reveal themselves as crop Geographical Information System (GIS) or parch marks, especially during A computer software system periods of drought. designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyse, manage, and present all Croft types of spatial or geographical data. An enclosed piece of land adjoining a house. Heritage Asset A building, monument, site, place, Dispersed Settlement area or landscape identified as being Settlement dominated by high of significant value to merit consideration densities of scattered farmsteads, in planning decisions. Heritage assets hamlets and smaller villages. Typically include designated heritage assets and associated with small and irregular assets identified by the local planning fields, and the creation of farms authority (including local listing). The within wood, marsh and moorland, more significant the heritage asset, during the medieval and earlier the greater the weight given to its periods. conservation, and to the impact of any development on its setting. 41

Historic England this type of cultivation are principally A Central Government service, the long ridges and furrows often championing England’s heritage and formed in a reversed ‘S’ shape, which providing expert, constructive advice. can also be observed in curving hedge lines. Large areas of post- Historic Environment medieval and modern field systems All aspects of the environment resulting will have open fields recorded as an from the interaction between people antecedent type. Parish Boundaries and places through time. This includes may also echo former field strips. all surviving physical remains of past human activity, whether visible, buried Moated Site or submerged, and landscaped and A wide ditch surrounding a building, planted or managed flora. usually filled with water.

Piecemeal Enclosure Nucleated Settlement Field systems that have been created A settlement pattern dominated by out of the gradual, piecemeal villages with relatively few isolated enclosure of medieval open fields, farmsteads or hamlets. woodland and wasteland. They can be of variable size and form, but Ridge and Furrow typically lack any overall planning. A series of long, raised ridges separated by furrows that have PROW resulted from the process of ploughing. Public Right of Way. These earthworks are characteristic of pre-industrial farming techniques. Medieval Open Fields/Strip Fields Medieval open fields were once Setting of a heritage asset arable land, held in common. This The surroundings in which a heritage was traditionally farmed in strips on a asset is located. Its extent is not fixed rotational system, with multi-ownership and may change as the asset and or tenancy. It is usually associated its surroundings evolve. Elements of a with nucleated settlements and is setting may make a positive or suggested by the presence of ridge negative contribution to the significance and furrow earthworks and / or of an asset; and thus may affect the piecemeal enclosure. The relicts of ability to appreciate that significance. 42

Soil mark were created as part of the Tithe An archaeological feature made Commutation Act of 1836; most were visible, due to its soil fill being of a completed in the 1840s. As well as different colour and matrix to the recording mid -19th century field surrounding subsoil. Soil marks show systems they also provide details of up well in ploughed fields or areas land use and land ownership and where the topsoil has been stripped. occupation.

Survey Planned Enclosure Toft Survey Planned Enclosure (including The place where a house stood or Parliamentary enclosure) is had once stood, often adjoining a characterised by regular, small garth or croft. and large, rectangular fields, with ‘ruler straight’ boundaries, and often Veteran Tree contemporaneous tracks and A tree which, because of its great roadways. Planned enclosure was age, size or condition, is of undertaken by surveyors during the exceptional cultural, landscape or 18th and 19th centuries, and will nature conservation value. have overlain any prior landscape enclosure pattern.

Sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) A natural approach to managing drainage in and around properties and other developments. SUDS work by slowing and holding back the water that runs off from a site, allowing natural processes to break down pollutants.

Tithe and Enclosure Maps 19th century Tithe Maps represent the first strategic mapping survey of most of England and Wales. These maps 43 Exercise F

Reading list

Key Guidance for Landscape Character Assessment in Neighbourhood Planning

Birkbeck, D and Kruczkowski, S (2015) Building for Life 12 Nottingham Trent University: CADBE for the Building for Life Partnership.

Historic England (2016) Caring for Heritage.

Worcestershire County Council and Locus Consulting (2015) Producing a ‘Landscape Character Statement’ for your Neighbourhood Plan. (Available on request).

Planning Aid England (2015) Putting the Pieces Together.

Others interesting sources of guidance for Landscape Character Assessment

City Design Group (2011) Know Your Place.

Cowan, R, Bone, D and Huxford, R (1998) Placecheck Urban Design Alliance.

Local Government Association (2013) Our Place.

Oxford City Council (2015) The Oxford Character Assessment Toolkit.

Walsh, D (2012) The Lincoln Townscape Assessment The City of Lincoln Council.

Worcestershire County Council (2013) Worcestershire Villages Historic Environment Research Assessment. 44 Exercise G

Good examples of Neighbourhood Plans

Chaddesley Corbett Parish Council (2014) Chaddesley Corbett Neighbourhood Plan 2014 – 2026.

Colwich Parish Council (2015) Colwich Neighbourhood Development Plan 2011 - 2031.

Key Guidance for Heritage and the Historic Environment

English Heritage (2015) The Setting of Heritage Assets.

English Heritage (2011) Understanding Place: Character and Context in Local Planning.

English Heritage (2010) Understanding Place: Historic Area Assessments Principles and Practice.

English Heritage (2008) Constructive Conservation in Practice.

English Heritage (2008) Conservation Principles, Policies and Guidance.

English Heritage and CABE (2001) Building in context: New development in historic areas.

Locus Consulting (2014) Expanding the Neighbourhood Plan Evidence Base - Museums, Record Offices, Archives and HERs.

LUC in association with Nick Haynes (2014) Evaluating the impact of housing development on the historic environment.

Russell H, Smith, A and P Leverton (2011) Sustaining cultural identity and a sense of place - new wine in old bottles or old wine in new bottles? College of Estate Management Occasional Paper Series.

Farrell T, (2015) The Farrell Review of Architecture and the Built Environment. “Our Future In Place”. 45 Exercise D Appendix 1

Designation checklist

Designated heritage assets considered to be of special historic Details of nationally designated interest. While no consents specific heritage assets can be found on the to these designations are required, National Heritage List for England conservation of these places is given Designated heritage assets mostly ‘great weight’ in the planning process. comprise of the following: Undesignated heritage assets • Listed buildings which have been Undesignated heritage assets designated because of their special are buildings, sites and landscapes, architectural or historic interest. identified by local planning authorities as having value. Undesignated • Conservation Areas designated heritage assets may be, but are not by local authorities, and generally always, recorded on the local Historic covering settlements. Demolition of Environment Record. unlisted buildings in conservation areas requires planning permission, • Local lists provide an opportunity and a similar process of justification for communities to have their views as for a listed building. on local heritage considered. They can be used to identify significant • Scheduled Monuments are local heritage assets, strengthening archaeological sites considered their role as a material consideration to be of national importance. in the planning process. Consent must be sought from Historic England for any works • Sites of national archaeological affecting a Scheduled Monument. significance. Where archaeological sites of national significance have • Registered Parks and Gardens, not been scheduled, and they World Heritage Sites, and Registered are of the same significance as Battlefields, are all landscapes scheduled monuments, they are 46

treated in the planning system as if Wildlife, Habitat and Geology they were designated assets (see • The Wildlife and Countryside Act NPPF paragraph 139). (1981) is the principal law protecting wildlife, habitats and species in • Areas of Outstanding Natural Great Britain, and was strengthened Beauty and National Parks. Within and updated by the Countryside Worcestershire, the Malvern Hills and Rights of Way Act (2000). and the Cotwolds are designated It is necessary to obtain expert Areas of Outstanding Natural advice when ascertaining if any Beauty (AONB), for their special protected species are present qualities or character. Conserving within or adjacent to a site. and enhancing the qualities of such landscapes are a material • Sites of Special Scientific Interest consideration in planning (SSSI) are areas of land notified applications that are proposed, under the Wildlife and Countryside either within or adjacent to them. Act 1981 as being of special nature The Countryside and Rights of Way conservation interest. Act 2000 (CROW Act) places on local authorities a requirement to • Sites of Importance to Nature produce an AONB Management Conservation (SINC) are sites of Plan and a ‘duty of regard’ to non-statutory designation conserve and enhance AONBs recognised by local planning policies. (Section 85). • Hedgerows Regulations 1997 are to • Green Belt. The fundamental aim protect important hedgerows from of Green Belt policy is to prevent being grubbed-out. urban sprawl, and new buildings are generally regarded as • Regionally Important Geological inappropriate. Exceptions are and Geomorphological Sites (RIGS) specified in NPPF paragraphs 79-92. are locally designated sites of local, national and regional importance for geodiversity. The significance of RIGS is a material consideration in determining an application. 47 Exercise F Appendix 2

Landscape Character Assessment: Area case study

Elmley Castle and Netherton are The village retains a sense of intimacy located on the north side of Bredon with the facades of buildings and Hill to the south east of Pershore, in mature hedgerows restricting views; the district of Wychavon. yet beyond the village, the landscape is more open and views more extensive. Netherton Free draining, fertile soils and a rolling topography, on the foothills of Bredon Hill, support a predominantly arable land use characterised by large, irregular fields, fragmented semi- natural habitats and little tree cover. A series of sinuous routeways (including an ancient salt way) link settlements with the landscape beyond. As a consequence of field Chapel Farm. amalgamation, hedgerow boundaries Photograph © Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service. have been in decline since the early 20th century. Traditional orchard, associated with settlement, has also largely disappeared.

The small nucleated village of Netherton is the main settlement of the parish. Today it is comprised of just a handful of farms and cottages set along a through road which leads out to fields to the north, Photograph © Worcestershire Archive and and Netherton Lane to the south. Archaeology Service. 48

The dominating feature of the village Away from the village, settlement is is Chapel Farm. The farm was already sparse. A large scale, isolated large in scale before it was re-planned farmstead (Elms Farm) to the south of in the mid 19th century; then extended the village has now been largely and remodelled again in the 20th converted into residential dwellings, century to showcase the wealth while two isolated outfarms, one with and standing of its then owners, the a set of large 20th century grain silos Steven’s family. The towering grain which echo those at Chapel Farm, silos, at both Chapel Farm and the remain in agricultural use. outfarm to the north east, dominate views across much of the parish. The Comparisons of modern with historic remains of an ornamental garden, with maps, (see page 49), indicate that potential mature trees, is recognisable settlement at Netherton has changed to the south of the farmhouse. little, since the turn of the 20th century. In contrast, the Elmley Castle Archaeological evidence indicates settlement has experienced far greater that this agricultural landscape 20th century expansion which is was farmed from at least the late concentrated in a planned estate prehistoric period and a series of to the east of the main street, away isolated, late Iron Age and Romano- from the historic core of the village, British farmsteads have been which is a Conservation Area. revealed as cropmarks within the parish. The remains of a 12th century chapel, which in 1738 was converted into a barn, survives to the east of the farmhouse at Chapel Farm. Earthworks associated with settlement and farming, south of Chapel Farm, indicate that, during the medieval period, the village was more densely populated than it is today; at least a dozen cottage sites have been traced as earthworks under permanent pasture. 49

Col. Thomas Henry Hastings Davies Robert Clavering Savage Thomas Blackford Arable Thomas Heath Non-agricultural Thomas Severne Pasture William Hatch Wood William Moore

Netherton - Key Features Settlement: • Wayside settlement, concentrated Landscape: in the small, nucleated village of • Large scale, irregular fields, Netherton. Dwellings are moderately enclosed by hedgerow boundaries. spaced and the settlement has Loss of boundaries over the 20th little depth with dwellings set close century as a consequence of field to the road within individual, amalgamation. generous sized plots, which back directly onto farmland. • Little tree cover and fragmented semi-natural habitats. • Chapel farmhouse is enclosed by a ha-ha within its own private • Loss of small-scale traditional space, and set away from the orchard associated with settlement. road, and from working areas of the farm, facing ornamental • Remnants of ornamental garden, gardens to the south west. The with potential mature trees, to remains of a 12th century chapel the south west of Chapel Farm. are adjacent to the farmhouse, within the private sphere of the • Netherton village retains a sense garden. The 1st Edition Ordnance of intimacy with buildings and Survey map (1885) records a hedgerows restricting views of the pathway, over fields, linking the landscape beyond. Views from farmhouse to Netherton Lane, in Netherton Lane are also restricted the south. The southern half of this by mature hedgerows. pathway remains a PRoW. Views from Netherton Lane to the • An extensive network of historic farmhouse are today obscured pathways, many of which are by mature hedgerows. modern PRoWs, with open views across the landscape. • Settlement beyond the village is limited to one large scale, regular • Approximately 50% loss of farm planned, isolated farmstead, now ponds. largely converted to residential, and an adjacent 20th century dwelling, south of Netherton Lane. 51

• The farmhouse at Elm’s Farm is Elmley Castle slightly set away from the working Elmley Castle is located on the area of the farm. It is enclosed by northern slopes of Bredon Hill, a wall thus creating its own private (a Site of Special Scientific Interest) space, and faces away from the within the Cotswold Area of farm, out towards the open Outstanding Natural Beauty. Bredon landscape to the south west. Hill, an outlier of the Cotswold Hills, is composed of Jurassic, sedimentary Buildings: rock. It supports a range of habitats • Chapel Farm retains a significant with significant biodiversity, from assemblage of traditional farm ancient semi-natural woodland and buildings dating from the 19th parkland, to calcareous (limestone) and 20th century, including two ‘unimproved’ and neutral grassland, distinctive, 20th century grain silos. and calcareous scrub. Old quarry These along with a related pair workings also support a number of of silos at Herrisfare, to the north locally uncommon plants. The north east, dominate views from the of the parish is characterised by a surrounding landscape. larger scale, cultivated landscape, with free draining, fertile soils. Semi- • Large 20th century agricultural natural habitats are fragmented and sheds of corrugated iron. tree cover is minimal.

• Large scale outfarms (Herrisfare The historic core of the village is a and Rise) with surviving 19th and designated Conservation Area, that 20th century buildings. has witnessed little change over the past 200 years. It is characterised by • Buildings predominately constructed a nucleated cluster of medium and of brick, with tile roofs. Also some large scale, regular farmsteads, with timber-framing on earlier dwellings converted agricultural buildings, (The Blizzards, The End Cottage) cottages and non-domestic buildings, and use of local stone for plinths which become more dispersed along and boundary walls. Hill Lane, Netherton Lane and Mill Lane.

• Remains of 12th century chapel, constructed of local stone. 52

Despite being in the vale, Elmley The Scheduled Monument of ‘Elmley Castle retains an intimate setting, Castle’ is interpreted as the remains largely enclosed from the wider of a medieval ringwork and bailey, landscape by its tight cluster of located within two Iron Age hillforts. timber-framed and brick dwellings. This monument dominates a prominent Mature vegetation, wide grass verges, spur on the northern slopes of Bredon the mill pond and the trickling sound Hill, to the south west of the village, of the stream bestow a sense of and commands wide views over the tranquility to the village. The village surrounding countryside. In contrast, displays a strong, significant continuity views towards the monument, from the of high-status settlement, from the village, are more restricted. prehistoric period right through to the 19th century.

Views towards Elmley Castle are restricted with only dwellings along part of Hill Lane having unrestricted views to the south west. Settlement within the historic core is generally Photograph © Worcestershire Archive and only one house deep with buildings facing Archaeology Service. inwards towards the road, and backing onto meadow, orchard, and later allotment gardens to the rear. Photograph © Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service.

The Village Hall, Queen Elizabeth I Public House, Plough Inn, Elmley Castle C of E First School, and the post office, all form an important assemblage of buildings within the core, with significant communal value. Photograph right © Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service. 53

The 11th century church of St. Mary A large Elizabethan House is recorded the Virgin is enclosed within its own on historic mapping, to the south ecclesiastical space and encircled west of the Church. ‘Park House’, by a dry stone wall. It dominates the which like the church would have southern periphery of the village and enjoyed privileged views of the park retains views to Elmley Castle and and castle site, was demolished in the ‘medieval’ deerpark, which runs the early 1960s to make way for the from the southern edge of the village construction of the Parkland Estate. to the remains of the castle. The The remains of a ha-ha define the deerpark is a Site of Special Scientific boundary between the site of the Interest and site of National Significance house and the deerpark. considered for scheduling.

The children’s playing field, in Elmley Castle, The Parkland Estate is comprised of dedicated in 1929 in loving memory of Ernst detached, executive houses, set within Victor Stevens of Chapel Farm, Netherton, generous sized plots and constructed of reflects changing social attitudes to health, a grey/brown brick, similar in colour to welfare and children during the early 20th the stone rubble of the church. Within the century and is an early example of a estate there is established greenery; much recreational area dedicated to children. of which is a relic of the formal garden Photograph © Worcestershire Archive and associated with the earlier house. This small Archaeology Service. estate shares many characteristics with earlier generations of suburban ‘garden’ estates, despite its moderne 1960s architecture and smaller plots of land. Photograph © Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service. 54

The majority of 20th century Outside of the main village, settlement development is concentrated, is confined to the small nucleated in a planned estate, to the east of hamlet of Kersoe, known as Criddesho, the historic core, in-between Mill Lane during the Anglo-Saxon period. Kersoe (to the south) and Netherton Lane is comprised of a cluster of dwellings, (to the north). The estate has continued including a number of large scale to grow throughout the course of the traditional farmsteads. Ridge and 20th and 21st centuries and has a furrow survives in earthwork form, mixture of former local authority indicating how, from the medieval housing, and post 1970s private period, the land around settlement developments, which are increasingly was open and communally farmed. influenced by more vernacular styles. The estate now extends to the brook Protected and notable species in the to the east, and the boundaries of locality include, the great crested Elmley Castle C of E First School to the newt, the common lizard and west, with the most recent houses slow-worm, the lesser horseshoe bat, adjacent to, and influenced by, The badgers and brown hares, and the Old Mill House. red kite.

The village has also experienced some small Former local authority housing with its simple, scale development on its northern periphery, standardised design and generous sized and infill development along Hill Lane, plots, is becoming increasingly sought after. Mill Lane and Netherton Lane. Photograph © Worcestershire Archive and Photograph © Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service. Archaeology Service. 55

Elmley Castle - Key Features • Archaeology associated with high status settlement and medieval Landscape: farming. • Located within the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Settlement: • Continuity of high-status settlement • Located on the northern slopes from the prehistoric period to the of Bredon Hill (a Site of Special 19th century. Scientific Interest) and overlooked by the Scheduled Monument • An inherited nucleated settlement ‘Elmley Castle’. pattern with traditional farmsteads, cottages and non-domestic buildings • Views towards ‘Elmley Castle’ concentrated within core settlements. are restricted. • Settlement in the historic core of • Mosaic of habitats with high Elmley Castle is linear with minimal biodiversity, cultural and historic depth. Buildings face inwards interest. towards the main thoroughfare and back onto farmland. Settlement • Mature vegetation, wide grass becomes more scattered on the verges and standing and running boundaries of the village but retains water bodies bestow a sense of its linear, wayside character. tranquility to the village. • 20th century development is • More intensively farmed landscape dominated by a planned estate, to the north of the village with with a mixture of detached, amalgamated field pattern and semi-detached, bungalows and fragmented semi-natural habitats. two-storey flats, east of the historic core. There has been limited modern • Loss of small-scale traditional expansion to the north of the orchard associated with settlement. historic core and east of the church (Parkhall Estate). There is • Well established network of historic some modern infill on the periphery pathways, many of which are of the village where settlement modern PRoWs. was historically more scattered. 56

• An intimate setting, with buildings • The Parkland Estate shares and hedgerows restricting more characteristics with earlier wide-ranging views. generations of suburban ‘garden’ estates, despite its moderne 1960s • Communal buildings and spaces, architecture and smaller plots of including the children’s playing land. field, school, church, village hall, public house and post office, with high significance.

Buildings: • Large scale traditional farmsteads located within core settlements.

• Earlier buildings are timber-framed or stone. Thatch is a feature of many older properties. Later buildings predominately of red brick and tile.

• 20th century development set within smaller plots, with less emphasis placed on green space the later the development.

• Mixture of former local authority housing and private development. • Mixture of detached, semi-detached, bungalows and two-storey flats.

• 20th century infill, characterised by executive style detached houses in areas with historically more scattered settlement. 57 Exercise G Appendix 3

Examples of policies from Neighbourhood Plans (also see Reading List)

Chaddesley Corbett Neighbourhood Plan 2014 – 2026 (2014) Policy - Landscape Design Principles

In order to be considered favourably all new development proposals will need to satisfy the following landscape design principles:

1. The pattern of open spaces surrounding settlements should be retained in any future developments. Of particular importance is the open space either side of Hockley Brook between Stewards Cottage (Briar Hill) and Hemming Way. The additional and important open spaces identified in the Chaddesley Corbett Conservation Area Character Appraisal are particularly significant (see Map 3 below).

2. Strategic views across the Parish shown on Map 5 in Appendix III and the Proposals Map, and defined below, will be protected by ensuring that the visual impact of development on these views is carefully controlled. The views are: (i) The view across the Parish looking towards St Cassian’s Church 62 spire and Harvington from the edge of Chaddesley Woods and footpath 640. (ii) The view of the Conservation Area of Harvington Hall and its environs from Harvington Hall Lane and footpaths 614 and 615. (iii) The views east from footpath 620 across fields towards Chaddesley Village. (iv) The view of Barrow Hill from footpath 599 at Tanwood Lane. (v) The views towards Chaddesley Corbett and St Cassian’s Church spire across fields, trees and hedgerows from footpath 599 at Tanwood Lane. (vi) The view of the medieval fishponds looking towards Brockencote from footpath 674 in St Cassian’s churchyard and the view into the Conservation Area looking towards St Cassian’s church from the pavement alongside the A448. 58

3. Development proposals should seek to preserve or enhance the character of the village and hamlets both within and outside the Conservation Areas, especially those with buildings dating from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The demolition of buildings and structures that contribute to the character and appearance of these areas including those identified in the proposed Local Heritage List will be resisted.

4. Local habitats and wildlife biodiversity particularly relating to Chaddesley Woods NNR should be preserved. Linking wildlife corridors, including brooks and watercourses, should be enhanced.

5. Minimal and discreet signage will be supported to promote compliance with rules and regulations in respect of access to paths for walkers and the control of dogs and horses.

6. Mature and established trees of amenity value should be protected and incorporated into landscaping schemes wherever possible. The planting of local species will be encouraged. Species should be appropriate to the location and setting in terms of type, height, density and the need for ongoing management. When constructing boundaries native tree species should be used in preference to building walls or the planting of “Leylandii / conifer”. Existing hedgerows should be retained and the establishment of new native hedges is encouraged. 59

Marchington Neighbourhood Plan (March 2016) Policy BE1 Protecting and enhancing local historic character (objective 3)

1. Built development in and around Marchington village must protect, complement or enhance, the historic rural character of the settlement and its hinterland, which is identified in the Marchington Character Study and the Marchington Conservation Area Appraisal. Applicants must explain in a Design and Access Statement or Heritage Statement, how the proposed development will protect, complement or enhance the historic rural setting of the Parish, including the Conservation Area and Listed Buildings, with regard to: a) the scale and form of the development, b) the density of the development, c) the materials used in the development, and d) elevated views of Marchington village and its landscape setting (shown on the Proposals Map).

2. All new development involving Historic Farmsteads and their setting will be required to demonstrate that there will be no adverse impact on the built and landscape character of the location.

3. All new development affecting the setting of Sudbury Hall, Registered Parkland, Conservation Area and associated heritage assets (see Proposals Map) will be required to demonstrate that the setting of Sudbury, including longer views, will not be adversely affected.’

Policy BE2 Protecting and enhancing (non-designated) local built heritage assets (objective 3)

All development proposals will be required to take into account the character, context and setting of the local built heritage assets (see Appendix 1) including important views towards and from the assets. Development will be required to be designed appropriately, taking account of local styles, materials and detail. The loss of, or substantial harm to a locally important asset will be resisted, unless exceptional circumstance can be demonstrated. 60

Policy NE1 Protecting the Countryside and Landscape (objective 3)

Any proposals for development in the rural areas should recognise and seek to protect and enhance the historic landscape and local character of the Parish. Field patterns and elements of the landscape heritage of the area, including ridge and furrow, field ponds, mature trees and historic hedgerows should be protected and incorporated into any landscape design schemes and their long term maintenance ensured.

Proposals for development should include consideration of the above factors through an appropriate landscape analysis either as a freestanding report or as part of a design and access statement. 61

Appendix 4

Assessing development proposals: A hypothetical case study

The development proposal below is hypothetical, yet typical of the type and scale of planning application, that is increasingly likely for residential development in rural areas, particularly in and around villages.

Proposal Outline application for the erection of 50 residential dwellings (40% affordable housing) with vehicular access, parking provision and landscaping works.

Front elevations of detached and semi-detached properties, from the hypothetical, proposed residential development. © Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service.

Front elevations of terraced properties, from the hypothetical, proposed residential development. © Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service. 63

Landscape Character Assessment Where development is going to occur? The physical landscape is characterised The linear settlement along this road by a low lying, rolling topography retains its dispersed, intimate, wayside comprised of mixed mudstones and feel despite 20th century infill, sandstones with free draining soils along the main routeway and the that have support mixed farming development of a larger scale, 20th with scattered farmsteads and other century block south of the road. wayside dwellings that have Historic properties are set close to, occasionally clustered together. During and face the road, while more recent, the 20th century in-fill development wayside development is set back has created a less scattered settlement within their plots and often hidden character together with a diverse from view by mature hedgerow or mixture of housing styles. Small scale walled boundaries. Development enclosure survives in places but along the main routeway is only a overall the irregular and sub regular single house deep, with plots backing fields, characteristic of the area, directly onto farmland beyond and are large in scale as a consequence relic orchard dominating the spaces of 20th century field amalgamation. in-between buildings. The open Small blocks of ancient semi-natural countryside and Malvern Hills dominate woodland and relic orchard, views to the south west, at the eastern associated with settlement, are also end of the road, gradually becoming a feature of the area. More recently more filtered as you move westwards. horticulture and recreation, in particular Housing is diverse with a mixture of a nursery and a golf course, has had public and private development of an increasing impact on the landscape. two-storey detached, semi-detached and terraced houses and bungalows. Pre 20th century properties are predominately constructed of brick and tile with timber-framing restricted to the oldest properties. 64

Example policies from which to test the development:

• In parts of the parish where the • New development should conserve dispersed historic wayside character and enhance the way that new is still coherent, with older houses and historic houses are seen at the relating to historic open space, interface between the settlement this should be protected and and the farmed landscape. conserved by setting new development back from the • Developments that adopt routeway. Green Infrastructure approach in landscaping and design will be • The design of new buildings can viewed favourably, where follow the diverse architectural enhancement and multi-functionality style that characterises the are evident within the Masterplan. settlement but should respect and conserve the form, scale and building line which allows the historic open space to be appreciated.