Well End Conservation Area Appraisal
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Revised Draft Alscot Conservation Area Appraisal ALSCOT CONSERVATION AREA APPRAISAL Reviewed and Updated, July 2016 Fig 1: Alscot on the 1877 25 inch to the mile Ordnance Survey map INTRODUCTION and adjacent to the conservation area since it was adopted in 1997 and review recent Conservation Areas are areas of special historic research that further informs our architectural or historic interest, which are understanding of Alscot. It will also follow the considered worthy of preservation or English Heritage (now Historic England) enhancement. They are designated under the publication Guidance on Conservation Area provisions of Section 69 of the Planning Appraisals published in 2005 which offers (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) helpful advice on the form appraisals should Act 1990. follow. The earlier character survey for Alscot was issued well before the publication of this Alscot was first designated a Conservation English Heritage document. This new Area by Wycombe District Council in 1982. A appraisal also takes the opportunity to review Conservation Area Character Survey (CACS) the current boundaries of the conservation was prepared and adopted as supplementary area which also a requirement of Section 69 planning guidance in 1997 by Wycombe of the Act. District Council. Government Guidance states that conservation areas should have an up- CHAPTER 1 to-date appraisal. Planning Policy Context The designation of a conservation area This review seeks to update the Survey in influences the way in which a Local Planning light of changes to buildings and areas within Authority applies its planning policies to the 1 Revised Draft Alscot Conservation Area Appraisal area. It ensures that any planning applications for alterations or extensions to However these curtilages and the parkland buildings within or adjacent to the are all, apart from The Pightle, those to listed conservation area respect the special buildings. For such a small hamlet it has no characteristics identified in this document, less than six statutorily listed buildings with and local planning policies. only the Pightle not listed. The major change since 1997 is the Alscot Conservation Area’s special replacement of various central government characteristic is of a small hamlet (it has no planning policy guidance notes and parish church) with no substantial new statements by the National Planning Policy building since the mid-19th century at least. Framework adopted in 2012 and the issuing Moreover it has a fine situation on the slightly by English Heritage (now Historic England) of higher ground above a stream, the guidance on conservation area appraisals in Crowbrook Stream, that runs through its 2005 and on conservation area management north-western half. It is also entirely in the same year. Below is an updated list of surrounded by fields and the stream’s valley current guidance. winds picturesquely, both to the west and to the east of Alscot. Its place in a shallow valley National policy and guidance is contained in a rural location adds to its special interest in: markedly while the high quality of its buildings • Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation and walls, not to mention the mature trees to Areas) Act 1990 the grounds of Alscot Lodge which dominate • National Planning Policy Framework 2012 views from the north, west and south, all add • English Heritage: Guidance on up to a hamlet of very high historic and Conservation Area Appraisals (2005) evidential value. While not a large • English Heritage: Guidance on the conservation area its character, historic Management of Conservation Areas (2005) buildings and appearance are of sufficient significance to fully justify its continuing CHAPTER 2 conservation area status. Summary of Special Interest There have been changes since the 1997 The Conservation Area was designated in Alscot Conservation Area Character Survey, 1982 and comprises a small hamlet focused including fencing in of Alscot Lodge’s grounds on its principal dwelling, Alscot Lodge which and the conversion of the listed eastern is set within a modest-sized planned farmbuilding range at Alscot Farm (its main parkland. This core occupies the western barn was converted in 1990), and this revised parts of the designated area and the eastern document addresses and considers these. ‘tail’ is more vernacular with a former farmyard, a farmhouse and two cottages. The In 2015 the research undertaken by the area within the boundary is pretty tightly Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust (BGT) in drawn to include the curtilages of these three their Research and Recording Project has dwellings. Indeed it only includes the stream been published for a number of historic parks within the grounds of Alscot Lodge. and gardens in Buckinghamshire. In 2 Revised Draft Alscot Conservation Area Appraisal December 2015 their report on Alscot Lodge comes within 1.75 km of the Alscot was published and this extremely valuable Conservation Area but whose escarpment is document has resulted in a better clearly seen from within the conservation understanding of the house and its parkland area. Moreover the views from points such setting. Whiteleaf Hill view the conservation area in a setting amid open countryside. CHAPTER 3 Assessment of Special Interest The conservation area sits on the south edge of the shallow valley of the Crowbrook 1 LOCATION AND LANDSCAPE Stream that runs roughly parallel with Alscot SETTING: Lane. Its valley continues to the south-west towards Longwick Mill whose waterwheels it Location and Landscape Context once powered. Joined by other streams it The conservation area is about 1km north of eventually enters the River Thame a the market town of Princes Risborough’s kilometre west of Kingsey. parish church of St Mary and runs north-east from the Longwick Road, now the A4129. Its The railway arrived in nearby Princes houses mostly front Alscot Lane which is a Risborough in 1862 and a branch line was cul de sac road, although it continues as a built from Princes Risborough to Aylesbury bridleway to Monks Risborough. The which opened in October 1863, skirting to the conservation area is only about 220m from south-east some 350 to 475m away from east to west, following Alscot Lane for its Alscot. In effect it formed the northern entire length. At its deepest, north to south, it boundary of Princes Risborough, apart from is 145m at its widest point in the park to some factories and businesses on the west Alscot Lodge but of varying depths further side of Longwick Road. The railway had little east. At the west end its frontage to the main discernible impact on Alscot apart from A4129 is about 110m. allowing the occupants of Alscot Lodge more convenient access to London and the farmer Apart from the remarkably busy A4129, the similarly a wider market for his produce. hamlet retains an utterly remote and rural character and is surrounded by agricultural The village is still surrounded by farmland, fields, despite the proximity of Princes much of it pasture along the winding stream Risborough to the south whose factories and valley, with arable further out. businesses come within 250m. General character and plan form The village lies to the north of the Chiltern The Conservation Area is very compact and Hills and within the Upper Thames Clay Vales basically comprises the parkland to Alscot (Character Area 108 of the Countryside Lodge, the former farmbuildings to Alscot Agency’s classification of The Character of Farm, Alscot Farmhouse itself in its garden England published in 2005). The Chilterns with two other dwellings, Alscot Cottage to its are identified as Area 110 and consist of east and The Pightle the only dwelling south chalk hills and are a designated Area of of Alscot Lane. Outstanding Natural Beauty whose boundary 3 Revised Draft Alscot Conservation Area Appraisal It is clear which building sits at the top of the Manorial history hamlet’s hierarchy: Alscot Lodge as it is set Alscot was always a part of the manor of within a park and largely concealed by Risborough, known as Princes Risborough mature trees and flint walls. Alscot (after The Black Prince), as against Monks Farmhouse is the dominant vernacular Risborough to the east. Detailed information building, with the other two cottages can be found on this in the Victoria County architecturally of lesser social status. History volume 2 on pages 260 to 267. This can be viewed on the British History on Line The plan form of the conservation area is web site very simple: the west boundary is the www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/bucks/vol2/pp260- Longwick road, the A4129 and the south 267 boundary follows the south side of Alscot Lane as far as The Pightle where it dips south Since the original CACS was issued in 1997 to include the cottage and its extended there have been two significant changes: the curtilage before rejoining the lane, the last conversion of Alscot Farm’s east range of section of the lane now a tarmacked drive farmbuildings into a dwelling now named beyond a field gate. Along the north side of Southerndown, and the publication of the the lane the conservation area extends BGT’s Research and Recording Report in northward to include Alscot Lodge and its 2015 on Alscot Lodge’s historic landscape. park, then the curtilages of the former farmbuildings and the two houses beyond. It is nothing if not compact and self-contained as a conservation area. 2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND ARCHAEOLOGY Origins and Historic development History Alscot is recorded as ‘Eilscot’ in the 13th century and is believed to derive from the Old English ‘Ælfsiges Cot’ meaning Ælfsige’s cottage’, a name that was still found here in the hamlet in the 13th century as the name ‘Elis’. In this 13th-century enfeoffment it was Fig 2: Enclosure proposals map recording the described as having three dwellings situated original course of the Longwick Road before by the highway, presumably modern Alscot 1823 superimposed on 1870s OS map Lane.