Little Gransden conservation area Draft council policy (Ref: DCV 0034) 2005 1.0 INTRODUCTION has dwellings scattered alongside Main Road 1.1 The proposed Little Gransden Conservation interspersed with small fields, hedgerows Area will be considered for designation by and woodland. In the northern part, the South Cambridgeshire District Council. This village widens with two side roads (Primrose document sets out the special architectural Hill and Church Street). This is the historic and historic interest of Little Gransden and core, with the parish church, farmhouses aims to fulfil the District Council’s duty and cottages. The fields to the north of the to ‘draw up and publish proposals for the village form an important physical separation preservation and enhancement’ of these areas between the villages of Little and Great as required by the Planning (Listed Buildings Gransden. and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 and the commitment made by policy EN29 in the 4.0 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE Local Plan (adopted February 2004). This 4.1 In the Doomesday Book this area is named document includes; a character appraisal, Gratenden, or ‘Granta’s valley’ and the lands design guidance for new development, and belonged to Ely form the C10 to the C16, policies for the management of the area in with the original village forming virtually an order to preserve its character. extension to Ely’s holdings in Great Gransden, but separated by low-lying ground where 1.2 This paragraph will report on public the Gransden and Home Dole brooks meet. consultation exercise and confirm the status There was a small settlement around the of the appraisal as Council Policy. church and an adjacent manor house for the bishops of Ely’s estate at Berry Close, 2.0 WHAT ARE CONSERVATION where a hall, chamber, kitchen, dovecote and AREAS? farm-buildings were recorded as ‘ruinous’ 2.1 Conservation Areas are defined as ‘areas by 1356. However, one of the remarkable of special architectural or historic interest, the features of the village has always been character or appearance of which it is desirable its extraordinarily long, linear extension to preserve or enhance’. to the south, which extended for nearly a mile along Gransden Brook and was 2.2 When a Conservation Area has been presumably built to accommodate the rapidly designated, it increases the Council’s powers, expanding population in the C12 and C13. with planning applications judged by their The subsequent decline of the population impact on the character and appearance following the Black Death lead to the virtual of the area. Greater controls over the abandonment of much of this southern demolition of buildings and structures are extension, especially those properties furthest imposed, whilst the rights that owners have form the village centre, but four dwellings to do works to their properties without still stood at Crow’ End (at the southern planning permission (known as ‘permitted extremity) until the middle of the C19. development rights’) are reduced or taken away. Stricter controls are also exercised 4.2 The Domesday population was recorded at over the design of new buildings and owners only 11, but grew to 75 tenants (equating must give the Council six week’s notice of to approximately 375 people) in 1279 and, their intention to carry out works to trees. in spite of the decline in rural population Planning applications affecting a Conservation following the Black Death, there were still Area must be advertised on site and in the 126 taxpayers in 1377. During the C17 local press, to give people the opportunity to there were 46 householders and in 1801 comment. the population was recorded as 232. The village continued to grow during the C19 3.0 OVERVIEW OF THE AREA and peaked at 305 people in 1871. After that it declined to 168 in 1931 and its post war 3.1 Little Gransden lies on the boarder of South growth has been modest, only reaching 220 Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, 12 by 1996. Modern developments have been miles west of Cambridge. The village falls into concentrated at the village’s northeast corner two distinct parts; at the north end is a typical on Primrose Hill, where council houses and a nucleated village based on the church, while new village hall were built in the 1960s. to the south the village has a linear form running alongside Gransden Brook in the 4.3 The heavy soils of Little Gransden were valley. This southern part of the settlement mostly used for arable framing, from which 1 extensive ‘ridge and furrow’ field patterns also contains some older properties, while a remain. The open fields were enclosed scattering of looser development follows the following and Award made in 1826. Aside course of Gransden Brook to the south. from arable fields, the area has always been comparatively well wooded. Woodland for 60 5.3 The landscape character of the surrounding pigs was recoded in the Domesday Book and area comprises gently undulating arable Hayley Wood to the southeast was regularly farmland with mostly large fields and low coppiced from before C13 until the early trimmed hedgerows. Occasional medium C20. The high, flat land along the eastern to large size ancient woodlands provide a boundary of the parish was usually devoted to distinctive feature and church towers (such pasture, being hard to drain, and was formerly as Little Gransden) and spires (such as Great the village common. In 1940 the area was Gransden to the north) are key landmarks. requisitioned for an airfield, called Gransden The rolling nature of the landscape is in Lodge Airfield, which was operational marked contrast to the essentially flat, open from 1941 to 1946 and was home for the landscape that characterises so much of South Royal Canadian Air Force 405 (Vancouver) Cambridgeshire. Squadron. 6.0 ARCHAEOLOGY 5.0 GEOLOGY AND LANDSCAPE 6.1 There are no scheduled archaeological sites within (or nearby) the proposed Little SETTING Gransden Conservation Area. The only 5.1 The village is generally surrounded by earthworks identified in the RCHM volume agricultural land and is sited on Lower on West Cambridgeshire are cultivation Greensand from the Cretaceous period, remains in the form of ‘ridge and furrow’ though much of the adjacent farmland is patterning surviving in old enclosures on on gault clay, and the village lies within the either side of the Main Road south of the Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands village core. Traces of open-field type Landscape Character Area. ‘ridge and furrow’ can be seen on aerial 5.2 The village is divided into two halves by photographs, especially southeast of the the Gransden Brook, which flows in a village, with curving furlongs abutting against northerly direction through the settlement each other. Straight ‘ridge and furrow’ in in a relatively steep valley on its way to join rectangular fields (eg east of Rose Farm) and the River Great Ouse at St, Neots (about 7 curved ‘ridge and furrow’ in small fields with miles to the north-west). The greater part of curving boundaries are also traceable. The the historic core of the village is located on ridges are 90 – 200 metres in length, 7 –10 Church Street around the church of St Peter metres wide and 200 – 300 mm high. and St Paul, which lies on the higher ground to the west of Gransden Brook. The more 7.0 TOWNSCAPE ANALYSIS recent development in the village has taken Church Street place along Primrose Hill on rising ground to the east of Gransden Brook, though this area 7.1 Church Street is a narrow, dead-end, rural Almshouses at 2-8 Church St 2 lane with wide grass verges and enclosed by hedges and a number of mature trees. The first buildings on the north-west side of Church Street are Nos 2-8 (map:A), a range of ‘Arts and Crafts’ style Almshouses that were built in 1903. These Almshouses are currently not listed, but are of considerable local interest and remain largely unaltered. The almshouses are set back from the road, in communal grounds and are single storey with white painted rendered walls under plain tiled roofs surmounted by tall, brick stacks. The windows have dressed sandstone mullions and surrounds, a detail that is repeated on a series of projecting bay windows, which also Nos 18-20 Church Street incorporate stone transoms. No 22 Church Street Nos 14-16 Church Street 7.4 No. 22 Church Street (map:3) is a detached Grade II Listed cottage set in a large plot 7.2 Continuing down the north-west side of that has recently undergone significant Church Street are Nos 14 and 16 (map:1), refurbishment. The two-storey cottage is a pair of Grade II Listed cottages that are timber framed and rendered under a thatched possibly late medieval and with a 1676 date roof of longstraw and with a dark stained stone on the central chimney stack. The weatherboarded range to the north. The cottages originally comprised a single dwelling house is sited adjacent to No 20, but is set (probably with a baffle entry) that was later further back off the road, and there is a sub-divided, and are timber framed and significant open area between No 22 and No rendered under a longstraw thatch roof. They 30 which affords views out the fields beyond. are 1½ storey with the upper floor windows Currently a temporary mobile home is sited under eyebrow dormers in the thatch. These in the space. cottages are aligned parallel to the road with short front gardens. 7.3 Nos 18 and 20 Church Street (map:2) are a further pair of Grade II Listed cottages.