Revised Draft Horsenden Conservation area Character Appraisal HORSENDEN CONSERVATION AREA APPRAISAL Reviewed and Updated, June 2016 Horsenden Manor: the south front from the south-east, Chapter 1: was adopted in 1996. It will also follow the Introduction English Heritage (now Historic England) publication Guidance on Conservation Area Conservation Areas are areas of special Appraisals published in 2005 which offers architectural or historic interest, which are helpful advice on the form appraisals should considered worthy of preservation or follow. The earlier character survey for enhancement. They are designated under the Horsenden was issued well before the provisions of Section 69 of the Planning publication of the English Heritage document. (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) This appraisal also takes the opportunity to Act 1990. review the current boundaries of the conservation area and in the light of recent Horsenden was first designated a research suggests an extension to the Conservation Area by Wycombe District designated area. Council in 1982. The conservation area boundaries were extended in 1989. A CHAPTER 1 Conservation Area Character Survey (CACS) Planning Policy Context was prepared and adopted as supplementary planning guidance in 1996 by Wycombe The designation of a conservation area District Council. Government Guidance states influences the way in which a Local Planning that conservation areas should have an up- Authority applies its planning policies to the to-date appraisal. area. It ensures that any planning applications and alterations or extensions to This review seeks to update the Survey in buildings within or adjacent to the light of changes to buildings and areas within conservation area respect the special and adjacent to the conservation area since it 1 Revised Draft Horsenden Conservation area Character Appraisal characteristics identified in this document, Since designation the village has become and local planning policies. part of the Phoenix Trail, which is in turn part of National Cycle Route No 57, a Sustrans The major change since 1996 is the project of nearly 70 miles in length. It passes replacement of various central government through Horsenden, to its north joining the planning policy guidance notes and former track bed of the Princes Risborough to statements by the National Planning Policy Oxford railway line. This opened in 1862 and Framework adopted in 2012 and the issuing survived as far as Thame until the early by English Heritage (now Historic England) of 1990s, thanks to its continued use as a guidance on conservation area appraisals in freight line serving an oil depot in that town. 2005 and on conservation area management in the same year. Below is an updated list of Consequently nowadays the conservation current guidance. area has more visitors than previously: cyclists, walkers and horse-riders. Listed National policy and guidance is contained Buildings and Other Significant Buildings and in: other features are identified on the published • Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Character Survey Map, and these plus the Areas) Act 1990 land and indeed the watercourses and other • National Planning Policy Framework 2012 water featuring within the conservation area • English Heritage: Guidance on boundary, all come together as one of the Conservation Area Appraisals (2005) most attractive and interesting smaller rural • English Heritage: Guidance on the villages within Wycombe District. The revised Management of Conservation Areas (2005) document addresses some of this and the changes to it since the 1996 issue of the CHAPTER 2 original Conservation Area Character Survey. Summary of Special Interest In 2015 the research undertaken by the The Conservation Area was designated in Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust in their 1982 and revised in 1989. Research and Recording Project have been published for a number of historic parks and The conservation area comprises a small gardens in Buckinghamshire. In November village focused on its two principal buildings, 2015 their report on Horsenden Manor was the manor house and the medieval parish published and this extremely valuable church. The area designated currently document has resulted in a better includes much of the parkland and lakes at understanding of the manor house and its the Manor, the Manor Farm complex and a parkland setting. number of cottages. It excludes the Scheduled Ancient Monument immediately CHAPTER 3 south of the conservation area boundary (see Assessment of Special Interest the Archaeology paragraphs within Chapter 3, section 2) 1 LOCATION AND LANDSCAPE SETTING: 2 Revised Draft Horsenden Conservation area Character Appraisal Location and Landscape Context west and west. The fields to the south are mainly sheep pasture, some with surviving The conservation area lies at the northern medieval ridge-and-furrow as well as having end of Horsenden Lane, a no through road. It considerable archaeological interest with a is about 400m west of Princes Risborough Scheduled Ancient Monument of which more Railway station and about 150 yards west of in the archaeology section. the Princes Industrial Estate. Both these mark the western edge of the market town of General character and plan form Princes Risborough but remarkably the village of Horsenden is surrounded by The Conservation Area comprises three agricultural fields and retains an utterly elements: The Manor with its home farm, remote and rural character. parkland and landscaped grounds through which flows a serpentine lake formed by The village lies to the north of the Chiltern damming and controlling the stream that Hills and within the Upper Thames Clay Vales flows through the village; the parish church of (Character Area 108 of the Countryside St Michael within its churchyard; and the Agency’s classification of The Character of fringe of cottages along the north side of England published in 2005). The Chilterns these two and the lane. are identified as Area 110 and consist of chalk hills designated as an Area of The manor and its grounds and Manor Farm Outstanding Natural Beauty whose boundary and the church all lie south of this lane which comes within 450 metres of Horsenden becomes a metalled track in the far north- Conservation Area’s southern boundary. west part of the conservation area beyond Glebe Cottage. The railway arrived in nearby Princes Risborough in 1862 and a branch line was built from Princes Risborough to Watlington which opened in 1872. This skirts to the north some 500m away from Horsenden at its nearest point, but did not result in any development or expansion of the village, unlike its impact on Princes Risborough. The railway survives as far as Chinnor as a heritage line, the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway. The Phoenix trail heads north from Horsenden and after 500m The stream between Bridge and Manor crosses it via a level crossing beyond which it Cottages (2016) joins the former Princes Risborough to Oxford line track bed as far as Thame over the Water courses are a key feature in the county boundary in Oxfordshire. village’s general character with the main stream running northwards through the The village is still surrounded by farmland, grounds of The Manor, dividing south of the much of it pasture with arable to the north- house itself, the right hand branch dammed 3 Revised Draft Horsenden Conservation area Character Appraisal to form an attractive lake, the stream Domesday Book as ‘Horsedene’ and emerging from the park along the east side of ‘Horsedune’. It was originally a separate the churchyard where it crosses the road and parish but is now within the civil parish of flows out of the conservation area between Longwick in a ‘tail’ of land extending south Brook Cottage and Manor Cottage. A from the main bulk of the parish. It was a secondary branch runs alongside the lane separate manor well before the Norman westward to a pond or former wagon wash Conquest and extended in a narrow strip north-west of the church where the lane never more than about 200m wide, running bears north-west. The west branch heads south-east from Little Horsenden Farm north north-west to the conservation area boundary of the B4009 (once the Lower Icknield Way) and flows alongside it; then out of the as far as the Bledlow Road railway bridge. conservation area at its north-west point. Curiously Gate Cottage and Manor Cottage are within Princes Risborough parish but are clearly part of Horsenden as a settlement and were always part of the manor estate. Horsenden Manor, formerly known as Horsenden House, has a late 16th-century core within a Georgian brick house which had battlemented parapets. In 1810 it was stuccoed, an extra storey added and flanking full height segmental bows added at each end. During the English Civil War the moated The former wagon wash (2016) manor house was garrisoned for the King by Sir John Denham, although in was in the The manor grounds are well treed, the midst of hostile Parliamentary territory. northern parts of the conservation area Denham forfeited the estate but recovered it beyond have hedged fields and hedges in 1660 at Charles II’s restoration. alongside the lane while the grounds of the manor and the lane from the pond are In 1662 Denham sold the manor and the defined by estate-style iron fences. These house to the Grubbe family who held it until continue along Horsenden Lane almost as far 1841. as the railway bridge. The parish church of St Michael, consisting of 2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND the medieval chancel and 18th-century tower, ARCHAEOLOGY is considerably smaller than originally built, for its nave was demolished. Its most notable Origins and Historic development incumbent was Robert Braybrooke (died 1404) who later became Bishop of London History and played a major rôle in the troubled reign Horsenden has an Anglo-Saxon place name, of Richard II. Another rector, Edward Stone, meaning Horsa’s valley and the earliest discovered in the 18th century that chewing reference is found in the 11th-century willow bark eased his rheumatism.