Little Bookham Conservation Area Appraisal & Management Plan June 2011 Little Bookham Conservation Area Appraisal & Management Plan June 2011 This document was drafted by Forum Heritage Services for Mole Valley District Council. Contents Part 1: Purpose and Scope of Study 1 1.0 Introduction 1 2.0 Consultation 1 3.0 Planning Policy Context 1 Part 2: Appraisal 2 4.0 Location and Setting 2 5.0 Historic Development and Archaeology 2 Historic Background 2 Settlement Plan 3 Archaeological Potential 3 Key Historic Influences 3 6.0 Spatial Analysis 4 Character Areas: 4 1. Manor House School, The Grange and environs 5 2. Little Bookham Street & Lower Road 7 7.0 Architectural and historic qualities of buildings 9 8.0 Activity: prevailing and former uses 11 9.0 Contribution made by key unlisted buildings 11 10.0 Prevalent local and traditional materials 11 11.0 Contribution made by green spaces, trees and hedges 13 12.0 Key views, vistas and panoramas 14 13.0 Degree of loss of architectural and/or historic elements 14 14.0 Negative elements 14 15.0 Conclusion 15 Part 3: Management Plan 16 16.0 Introduction 16 17.0 Overview of the condition of the Conservation Area 16 18.0 Summary of the public consultation 17 19.0 Management Proposals 17 20.0 Proposals for enhancement 17 21.0 Article 4 Directions 18 22.0 New Buildings in the Conservation Area 19 Bibliography and references 20 Appendices 21 A General design guidance for new buildings in Conservation Areas 21 Glossary 22 Part 1: Purpose and Scope of study 1.0 Introduction 3.4 In order to undertake works of enhancement, the character of the Conservation Area needs to be clearly defined and 1.1 understood (the character appraisal). This is in line with Little Bookham is one of 28 designated Conservation Areas in government guidance on the management of the historic the Mole Valley District. It was designated by Surrey County environment through Informed Conservation (English Heritage Council as a Conservation Area in March 1974 and amended 2001). It also seeks to utilise principles used in characterisation by Mole Valley District Council in April 1995. techniques promoted by English Heritage. 2.0 3.5 Mole Valley District Council encapsulated the broad principles Consultation of this Government Guidance in Policy CS14 ‘Townscape, Urban Design and the Historic Environment’ of the Core 2.1 Strategy Development Plan Document (DPD). Forming part of This draft appraisal has been informed by a questionnaire its Local Development Framework (LDF) for the District, the sent to all residents and businesses in the Conservation Area. Core Strategy policy requires all new development to respect The questionnaire was also made available on the Council’s and enhance the character of the area in which it is proposed web site. Comments and opinions have been important in the whilst making the best use of previously developed land. drafting of this document and in the conclusions reached. 3.6 2.2 In support of the Core Strategy DPD, the Council will also continue to use ‘saved ‘ policies from the Mole Valley Local Following a public exhibition in the Bookham Baptist church Plan (2000) which are yet to be superseded by the Core and a further period to comment on this document, revisions Strategy or other Development Plan Documents, such as the will be made before the final document is published. Development Management DPD. Such policies include ENV39 (Development in Conservation Areas) and other similar policies covering specific types of development which may impact on the special character of the District’s Conservation Areas. 3.0 The Council has also prepared the Built Up Areas Character Appraisals Supplementary Document which describes in Planning Policy Context detail the urban character of the District. The Area Character Appraisals complement this document. 3.1 Section 69 1(a) and 2 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) defines Conservation Areas as: ‘Areas of special architectural or historic interest, the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance’ 3.2 In addition, the Act puts particular emphasis on specific duties: ‘It shall be the duty of the local authority from time to time to review the past exercise of functions under this section and to determine whether any parts or any further parts of their area should be designated as Conservation Areas…’ 3.3 This is reinforced by the guidance set out in Planning Policy Statement 5: Planning for the Historic Environment (PPS5). In particular, the local authority should from time to time, formulate and publish proposals for the preservation and enhancement of these Conservation Areas (the management plan). Little Bookham Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan 1 Part 2: Appraisal 4.0 valuations of the two estates, Little Bookham being valued at 60s against Great Bookham’s £16, and the population, there Location and Setting being approximately 20-25 people in Little Bookham and 4.1 approximately 150 in Great Bookham. Little Bookham village lies 5 km (c.3 miles) south-west of Leatherhead, Surrey on the north and south side of the A246. 5.1.5 The village lies in a gently undulating landscape which rises The village remained in the hands of the de Braiose family gradually to the south towards Ranmore Common and the until 1324 when it passed to Hugh le Dispenser. It passed scarp of the North Downs beyond which is some 4 km (2½ two years later to John de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk and in miles) south of the village centre. To the north of the village is the 1470s to Richard, Duke of York, second son of Edward Little Bookham Common, an area of woodland adjacent to the IV. On Richard’s death (he was the younger of the two princes larger Great Bookham Common beyond which the landscape murdered in the Tower of London in 1483) the Lordship extends onto the heavy London Clays and into the valley of the reverted to the Crown. However, by 1498 the manor was in the River Mole. The village itself lies on the Thanet and Woolwich hands of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, later passing to his Beds below the chalk on the spring line. son William Howard, Lord of Effingham. 5.0 5.1.6 Historic Development and Archaeology As with Great Bookham, much village development took place in the 16th century. Many houses in the vicinity survive from 5.1 this period, including the late 15th century/early 16th century Historic Background hall house now known as Half Moon Cottage, the 16th century 5.1.1 Dawes Cottage, and the late 16th century farmhouse, now The The locality of Little Bookham has been occupied since Windsor Castle Public House. Neolithic times with flints found in the southern part of the parish. Evidence for prehistoric activity within the village itself is 5.1.7 limited. Little Bookham Manor stayed in the Howard family until it was sold in the 1630s, coming into the ownership of the Maddox 5.1.2 family. 17th century houses surviving in the village today There is no evidence for a Roman settlement in the vicinity include: the former farmhouse of Half Way House, Childs Hall of Little Bookham but a Roman brooch was found alongside Road; Rose Cottage; and Post Cottage, Little Bookham Street. Rectory Lane. Otherwise, the main evidence for Roman activity The settlement of farmhouses and cottages remained small in the area comes from the find of a hoard of Roman coins at and developed piecemeal. The 18th century saw the Maddox Bagden Farm near the North Downs. The major Roman road, Manor House built as well as Manor Farm with its farmhouse Stane Street, runs through Dorking and Leatherhead 5-6 km and farm buildings comprising timber-framed barn, stables, east of the village. cattle shelters and cart shed. 5.1.3 5.1.8 Anglo-Saxon settlements developed along the narrow strip Little Bookham remained a modest settlement into the 19th of Thanet Sand lying between the clay lands to the north and century. By 1842 the village comprised: the church, Manor chalk hills to the south. Great Bookham developed on the House, Manor Farm and village pound? south of Lower Road; well-drained gravel beds found at intervals along the Thanet a farm accessed via Water Lane; timber-framed cottages lining Sand. The first documentary reference to Bookham appears Little Bookham Street and Preston Cross House (later Hotel); in a charter of AD 675 granting twenty dwellings in Bookham The Grange (shown in outline) and rectory on Rectory Lane. By and Effingham to Chertsey Abbey although this reference may 1869, The Grange was fully established with a ‘D’ plan walled relate to Great Bookham. The place name Bookham is derived kitchen garden. The manor passed through marriage to the from the Old English Bocheham meaning ‘the hamlet of the Pollen’s in 1917. It was sold in 1937 and the Manor House beech trees’. converted into a school. During its life as the manor house it was seldom occupied by the Lords of the Manor, instead being tenanted for long periods. 5.1.4 The Domesday Book of 1086 makes the first known distinction 5.1.9 between the settlements of Great and Little Bookham and tells us that before 1086 Little Bookham was held by Godtovi from Inter-war housing and the growth of nearby Leatherhead Earl Harold. After the conquest the estate was held by Halsard transformed the area so that by the 1930s there had been from William de Braiose. The relative size of the two estates huge expansion to the east of the village whilst the west suggested by the suffixes Great and Little are apparent in the remained rural.