WYCHAVON Honeybourne Adoption statement The Honeybourne Area Appraisal and Management Proposals were adopted by Wychavon District Council as a document for planning purposes. xxx of the Executive Board meeting of x refers. Wychavon District Council Planning Services Civic Centre Queen Elizabeth Drive Pershore Worcestershire WR10 1PT Tel. 01386 565000 www.wychavon.gov.uk Honeybourne Part 1. Appraisal 1 Introduction What is this Appraisal for? Planning Policy Framework 2 Summary of special interest 3 Assessing special interest Location & Landscape Setting Historical Development & Archaeology Plan Form Spaces Key Views & Vistas 4 Character analysis General Buildings Materials Local Details Boundaries Natural Environment Enhancement Opportunities Neutral Areas Threats 5 Issues NOTE Sources Further information Appraisal Map Part 2. Management Proposals 1 Introduction What are these Management Proposals for? 2 Management Proposals Statement of Community Involvement 1 Honeybourne Part 1. Planning Policy Framework 1.4 Honeybourne Conservation This appraisal should be read in conjunction Area Appraisal with the Development Plan, which comprises the saved policies of the Wychavon District Local Plan (June 2006) 1 Introduction and national planning policy as set out in the National Planning Policy Framework (March What is this Appraisal for? 2012) specifically Wychavon District Local 1.1 Plan Policy Env 12 which is intended to A conservation area is an area of special ensure that development preserves or architectural or historic interest, usually the enhances the character or appearance of historic part of a town or village, where we conservation areas. wish to preserve or enhance its character or appearance. Part of Honeybourne is a National Planning Policy Framework conservation area. 126 – 141 sets out the Governments planning policy on conserving and 1.2 enhancing the historic environment. Under Section 72 of the Planning (Listed Chapter 7 ‘Requiring good design’ is Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 also relevant. The protection and we must pay special attention to the enhancement of the historic desirability of preserving or enhancing the environment plays an important role character or appearance of the conservation in the delivery of sustainable area. This appraisal identifies the special development. interest and character of the Honeybourne Conservation Area, and provides guidance 1.5 on how the preservation or enhancement of Wychavon, along with Malvern Hills District its character or appearance can be Council and Worcester City Council, have achieved. The first part of the appraisal prepared a revised Local Plan (the South identifies its special interest and character. Worcestershire Development Plan). This The second part sets out management Plan has been submitted to the Secretary of proposals for addressing the issues State for examination which commenced in identified in the appraisal. October 2013. The Plan contains Historic Environment Policies which when adopted 1.3 will replace those in the Wychavon Local The Honeybourne Conservation Area was Plan. designated in September 1975. The boundary was reviewed in 2013 during the 1.6 preparation of this appraisal. The current In accordance with the National Planning conservation area boundary is shown in the Policy Framework, the draft South appraisal. Worcestershire Development Plan sets out a positive strategy for the conservation and enjoyment of the historic environment. Draft policy SWDP6 concerns the contribution of the historic environment to the area’s character and identity and its crucial role in 2 Honeybourne supporting sustainable development. origins as a rural farming community is still Development proposals should evident in its buildings and settlement form. conserve and enhance those aspects The significance of agriculture, and later the of the historic environment that are railway, to Honeybourne's development is recognised as being of significance apparent in the clear phases of building that for their historic, archaeological, are still present in the village. architectural or artistic interest and their contribution to the character of 2.2 the landscape or townscape. Each of these phases of development has left a wealth of historic buildings overlaying Draft policy SWDP24 contains more an historic settlement form with evidence of details on the management of the its early origin and roles in history. historic environment. It includes provision that proposals likely to 2.3 affect the significance of a heritage The village has been affected by more asset, including the contribution recent 20th century development but made by its setting should nevertheless retains its rural village identity demonstrate an understanding of in its historic plan and open spaces, historic such significance in sufficient detail to building fabric, and has maintained a visual allow the potential impacts to be connection with its agricultural setting. adequately addressed. 2.4 1.7 The conservation area is focussed on the This appraisal supplements Local Plan historic core of the village around High Policy ENV12 and is intended to help form Street, School Street, China Corner and an understanding of the significance of Brick Walk. Honeybourne conservation area in accordance with draft policy SWDP24. The special interest of Honeybourne that 1.8 justifies its designation as a Wychavon’s Residential Design Guide conservation area includes: Supplementary Planning Document was adopted by the Council on 7 September Its long history, still evident in the layout 2010 and is relevant in the assessment of of the village and its buildings development proposals within conservation areas. The Council is also preparing an The survival of a clear demonstration of Historic Environment Supplementary the historic social hierarchy within the Planning Document which will expand on village, evident in the size, design and the policies in the draft South siting of buildings Worcestershire Development Plan. The survival of the historic form and identity of the village, evident in buildings, plots and village layout 2 Summary of special interest 2.1 The number and quality of historic Honeybourne has considerable architectural buildings and historic interest, with around a thousand years of settlement history and a wealth of The survival of historic fabric and historic buildings. The use of local detailing Cotswold stone and local detailing gives the village a strong local identity. Its early 3 Honeybourne The use of locally quarried Cotswold close relationship with its rural setting is stone in buildings and boundary walls preserved. The contribution of the natural environment in trees, gardens, open Historical Development & spaces, grass verges and hedges Archaeology The conservation area boundary is drawn to The Origins & Development of reflect this special interest. Honeybourne 3.4 3 Assessing special interest The first sign of known human activity near Honeybourne is at Tump Bew Hill, 2kms to Location and Setting the north, believed to be part of a Bronze Age round barrow. The Romans built two Location roads nearby. Ryknild Street, immediately 3.1 to the east of the village, linked the Honeybourne is located 7kms to the east of Fosseway to Droitwich and was a major Evesham close to Ryknild Street, the Roman salt route. A smaller military road Roman Road to Bidford on Avon and ran eastwards from Hinton-on-the-Green to Alcester to the north, and is one of a join with Ryknild Street near the Gate Inn at number of historic villages sited on the rich the eastern fringe of the village. There is, soils of the Vale of Evesham. though, no substantial evidence of Roman occupation in the village or its vicinity. Landscape Setting 3.5 The first documentary evidence of Honeybourne is in the Saxon period. The Manor of Honeybourne is recorded as part of a Royal Grant made to Winchcombe Abbey by Coenwulf, King of Mercia, at its foundation in AD811. 3.6 The Domesday Book of 1086 records 14 villagers (land holding peasants), 8 slaves and 5 plough teams at Honeybourne, which suggests a total population of around 50 to 70, indicating established settlement in the 3.2 area by this early date. Honeybourne The village sits in a low lying flat landscape appears as "Huniburn", meaning "the of large fields of arable, grassland and stream on the banks of which honey is market gardening, fringed by the Cotswold gathered or where bees are kept". Fertile escarpment to the south and east. soil, a mild climate and proximity to the brook were likely reasons for early 3.3 settlement. Honeybourne has seen new development at its periphery, particularly to its north and 3.7 west, so that in these parts the immediate It is likely that early settlement of the relationship of the old village to its rural present village was first established in the hinterland has been lost. In other parts its area of the High Street along the pre- existing Roman road between Hinton-on- 4 Honeybourne the-Green and Ryknild Street, and probably 3.10 comprised a scattered hamlet of farms. It Although there are no other surviving was probably established as a farming buildings in the village from such early date, community by Winchcombe Abbey and the location of 16th and 17th century worked by tenants of the monastic estate to buildings along High Street, School Street, contribute to support of the Abbey. Brick Walk and China Corner, suggests that the layout of the village as we see it today 3.8 was well established by this time. Roads, Later, in the Norman and Medieval periods, lanes and paths branching to the north, the surrounding farmland would have been south, east and west would have given cultivated in strips in open fields for arable access to the surrounding fields and crops, probably with grazing and hay meadows beyond. Some of these old meadows on either side of the brook. Aerial routes are still present in the village. photographs from 1946 show virtually all the parish still covered in the characteristic ridge 3.11 and furrow of this early farming system. The presence of a number of substantial Ridge and furrow still survives, most notably stone houses from the 17th century near to the village to the north.