Conservation Area Appraisal
WIVENHOE CONSERVATION AREA APPRAISAL 2007
Representation from the Queens Road Residents Association whose aim is ‘To unite residents in a common effort to protect and enhance the conservation area that comprises Queens Road and its immediate neighbourhood.'
The catchment area covered by the association consists of Queens Road, lower Park Road (below the junction with Valley Road), Colne Terrace, Dentons Terrace, and Paget Road (north of the railway line.)
How Does the Queens Road catchment area contribute to the character of the Conservation Area as a whole?
Michael Munt from English Heritage expressed the opinion that later nineteenth century areas such as Queens Road would have been included in the Conservation Area, when it was first designated in June 1969, because of the townscape value of the intact groups of Victorian housing, even if they are not all listed, and also because of the contribution they make to the setting of the town as a whole. They are particularly important when considering the maritime connections of the town.
This particular section of the Conservation Area was developed in the 1860s from land that was formerly part of the Wivenhoe House Estate. The original house, situated approximately where the Rebow Road almshouses now sit, was a handsome white brick mansion built in 1831 by William Brummell, brother of Beau Brummell[1]. In the early 1860s when the house was abandoned, it was taken over by Thomas Harvey, a one-time owner of Wivenhoe Shipyard, who, in his later years, had moved on to buy land extensively and speculate in housing. He was responsible for dismantling and auctioning off the fabric of the house, before the grounds were divided into 80 plots to be sold at auction[2]. His name appears on many of the early house deeds in our catchment area.
Most of these small red brick terraced cottages were built as part of the general property boom which took place in Wivenhoe in the 1860s, following the successful expansion of the shipyard, which built ships ranging from small smacks to luxury racing yachts from the 1840s to 1937[3]. Many of our houses were occupied by workers with maritime connections. A number of public houses were also built at this time including the one-time Old Shipwrights (later the Anglesea Arms), now 7-9 Queens Road. One of the more interesting houses which is actually listed is No 2 Queens Road, although this has now become subsumed into the rear of 64 High Street. The Victorian board school which lies behind Queens Road on Philip Road was built in 1891 and in the very early twentieth Century a Pump House was erected in the dip of Queens Road, to pump the 6,000 gallons of water per hour which had been found there when a borehole dug in 1901 had found water at a depth of 150 feet. For many years this supplied water to the town. The Pump House has recently been modernised as a private dwelling but the original well is still in situ. Running alongside the Pump House, the town Brook, which once ran down the whole eastern side of Wivenhoe[4] and also supplied water for the town, can be viewed before it disappears under the dip in Queens Road, and emerges at the far side. Most of the Brook has now been covered over by development but in Queens Road a glimpse of what it once might have been can be seen.
Queens Road also supplies attractive vistas, particularly when looking along its length, in both directions, and up Park Road.
These cottages which were once the homes of artisans, skilled workers and well known local characters are now mainly occupied by professional people (some retired), including people teaching or working at the university or other higher education establishments or schools, people working in local government or the financial sector, a community development worker, an environmental health officer, a fair sprinkling of artists and craft workers and at least one poet[5].
How can this Part of the Conservation Area best be Managed?
There has been a renewed interest in seeking to improve the visual fabric of the area since our residents association was established in July 2006 and our main aim is to protect and enhance this part of the Conservation area which adds so much to the character of the town as a whole[6]. There are good stretches of housing where residents have sought to preserve the external appearance of their houses without detracting from their Victorian character. Unfortunately, due to the lack of planning controls in the past, some of the Victorian frontages have been altered by inappropriate replacement plastic windows and doors and one or two houses (often used for private rental) show signs of neglect. The appearance of some stretches of good housing has also been affected by the confusing mixture of different types of paving, walling and fencing which divides the properties from the pavement. There must once have been more consistent frontages with stretches of continuous iron railings (the remnants of these can still be seen in places). It would considerably enhance this housing if in time (with appropriate advice and support) something could be done to restore the continuity of these frontages. In the indicators to Townscape Value shown in the Townscape Character Assessment of Wivenhoe it suggests that the re-creatability of the area is weak, whereas we would argue that given the renewed interest in our catchment area in preserving and maintaining our houses, these indicators should show a higher level of re-creatability.
The fact that Queens Road in particular is shortly to be permanently closed to through traffic (5 March is the current given date) may also increase the opportunities for this particular part of the Conservation area to be enhanced and improved.
We understand that the Wivenhoe Society have proposed that an Article Four (2) Direction[7] should be introduced in the Conservation Area and I would say that we would broadly be in favour of that, and would welcome planning controls aimed at maintaining the character of the Conservation Area, bearing in mind however that this may have implications for residents who may not have the resources to comply with this Direction unless grants were forthcoming from local government as I believe they have been in for instance, Maldon. Certainly some guidance to residents on how to preserve the Victorian character of these houses would be welcome[8].
Negative Impacts on the Character of the Conservation Area.
The most devastating impact on the character of the Conservation Area has come from new development being forced onto the town's brown-field sites by Colchester Borough Council. This has involved once quiet residential roads in the Conservation Area, being turned into access roads for new developments, in complete contradiction to Colchester Borough Council's own Local Plan (March 2004) which clearly stated that its policy was ‘to implement a programme of positive schemes for the preservation and enhancement of Conservation Areas and encourage and support property owners to preserve and enhance buildings worthy of retention' (6.12). This also stated under 6.14 that ‘the establishment, change of use or expansion of uses that would detract from the character of a Conservation Area due to noise and traffic generation or would be detrimental to visual amenities, will not be permitted'.
At one stage Queens Road itself, in spite of the fact that it lay within the Conservation Area, was deemed by the local Town Council to be the ‘preferred access route'[9] for traffic seeking to access the Cook's shipyard construction site, currently being developed by Taylor Woodrow. Before local residents campaigned hard and successfully to have the road permanently closed to protect it from such traffic, the road suffered terribly from the passage of massive plant machinery which caused damage, not only to people's property and cars but to the underlying fabric of the road itself. The last few months have seen flooding from broken, crushed and damaged pipes involving at least a dozen visits from Essex Highways, Tendring Hundred Water, and the Environment Agency, in an attempt to repair the damage. This is still ongoing and a multi-agency meeting to try to resolve the problems has been arranged for 2 March.
All this has happened because of bad planning decisions and a failure to consider: the vulnerability and fragility of housing in the Conservation Area as a whole; the completely inadequate narrow, steep and twisting roads, which have now become access roads to the new developments; roads which often have either no pavements or very narrow pavements to buffer the traffic from the houses themselves; roads which in themselves are fragile and ill maintained and quite incapable of bearing heavy and additional traffic; and the general impact on the infrastructure of the town itself which is completely unable to cope with these additional burdens.
How can the Problems Undermining Wivenhoe's character be overcome?
Unfortunately, most of the new building has started to overshadow, not to say swamp, the existing Conservation Area in Wivenhoe. Although the new houses look smart and cared for along the river front, those houses which reflect Wivenhoe's historical and architectural development from earliest times have become increasingly dirty and neglected, much of the dirt and damage to roads and houses being actively created by the act of building the new houses. Street cleaning in those parts of the Conservation Area where there is residential parking has also been completely inadequate in recent years.
We feel that this appraisal now gives us the opportunity to emphasise, renovate and revitalise the original character of the Conservation Area in Wivenhoe. It gives newcomers to the town the opportunity to develop a greater understanding of the historical and architectural heritage which provides so much of the character of our town and appreciate why we should make every effort to preserve it. A good start could be made by making sure that all sectors of local government are aware that we have a Conservation Area and make renewed efforts to ensure that Conservation Area guidelines are adhered to. Once the overall policy is recognised, practical efforts to protect and enhance the appearance of housing in the Conservation Area can be undertaken, including, we might suggest a general and concerted effort to physically clean up and repair those damaged sections of the town.
In our own catchment area we would like to see every effort possible being made to protect and enhance the Victorian terraced housing which is part of our heritage. We are not overburdened with street furniture in general but we would like to see: the removal of ugly telegraph poles used by the power and telephone companies; the removal of unnecessary road signs; the introduction of more appropriate street lighting[10]; the introduction of sympathetic paving materials; and some guidance on boundary walls and how to restore consistency to the frontages of our housing.
We realise that cost and funding are issues here; but on the other hand, if we value our heritage we should be prepared to preserve it and contribute towards its upkeep.
Which Areas do you Think Contribute the Most or Have a Negative Impact on the Character of the Conservation Area?
We do not think that any existing parts of the Conservation Area in Wivenhoe should be removed. However we do feel that there is some justification for expanding the Conservation Area in our own catchment area to include: a) the older houses on the top west side of Park Road, towards the junction with Valley Road; b) the large old houses on the lower east side of Park Road; c) the older houses running down on the north side of Queens Road from the junction with Park Road towards and including the Pump House, and d) the remaining run of older houses on the south side of Queens Road towards the junction with Anglesea Road.
We feel that it would be inappropriate for us to mark any ‘positive' or ‘negative' areas on the map of the Conservation Area in Wivenhoe, without first having some indication of the reasons lying behind this particular appraisal. As English Heritage remarks, priority in preparing appraisals should be given to ‘those areas where the pressure for change is greatest' and we would like to be informed if there are any other plans for Wivenhoe which might impact on the existing Conservation Area before making any such decision. We are particularly concerned about any impact which might involve future development, other than that already agreed, on Cook's Shipyard site or adjacent land.
We are also concerned that the appraisal itself must engage in proper community involvement from the earliest stages, as outlined in Colchester Borough Council's ‘Statement of Community Involvement', QuBE's stated desire for 'early and meaningful dialogue with local people and stake-holders' and English Heritage's guidelines[11] on how essential it is to involve the local community in the process.
Pat Marsden
Chair
Queens Road Residents Association
5 March 2007
[1] See Wivenhoe: its Attractions, Pleasures and Eccentric Natives, by Dick Barton (1975)
[2] See Essex County Standard, 3 October 1860. Auction Documents and Plan held at ERO (D/DU 225/14)
[3] See the recently published DVD Sea Change in Wivenhoe and accompanying book Sea-Change: Wivenhoe Remembered, by Paul Thomson the well known social historian (2006)
[4] See maps of 1777 (Chapman and André) and 1873-4 (Ordnance Survey)
[5] Francis Bacon, the famous artist, once lived here, and John and Pam Dan, also well known local artists.
[6] It should be noted here that the Townscape Character Assessment of Wivenhoe, produced in 2006 contains a number of errors. On p369 Queens Road, Colne Terrace, Dentons Terrace and Paget Road are not listed as being part of the ‘Park Road' Townscape Character area. On p370 the character area of Queens Road is referred to as running along the southern side of Queens Road, whereas it also runs along the north side from Nos 1 - 17. The Movement Patterns on the same page refer to Park Road as being the main route through the area and states that it is ‘not overly busy'. In fact Queens Road has been one of the main transit routes through the area, particularly since some years ago traffic to the local Business Centre was redirected via this route. Under Threats to Townscape Character it states that there is ‘on-street parking (possibly associated with the adjacent retail core)' whereas in fact this parking is entirely residential.
[7] As outlined in Guidance on the Management of Conservation Areas (English Heritage). A direction under Article 4 of the Town and Country Planning (general Permitted Development) Order 1995 may be required to preserve the character or appearance of the conservation area, or part of it. Article 4 (2) mainly relates to aspects of the external appearance of dwelling houses which front onto highways in a conservation area. Local planning authorities would need to notify local people and take account of public views before confirming such a direction.
[8] Possibly The Victorian Society might be able to assist with this.
[9] See Press Release relating to Cooks S106 Working Party, para 6, dated 17 September 2002
[10] Essex County Council produced a leaflet on Street Furniture in the late 1960s, with the aim of protecting and enhancing the environment. More up to date brochures can be obtained from English Heritage as part of their campaign called ‘Save Our Streets'.
[11] Guidance on Conservation Area Appraisals and Guidance on the Management of Conservation Areas.
