All Posts Tagged With: "Ludlow"
Ludlow should guard against High Street Homogenization
It is as much within the remit of the Civic Society as any planning application to guard prominent positions in the town against encroachment by unsuitable occupants. Shropshire Council have made it known that they need to generate extra income from the properties they own and they have ear-marked the ground floor of the Assembly Rooms building as a potential candidate. It’s in the interest of everyone in Ludlow that a site like this should be occupied by a business or organisation which will generally enhance the function, ambience and visual appeal of the town.
It has been mooted in our local organ that the ASK restaurant chain might be approached, or are even in discussions over the proposal. The appearance of a mediocre, characterless restaurant like ASK or, even more alarming to contemplate, Macdonalds in a key spot in Ludlow’s unique and handsome Castle Square would be abhorrent to most inhabitants and an affront to the dignity of this quite exceptional town. It would be culpably insensitive of those whose task it is to decide if they were to inflict something so intrusively inappropriate on future generations of Ludlovians and visitors to the town.
In principle, provided that the well-run Tourist Information Centre were re-housed in as practical a site (which could well be the Buttercross), there’s no reason why its current premises and that of the museum should not produce an income for the strapped council, provided always that they continue to fund the museum elsewhere (albeit, perhaps, in a more stimulating form than the current exhibition). But the Council must do so only by letting the premises to a business that’s truly compatible with and sympathetic to its very particular position in the town.
At the same time, it’s worth pointing out that there are large premises, with restaurant planning use in a prominent spot on Corve Street, which have so far failed to secure a tenant from among local restaurateurs, nor even from any of the aggressive national chains, despite an excellent size, suitability and prime position.
The current choice of eating places on offer in Castle Square is a discouraging and shameful result of weak and short-sighted initiatives by the County planning authorities, in keeping with their timid decision to allow an application for an absolutely unsuitable development on Church Walk. The George, which in its wonderful south facing site, could be a fine bar and restaurant, is a distressing example of what happens to pubs in the hands of the monolithic and unsympathetic Pub Cos, while the Castle Lodge Buttery is surely not a sight to be proud of.
It matters very much what goes on in the Assembly Rooms site and, notwithstanding the need for income, it would be a far wiser, longer term commercial decision for the town if the premises were offered not simply to the highest bidder, but at a viable rent to a restaurant of quality and distinction, which would add both to the culinary reputation of the town and the visual qualities of Castle Square.
It is very much within the power of the County Council and to some extent the Board of the Assembly Rooms to decide who the tenant should be and it is vital to Ludlow’s reputation that they get it right. In this, the people of the town deserve open debate and transparent decision making.
Popularity: 2% [?]
SHROPSHIRE’S PLANNING COMMITTEE IGNORE THEIR VOTERS
A group of not especially well-qualified individuals gathered in Ludlow last week to make a decision that could set a precedent for the gradual erosion of the architectural and historical integrity of one of the few remaining, least spoilt medieval towns in Britain. They had to decide whether they were for or against an application to erect five “executive” houses in a central site, almost entirely inaccessible and immediately adjacent to two of this town’s most historic buildings. Even well-conceived dwellings, designed to be sympathetic to their venerable neighbours, would be intolerably damaging. In this case the proposed houses are pedestrian, unvernacular and entirely without architectural merit.
The sole driver of this application is the grubby, small-minded greed of opportunistic developers and the current freeholders of the unlikely site – formerly the gardens of the Reader’s House, one of Ludlow’s most distinguished dwellings – seeking to maximize their profits on a lucky purchase of the garden at a knock down price. They manifestly have no interest in the town’s quite exceptional architectural and historical qualities; they are insensible to the overwhelming feelings of disgust of the inhabitants of the town, and have no regard for the massive disruption to the life of the town that their development would cause.
The site has deliberately been allowed to become derelict, and a sliver of land adjoining it, backing on to two shop premises on King Street, has been included in the application. The developers, an individual called Andrew Sheldon and Shrewsbury architect, Graham Moss, hold an option to buy the site for £150,000 (the bulk of the ground – the abandoned garden – is currently owned, and was bought for just £3,000, by Alexandra Countryside Developments (Robert Hughes and Charles Grant, who also own 9/10 King Street). The background to this extraordinary deal is obfuscated, and I would be grateful for more information regarding it; on this blog or privately via peterhenryburden@gmail.com)
The brief look at the history of this attempt to implant a large ugly wart in the very centre of Ludlow shows that the first application for a slightly higher density of dwellings was turned down by the then planning authority, South Shropshire District Council, only to be appealed to the DoE, whose inspector under deliberate misguidance, and to the astonishment and consternation of a huge majority of voters in the town, saw fit to allow it.
This plan turned out to be unbuildable, and the developers, emboldened by their first permission, have submitted a second, fresh plan. Some councillors – whether because they are friends or have connections with the developers, or are pusillanimous, or just plain dim is uncertain – were persuaded that as there was an extant, albeit entirely separate permission in situ, there was a financial risk to the Council in refusing this new one. With the help of the Chairman’s casting vote, these councillors passed this entirely irrational and unnecessary proposal to wreck the centre of an important historic town.
To put it into context, there is no pressing need for this additional housing in a town that has been extensively provided with new housing over the last decade – some still unsold –and where, anyway, several prominent, eminently suitable brown field sites exist as and when the need occurs.
Nor is it an exaggeration to describe this site as inaccessible. It would be hard to find a place less suited to any kind of development, let alone the building of five complete houses. A manner of transporting all the material and equipment required has yet to be identified. On the face of it, everything will have to be manhandled across St Laurence’s church yard, approached by narrow streets, in one case completely impassable by heavy goods vehicles.
The allowing of this gross, impractical plan shows local democracy in a very poor light, and points up the abysmal lack of taste, judgement and historical perspective among a majority councillors on Shropshire Council’s Strategic Planning Committee. It was committees like this that compounded the Luftwaffe’s efforts in the wholesale destruction of the once beautiful, now largely hideous cities of Gloucester and Worcester. Look at these cities and, closer at hand, the butchery that took place in the medieval heart of Shrewsbury in the 1960s; look at the two more recent major developments allowed by the local planning committee in Ludlow – Tesco and the Library, an ugly, out of scale and dysfunctional building – and ask yourself if you should lightly let them get away with it again.
I invite any assistance and provable information in building the case against this development in the hope that a chance to quash it becomes available. In the meantime everything possible that can be done, without breaking the law, to dissuade Messrs Sheldon and Moss from carrying through their plan is to be encouraged, and a careful eye must be kept for any signs of pre-emptive actions by them to breach the wall that marks the curtilage of St Laurence’s Church. The developers cannot commence without gaining access at several points along the wall, and the ownership of the wall is uncertain, however, that is in the process of being established and it most probably belongs to the Church, and the Diocese of Hereford have expressed their clear opposition to the scheme. There is a good chance that they can stop this development; I hope they do all they can to achieve this.
Popularity: 3% [?]
The Prince & What the People Want
A High Court Judge was reported by the Guardian to have described Prince Charles’ intervention in the redevelopment of the Chelsea Barracks site as “unexpected and unwelcome”.
I was surprised; Mr Justice Vos is a judge who is careful about expressing his own views. Then I find that the Guardian got it wrong – the judge said that the developers “regarded this intervention, no doubt, as unexpected and unwelcome.”
I don’t doubt it was unwelcome; a lot of money down the line, they didn’t want their plans turned over now; but I frankly doubt that it was unexpected.
Prince Charles has frequently and famously expressed his views on architecture; it was unlikely that he would overlook the treatment of a key site in central London, adjacent to the C18th classicism of Chelsea’s Royal Hospital, more especially when he had been approached by a large group of the public who feared the imposition of an unsympathetic, uncompromisingly modernistic structure, on a huge scale.
If the prince has a function, passing on the views of many thousands with less scope for influence seems an entirely supportable one, especially in the face of the solipsistic arrogance of the architect involved. Lord Rogers had often displayed his intolerance of those who don’t share his vision of a landscape that belongs to and effects us all.
His loudest objection to Prince Charles’ expressed concerns is that it is undemocratic, but there is distressingly little democracy behind deciding what buildings will fill our landscape.
Take the beautiful town of Ludlow, where I live.
There is a deep, immensely uplifting charm to a place that has retained 800 years of varied and developing building styles, which escapes very few visitors and is treasured by the more civilized inhabitants. However, when it was decided to put up a new library, the developers in conjunction with county council planners produced a scheme for a huge, industrial looking building, vastly out of scale with every edifice around it (apart from an already disastrous redbrick supermarket).
There was, of course, a “consultation”, in which a host of individuals and organisations expressed their profound objections to the great modernistic shed that was proposed. These “consultations” are the “democratic process” behind which arrogant architects, bull-headed, big-spending council officials and profit-motivated developers hide.
In a poll conducted by Building magazine, in which readers were asked to choose between Richard Rogers’ plan for Chelsea Barracks, or an alternative drawn up by traditional architect, Quinlan Terry and based on a classicism which has recurred and given great satisfaction and pleasure since the Greeks first created the concept, it isn’t at all surprising that Terry’s plan drew 60% of votes cast.
Disgracefully, there is no voting, no obligation on the part of planning hearings to take any notice of the views and wishes of the people who live in a town – who own their landscape. So I find myself now working in a library which is a cavernous, noisy space, which seems to function as a meet and chat venue, where large quantities of higher space are unused, and commercial activity occupies a proportion of the charmless lump of a bulding. The planners also bequeathed the town an ugly, useless little open space in front of the hulk, “perceived” by the County Council, “to attract people, thus benefitting nearby traders.” It is nearly always empty, occupied by discarded chewing gum and lager bottles.
There are countless towns and cities throughout Britain that have been ruined in this way, and there have been many occasions when the public have yearned for someone of sufficient influence to raise a voice in support of their objections.
The almost compete vandalization of the once lovely city of Gloucester, of which only the sublime cathedral and its immediate close remain, wouldn’t have happened if there had been a Prince Charles to suggest to the culprits that they should consider not just the wishes of their rate payers, but also the longer lasting qualities of traditional, vernacular and less aggressively modernistic building design.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Gypsy music in a Georgian setting
Last week Opera (see Mozart Rusticana); this week Flamenco in, of all unlikely places, the Georgian Assembly Rooms in Ludlow which still function as the town’s entertainment centre.
I’ve always been attracted to the musical subtleties and sheer physicality of flamenco music and dance and I have regularly promised myself a short sojourn in Seville, to be spent in small, smoky bars where guttural singing and harsh guitar chords echo off low vaulted ceilings – a promise which I have so far failed to keep. With a strongly held view that raw peasant culture like this doesn’t export easily, I had doubts that this powerful musical form would convince when performed on the stage of a provincial English theatre.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Mozart Rusticana
Walcot Hall sits in the valley of the River Kemp which flows serenely towards the Clun between the round-topped, wooded hills of southwest Shropshire. In 1764, Clive of India chose to settle in this beautiful corner of England, just east of Offa’s Dyke, and bought the house with its 80,000 acre estate. He commissioned an architect, Sir William Chambers to re-order the house, which he then left to his son Edward. Walcot Hall remained in the Clive family for 170 years, during which time vast sums were also spent on improving the grounds. A mile-long lake, enlarged by Napoleonic French prisoners of war, still spans the view from the Hall. In 1800, a spacious ballroom was added in order to house a carpet presented to Edward while he’d been governor of Madras.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Bonhomie, Burlesque and Balls Up in Hay
There’s nothing so dead as a festival that’s just finished, but this year’s Hay Fest has passed on leaving some great memories of sun-soaked days, contented punters, gallons of laughter, spectacle, revelation and vision revived. Scattered among the keystone interviews and discussions – Tutu, Bennett, Fry, Paxman – was the usual plethora of smaller events, niche books, anorak authors, and the downright wacky, like Blaize, Immodesty – as she appears in the index – who put on a short but powerful display of Burlesque on Saturday night.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Give a herd a trough
It’s obvious, is it not, that if you were to produce a trough, fill it with money and place it in front of a 650 average English persons, it would be inevitable that snouts will be immersed in it, trotters, too sometimes, up to the hocks. The extent of abuse will vary from Western Saddleback to Gloucester Old Spot, but the more elastic the criteria by which the trough is kept topped up, the less incentive for individual restraint.
The way the Westminster trough has grown, and the reasons for it are symptoms of a classic British fudge.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Horror and degradation in the Millennium Stadium
I’m sure I’ve mentioned on this blog my commitment to the pursuit of truth – fleeting and everlasting – through personal engagement. You won’t read here any commentaries delivered from the comfort and safety of my own armchair, like those of other observers who are content to sit and grumble about the horror and degradation of reality TV shows without ever experiencing them at first hand. Now that these seem to occupy half the schedules on most channels, and with all the fuss about Susan Boyle, I thought I should, on behalf of those who follow this blog, and to satisfy my own indestructible curiosity, expose myself to the potential humiliation of an audition for one of these shows. And so, being the possessor of what has kindly been described as a pleasing baritone voice, last Saturday I took myself off to auditions for the X-Factor at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
Popularity: 3% [?]
But is it art?
Like all dedicated seekers of truth – eternal and ephemeral – this blogger likes to expose himself (though not in his Burberry mackintosh) to the edges of human experience – last week, in two unusual expeditions.
Ludlow Racecourse is an attractive sporting venue set on the gravel-bearing flood plain of the River Teme. There has been recorded horseracing there since 1729, and about a hundred years ago a fine members’ stand was erected in cast iron. Facing north, it prevents a low winter sun from shining in the punters’ eyes. However it also exposes them to the full blast of any northerly wind descending off the Shropshire Hills.
A serviceable, if not architecturally outstanding Members’ Bar and Restaurant was put up about a dozen years ago, and now earns extra revenue – like any sensible Members’ Bar – as an antiques fair and general entertainment venue. Last week it hosted an auction of German Nazi memorabilia.
Popularity: 1% [?]
The TESTAROSSA at the Point-to-Point.
There were no Ferraris at the Ludlow Hunt point-to point, held on Saturday below the massif of Titterstone Clee on a magnificent spring day, where the SUN put in an appearance in more ways than one. Shropshire (and I’m glad about this) is a long way from London and is not Ferrari country (apart from the chap who owns the excellent Golden Moments Indian restuarant). However, there was a Red-Headed visitor from the metropolis who kept us on our toes. I was first alerted to her presence by finding former racehorse trainer, erstwhile Lothario, latterly Telegraph columnist and newly arrived novelist Charlie Brooks waving the punters into the car park. Staying with local friends, he was taking the opportunity to promote his new novel among the large gathering of horse folk.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Hello Peter
Listening to you at the Leveson Inquiry today, I thought you might be interested to have a look at ...
@Fleur,
I suspect he still has a job because he knows where the bodies are buried. 
Not much to write home about Neville? 
hi peter,great website. i bought your book news of the world and managed to get hold of CAMERA ASSASSIN 2 ...
they finally caught the little toad if he can lie at a small tribunal he certainly can rely on ...