Key Unlisted Buildings - Warwickshire County Council

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal

1. INTRODUCTION

“Keeping and understanding the past makes for tolerance; it also makes for creativity in devising ways of altering and adding to towns. For nothing comes out of a vacuum. It is hard to believe that those who made the running in English Towns in the 1950s and 1960s would have done what they did if they had known more about them.”

(Girourard 1990 p.8)

1.1 A conservation area is defined as “an area of special architectural and historic interest the character and appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance”

1.2 Government and, its advisor English Heritage, have stressed the need for conservation areas to be managed positively and effectively. In order to do this, decisions that affect their character or appearance need to be made on the basis of a good understanding of their special architectural and historic interest, and their significance or value as identified by the community. In the final analysis, heritage is what people value and it is important to understand the values of as many people who work live and in the town as possible.

1.3 This draft initial appraisal has been produced as a first attempt to define the special interest of the Atherstone Conservation Area. This will be used to consult the public and initiate community participation to find out what local groups and residents consider to be of value in the conservation area and how it might be best protected.

1.4 The draft appraisal is structured as follows:

Section

2

3

4

5

5.1

Summary of the Special Interest of the Atherstone

Conservation Area

Location and Setting of the Conservation Area

The Origins and Historic Development of the Area

Approach to the Character Analysis

Long Street The Town’s Spine

5.2

5.3

5.4

5.5

The Market Place and Church Environs

The Back Lands

The Southern Approach

The Southern Housing Area

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2. SUMMARY OF SPECIAL INTEREST

“[Towns] are more than just streets and buildings. They are intricate compositions made up from the interrelationship of many features, natural and man-made, ancient and modern. Hill slopes, valleys, rivers, buried archaeological deposits, streets, lanes, open spaces, property boundaries and many different types of buildings are all elements of the townscape. The present uses to which those elements are put are the most ephemeral of all the factors contributing to the town’s appearance, although at present they may be the most strident. The cumulative patterns which the different elements create are what gives each town its peculiar character, its flavour as a unique place on the earths surface, different from all others.”

(Aston 1976 p.218)

2.1 Atherstone is, quite literally, a textbook example of a small, newplanned, single-street, medieval borough of the thirteenth century 1 . It was, unusually, laid out directly along Watling Street itself, a major road of Roman origin, for almost a mile and grafted on to an earlier preurban settlement at its middle. The extent of the near-continuous lines of buildings along Long Street still essentially coincides with the boundaries of the medieval town. Its streets, central market place and the, once many, long rectangular plots of its tenements lining Long

Street and the Market Place, make up the skeleton that lies beneath the built form of the town today.

2.2 Over the centuries different owners have replaced the buildings and building facades that front these plots many times at different periods, so that in parts, they provide a vivid record of the towns past activities and building fashions. This rich tapestry is nowhere more apparent than in the picturesque market place, the historic heart of the town, where fine examples of architecture from the sixteenth to 19 th centuries can be seen harmoniously juxtaposed around the rectangular open space. At its head is the Church of St Mary, which, typically of a newfounded thirteenth century town, was a chapel of the earlier parish church of Mancetter until the 19 th century.

2.3 Adjacent to the market place and to its immediate east along Long

Street, the age and style of building is more uniform owing to rebuilding of many plot frontages within a short period in the late Georgian and early Victorian periods. Loss of variety is compensated for, in part at least, by the cohesiveness of the townscape and good manners of these often elegant well proportioned three-storey houses for the town’s merchants, bankers and tradesmen. They bear witness to the prosperity of Atherstone in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries.

Together with the market place buildings, they make up the majority of the town’s Listed Buildings. The tradition of good quality neighbourly building in this part of Long Street was continued well into the 19 th

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Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal century with some fine three storey Victorian commercial buildings erected between Coleshill Street and Church Street.

2.4 Further along the main street, to both east and west, the range of buildings becomes more diverse in scale, quality, style and age as the predominance of three storey buildings of the centre gives way to a mix of two and three storey houses intermixed with several Victorian public houses. Those away from the central core tend to be of lesser quality with many replacements built in the mid- to- later 19 th c when the quality and cohesiveness of late Georgian building had largely given way to Victorian exuberance and individualism in architectural expression. On reaching the suburban edges of the town the quality lifts again as the larger houses of the towns wealthy middle classes are encountered, built by them to escape the growing industrialization of the town centre during the 19 th century.

2.5 Intermixed with the predominantly Victorian and Georgian commercial and residential buildings to the west end of Long Street, on both north and south sides, are the few surviving remnants of the towns industrial past. The once numerous hat factories that were intimately intermingled with the houses of workers and tradesmen along Long

Street have almost all disappeared. Only parts of the former Hattons

Hat factory behind Long Street and Church Street are still visible from public vantage points. Other reminders of the towns former industrial past still visible are the slipper and skirt making works of the late

Victorian and early twentieth century to be seen in Station Street.

2.6 Beyond the extent of the medieval borough, to the south of the conservation area, are the back streets of Victorian, Edwardian and

Inter-war speculative housing. The earliest terraces were built by the towns’ builders under the housing bylaws before the Housing Acts created the necessary conditions for an extensive public house building programmes on the periphery of the town of the 1930s and 1950s.

They heralded the clearances of the notorious Yards of worker court housing along with many of the towns medieval plot boundaries, and there replacement with much indifferent late 20thc building.

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3 LOCATION AND SETTING

“ On a clear day the market town of Atherstone can be seen to good advantage from the site of an Iron Age fort which crowns a hill to the southeast…To the west lies the Arden, a landscape of cosy fields and woodlands, marked out by dense holly hedges and deep lanes, their banks bright with bluebells and primroses in spring. To the east, the wide panorama of

Leicestershire countryside stretches out as far as the eye can see, a patchwork of fields and fox coverts, studded with towers and spires. Between these contrasting landscapes, the eye focuses on Atherstone a medley of ancient and modern roof tops lining Roman Watling Street, bounded on the north by the River Anker, and on the south by the Coventry Canal and the

Trent Valley Railway line.”

(J Vero 1995 p.)

3.1 Location and Context

3.1.1 Atherstone is situated on the A5 (Watling Street) Trunk Road at the heart of the country’s road network between the two much larger towns of Tamworth, some eight miles to the northwest, and Nuneaton, some six miles to the southeast.

31.2 It lies at the northern tip of Warwickshire close to the border with the adjacent rural landscapes of the counties of Leicestershire to the northeast, and Staffordshire to the northwest.

3.1.3 The town centre provides a twice-weekly market, retailing, banking and other services for the locality and rural hinterland, as well as being the seat of local government for North Warwickshire Borough.

3.1.4 It suffered industrial decline and lack of investment in the later 20 th c, but its prosperity has increased in recent years after establishing a new role as a national distribution centre. A small number of national companies have their headquarters in or near the town and there has recently been an initiative launched to establish Atherstone as a book town along similar lines to those in Blaenavon and Hay-on Wye. If successful this should help bring much needed economic life to the town centre, particularly the market square, and investment in its building stock. A number of brownfield housing schemes have come forward in recent years within the historic town centre including ones at

Atherstone Garage, Long Street and Phoenix Yard to the rear of

Church Street.

3.1.5 Atherstone had a population of ----- at 2005.

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3.2 General Character and Plan Form

3.2.1 The conservation area comprises a linear market town, a dense urban settlement with an industrial flavour, laid on a medieval plan stretching for almost a mile along Watling Street and focused on a central rectangular ancient market place. The conservation area also includes an area of predominantly late 19 th and early 20 th c bylaw housing which lies between the southern limits of the medieval borough and the railway line.

3.3 Landscape Setting

3.3.1 Atherstone, like its near neighbour Nuneaton, stands on a north west/south east boundary, where two landscapes the Arden and the

Feldon meet. To the north lies the Feldon, an expansive flat low lying landscape of clays of the Keuper Marl covering parts of Leicestershire and Staffordshire, which historically is a countryside of open fields, and cereal cultivation. To the south and west the land rises to form a plateau of harder and older Silurian and Cambrain rocks, part the East

Warwickshire Plateau. The plateau is undulating and was once heavily wooded, forming part of the North Warwickshire ‘forest’ of Arden.

3.3.2 This junction of two contrasting landscapes was an important structural factor in the urban prosperity of both towns.

1 Each landscape had distinctive products it needed to exchange with the other, for example, timber and fuel from the Arden was traded for grain from the Feldon.

Such exchange required urban markets, and this may help to explain not only why the town was established in the first place, but also its enduring economic prosperity at times such as the late medieval period, when others were shrinking.

3.3.3 The historic town stands on a low terrace above the flood plain of the the River Anker, a tributary of the Tame running south east to north west some two miles to the north of the market place. The higher ground of the Arden is drained near Atherstone by streams flowing north-eastwards into the Anker, two of which flowed through the medieval town. Both have been important to the to the town’s economy historically, serving successively the cloth, leather and hatting industries. Innage Brook to the west marks the parish boundary between Atherstone (formerly part of Mancetter)

3.3.4 Prior to the late 18 th century the wooded areas immediately south of the town were important to the livelihoods of the majority of the towns population who enjoyed valuable rights of common over them. These included the right for cottagers and freeholders to cut timber, which was sold in the market place, from an area extending over 135 acres to the south of the town known as the Outwoods. In 1895, the Outwoods were described as the ‘lungs of the town’. They were leased to

Atherstone Golf Club in 1894, in which use they remain, forming an

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Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal important green backdrop to the town particularly in views from the junction of Long Street and Welcome Street.

3.3.5 The Conservation Area comprises the full extent of the medieval linear town together with 19 th and early 20 th century housing areas immediately to the south. Beyond the conservation area boundaries to the north and south are large inter-war and post war estates of local authority housing, together with large speculative housing estates of the later 20 th century. Two large later 20 th c industrial estates on the periphery of the town to the east and west provide the focus of manufacturing and distribution uses.

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4 THE ORIGINS AND HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE

ATHERSTONE

4.1 Origins

4.1.1 We are largely in the dark concerning the nature, form, and evolution of settlement at Atherstone before the creation of the medieval new town in the 13 th century. There are clues given by place name evidence and the Domesday entry for the Saxon settlement, and others in the few surviving relicts of the pre- medieval urban settlement around the market place. Given the lack of firm evidence, though, it is not possible to be in any way certain about the pre-urban form of Atherstone, and what follows is tentative and conjectural.

4.1.2 Although Atherstone is sited on the Roman road of Watling Street, it seems that Roman settlement in the area was on the south-east outskirts of the present town at Mancetter - Mandvessedum

4.1.3 The name Atherstone is of Saxon origin and made up of two elements: the first a personal name element for Aethelred, and the second a topographic one -

‘tun’ - meaning an estate centre or farmstead of a large family, thus ‘Athelred’s Tun.’

4.1.4 During the Saxon period Watling Street formed the boundary between the English and the Danelaw areas held by the Vikings after the treaty of 886 AD. The Viking territory was subsequently retaken by the

English.

4.1.5 By the time of the Domedsay Book in 1086, it appears, on the basis of the entry for Atherstone, that it had become a sizable nucleated farming settlement with a population of approximately 60 people. It records that the Manor formed part of the extensive estate of Countess

Gadgifu ( the Lady Godiva of Coventry), with eleven villains (tenant farmers), two bordars (cottagers with smaller land holdings), and a slave or serf.

4.1.6 The development of Atherstone from a possible origin as individual farmstead or estate centre to a nucleated village, would not have been unusual. During the period 850 – 1100 a ‘village revolution’ took place over the lowland vales of England when people hitherto living in hamlets and isolated farmsteads moved into villages, and the surrounding land was organised into great open arable fields to be farmed collectively. Whether this happened over a short space of time or over a number of years is not recorded but the process must have involved a significant degree of leadership, coordinated community action and planning.

4.1.7 Barely discernable relict features of what may have been part of a

Saxon or pre- urban village can perhaps be detected in the now

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Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal fragmentary boundaries and alignments of buildings around the church and market place and their relationship to the boundaries of the later medieval new town These are discussed in Section 2 on The Market

Place at page- _but it should be mentioned here that it is unlikely that the form of this early pre-urban settlement was in anyway similar to that of the linear medieval new town that it replaced. It seems that it may have been focussed on a central space, or possible village green, in the area around and to the north of the market place.

4.2 The Medieval New Town

4.2.1 In the late 11 th c the Manor of Atherstone was granted to the Abbey of

Bec Herlouin in Normandy by Hugh, Earl of Chester - a nephew of

William the Conqueror. As Lord, the Abbey successfully sought

Borough status for the Manor along with rights to hold markets and fairs from the King in the13 th century. Their motive for doing so was economic for, if successful, a town could generate substantial revenue through taxation and rents. With Borough status came rights of burgage tenure for individual tenants (or burgesses as they were known), a form of ownership evolved in the Middle Ages to attract settlers to new towns. Anyone who acquired a burgage plot had to pay an annual rent to the Lord of the Manor in lieu of agricultural services, but it also gave the tenant the important added freedom to sell his plot, or to buy someone else’s. On agricultural manors, no such freedom existed.

4.2.2 The physical manifestation of these moves towards urbanisation was radical and dramatic, and is still much in evidence in the present plan form of historic Atherstone some 750 years later. It was no less than to lay out a linear medieval new town over a mile in length along Watling

Street itself, from the junction with North Street in the east, to the

Innage Brook and the Manor boundary with Merrevale and Grendon in the west. It appears that this was grafted onto, and partly obliterated the original Saxon village core, incorporating its putative central space within a new enlarged rectangular market place. The commercial basis for the new town’s existence is emphasised by the ample size of its market square, the maximisation of frontages along the street, and its ready accessibility to passing traffic, being most unusually sited on the

Watling Street itself.

4.3

Hewitt’s Plan of Atherstone Fieldes 1716.

4.3.1 The earliest pictorial representation we have of the town is the Plan of

Atherstone Fieldes produced in 1716 by Robert Hewitt for Abraham

Bracebridge. This is an extremely valuable and rare document for it shows not only the form of the medieval new town very clearly, but also its relationship to the surrounding open fields almost 50 years before their enclosure in 1765. It is located in the Middle Field, with Aldermill

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Field to the west and north, and Windmill Hill Field to the south and east.

4.3.2 The plan of the built settlement is very simple, with houses (shown symbolically), and their associated tenement boundaries, lining either side of the single main street and the central market place. Narrow back lanes give access to, and mark the boundary with, the strips of ploughed unfenced open fields extending over a large area beyond.

4.3.3 The street and market place frontages show a crowded scene but as yet there is no sign of rear development within the burgage plots with the exception of those whose long sides lie immediately adjacent to lanes or roads. The size of population of the town at this time was about 600 with the majority engaged in agriculture.

4.4 Enclosure of the Common Fields

4.4.1 In 1730, some two decades after this plan was drawn, the first attempts were made to enclose the common fields of the town. Abraham

Bracebridge described as ‘a tradesman and no great farmer’ led the move. About 60 smaller freeholders and 120 cottagers vigorously opposed him. Many of the former had recently settled in the town having paid high prices for their houses because of the very valuable rights attached to them. These included grazing rights of the extensive common meadowlands and the rights to timber from woodlands. Their stout resistance was overcome in 1765, when the open fields were enclosed, and again in 1786, when the commons were enclosed. (The two Acts gave rise to two 18 th -century maps of the town.)

4.4.2 After enclosure and the turnpikeing of roads, communication and transport were greatly improved a fact which together with the cutting of the Coventry Canal did much to increase Atherstone’s commercial importance.

4.5 Industrialisation

4.5.1 Bakers Map of 1763 shows the beginnings of what was to become, in the late 18 th and 19 th centuries, a network of crowded courts and yards of tenement housing behind the street frontages, each with its own narrow bottle-neck entrance off Long Street. These grew steadily in numbers over the century to accommodate the workers of the industrialising town, principally hatters. In 1736 there had been 231 houses fronting Long Street and the market place, together with 72 tenements built in rear yards. By 1768 the number of rear tenements had risen to 123, accommodated in 47 yards. In 1793, the town had

292 houses fronting streets or in their own grounds, and 241 yard dwellings.

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4.5.2 Between 1801 and 1829 there was a further, steeper rise in the number of houses built, from 556 to 827, nearly all of them tenements.

This is a clear indication that enclosure, combined with transport improvements, was fuelling industrialisation and the growth of the hatting industry. Tenements were not the only new buildings however.

Owners and merchants profiting from the yards, built good quality housing for themselves in and around the market place, on the adjacent east part of Long Street, and on the edges of the town at this time.

4.5.3 In 1828 Atherstone was described as “ a neat market-town…consisting chiefly of one street, a full mile in length, tolerably well built, with a commodious market square and house’

4.5.4 By 1840 Atherstone had become essentially an industrial community, with a population of almost 4000, accommodated, remarkably, still within the boundaries of the medieval new town. It was noted at this time that ‘The manufacture of hats is carried out to a considerable extent’.

4.6 Dealing with The Yards

4.6.1 Over the following decades a major theme in the story of the town was, how to deal with the problems posed by the poor and overcrowded housing conditions of its working population, created, in no small measure, by the landlords who profited so well from them.

4.6.2 These problems were to be found in most major cities, and even in towns of moderate size throughout the Country, but to find them in a small market town the size of Atherstone, was certainly very unusual. It demonstrated how landlocked the town was until well into the last century, confined both by the common land, and by the estates of the

Dugdale family of Merevale Hall, and the Bracebridge family of

Atherstone Hall.

4.6.3 It is perhaps little wonder that, given Atherstone’s small size, meaningful action to tackle the many hundreds of yard dwellings could not take place until after the First World War. It was only then that sufficient powers and resources were made available by central government to the town to take the major steps required; Firstly to find and acquire land, secondly to build replacement houses for the workers, and then to buy up the yards from their owners, re-house their tenants, and finally clear the sites. Not surprisingly the process took time, particularly as the Second World War interrupted the programme.

4.6.4 In 1912 there were 60 yards containing 415 dwellings, housing 1859 people. In 1952 there were 31 yards 148 houses and 522 people; this was out of a total population of 5920 in that year. Post war clearance

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Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal orders for the remainder were confirmed in 1957 and the last of the yards were finally cleared in 1965.

4.7 Post-War Development

4.7.1 Not surprisingly, clearances on this scale left large holes in the townscape, and there was little agreement among the authorities as to how, and with what, they were to be filled. Concern was being expressed in the early sixties over the ‘gap-toothed’ appearance of the town. In 1970 regrets were being expressed that perhaps repairs and selective demolition might have been a better course of action than comprehensive housing clearances.

4.7.2 Large housing estates were created beyond the historic town centre from the 1930’s onwards. These were to the north of North Street and to the south east of the town towards Mancetter. Public housing predominated until the late 1950’s,and then the private sector took over. Typical sixties suburban speculative housing areas developed over a large area from immediately north of the market place, sweeping away Atherstone Hall in 1963, together with much of the above ground evidence of the towns early origins.

4.7.3 A small civic precinct was created off Long Street, within an area of cleared yards, in the early 1960s including the memorial hall, library and swimming pool.

4.7.4 The cleared areas of yards and boundaries of medieval plots remain largely undeveloped and used primarily as valuable car- parking areas serving the commercial and civic functions of the town. In the 1970s the Council Offices were constructed following the establishment of

North Warwickshire District Council in 1974.

4.7.5 The twentieth century saw the steady decline of the hatting industry that had been the cause of much of its late 18 th and 19 th century growth. Factories were sold, (though in one case even the factory buildings failed to find a buyer), and eventually redeveloped, mostly for private housing, but also for commercial development.

4.7.6 The density of building modern building has inevitably been much less than its predecessors. Post war civic and commercial buildings have much larger floorplates and are bulkier in mass, and many have flat roofs. They sit within or adjacent to large areas of car-parking.

Residential developments to the eastern half of North Street and south of its central section have followed a similar trend, with the result that the fine grain of the historic town, still evident on pre-war maps, has been seriously eroded.

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APPENDIX A


5 ANALYSIS OF THE AREA’S SPECIAL ARCHITECTURAL AND

HISTORIC INTEREST, ITS CHARACTER AND APPEARANCE.

5.0 Introduction: approach to the analysis

5.0.1 The character analysis has been approached by splitting the

Conservation Area into the following five ‘character areas’, and

‘character zones’:

1. Long Street,

2. The Market Square and Church,

3. The Back Lands,

4. The Southern Approach

5. The Southern Housing Area.

5.0.2 In identifying these zones and areas, and in describing their characteristics and appearance, there is an inevitable emphasis on what can be seen from streets and public spaces. However this bias should not result in a mere description of that which can only be seen from part of the area as a whole, even if it is the most obvious. It needs to be an analysis that takes proper account the most salient and defining historical and architectural attributes of each zone or area, which are not necessarily the most obvious visually. These, when considered together, should provide for a comprehensive, and hopefully penetrating, analysis of what makes the conservation area, as a whole, special.

5.0.3 To do this it has been found necessary, in most cases, not to attempt delineating character areas with precise boundaries. Instead it was felt useful to consider di fferent character zones with ‘fuzzy’ or ‘soft’ boundaries. This is because the chosen defining attributes of different parts of the conservation area are rarely precisely restricted to discrete geographical areas, but instead, gradually shade into, or overlap with, other parts with different principal defining characteristics or attributes

(though sometimes some of these are shared). So for example the

Long Street zone has as its principle defining attribute the long linear corridor space shaped by the building frontages that line both its sides.

The Back Streets are identified by the character and use of the land to rear of these same properties, including their rear extensions, outbuildings and plots. Both zones have in common the burgage plots of the medieval plan that have shaped their development and extent, and often the same historic owners and uses.

5.0.4 The Market Place zone, by contrast, though varied in visual appearance and character (for example in the contrast between the public hard urban space of the square and the private garden spaces to the rear of some buildings that enclose it) is identified primarily on the basis of its historic plan form and the ‘time depth’ of its buildings

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APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal which vividly informs how the town has developed over many centuries.

5.0.5 The Southern approach is identified by early 19 th c development along

Coleshill Street, and the Southern Housing Area by late 19 th and early

20 th century housing development between southern street and the railway line.

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5.1 LONG STREET - THE TOWN’S SPINE

HISTORIC INTEREST

The Watling Street

5.1.1 The Watling Street is a Saxon name for the road of Roman origin connecting London to the North West of Britain and Ireland. The original surface of the Street was said to be about three feet below existing levels in 1850 when paving slabs and Roman coins were unearthed in Long Street during works to the towns sewage system.

5.1.2 While the Street is the most direct route from London to Hollyhead, the section on which Atherstone lies was by-passed by passenger traffic from the 16 th century onwards. The latter took a route via Coventry leaving Atherstone with mainly goods traffic until the improvement of road in the late 18 th century.

5.1.3 Before the coming of the railway, Watling Street was used as a long distance drove road for the herding of animals to fairs and markets, the most important of which were in the Capital. The direct road connection with London was a primary factor in the town becoming one of the most important cheese trading centres in the country during the 18 th century. Daniel Defoe described Atherstone in 1724 as ‘a town famous for a great cheese fair on 8 September

5.1.4 With the introduction of the turnpiking system and the general improvement in road conditions in the later 18 th century, scheduled stage-coach services were established in the town for passengers.

Thomas Telford’s main London - Hollyhead stage coach route once again bypassed the town via Coventry from 1828, but coaches were nevertheless departing daily from the town for London Chester,

Holyhead Manchester and Liverpool. (Photos of the direction sign on

The Bakery and Milepost outside Red Lion)

5.1.5Atherstone also became an important mail center on one the country’s principal mail routes from London to Liverpool via Hinckley Atherstone and Tamworth from 1784. (The strategic importance of its situation remains as evidenced by the presence of the private TNT mail service headquarters in the town today.)

5.1.6 With the coming of the motorcar in the 20 th century, the town increasingly fell victim to heavy through traffic. By the end of the 1950s the problem had become acute with up to 3000 heavy lorries and 7000 cars passing through each day. In 1963 the new Atherstone by-pass was opened, some forty years after the idea was first considered. It removed the congestion and pollution overnight.

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5.1.7 Today the narrow main street remains open as a busy one-way route through the town to smaller vehicles. It was sensitively repaved in the early-mid 1990s) financed with grant aid from the EU

The Burgage Plots of Long Street

5.1.8 One of the most important physical legacies of the medieval new town affecting Long Street’s present day character and appearance, are the burgage plots that once continuously lined both its sides, from Grendon

House in the west, to the Queen Elizabeth School in the east. (See

Map)

They have subsequently affected how the frontages were divided and developed, and still define the limits of the built corridor, which begins and ends quite distinctly and abruptly where it did over 600 years ago.

5.1.9 Unfortunately only a small fraction of the plots themselves have survived the clearances of the yards of the 1930s and 50s, and later twentieth century redevelopment. The handful of bundles and other fragments that do remain are shown on Map -.

5.1.10 The original mile long stretch of plots was probably not laid out ‘all in one go,’ but in a series of phases or blocks , between the mid 13 th and early14 th centuries. Records of the late 13 th c record a large-scale redistribution of property along Long Street and around the market place to make way for some thirty new tenancies. Those near the market place were soon developed with buildings on their frontages. By

1296 there were 36 free tenants in the town, probably burgesses.

5.1.11 As originally laid out the medieval plots would probably have been relatively spacious. Over the following centuries the frontages along the mile-long stretch would be gradually in-filled with buildings particularly in the centre, reaching a peak in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries when subdivision of plots on the most important commercial frontages was commonplace.

5.1.12 By 1716 we see from the Hewitt plan a continuous line of building within the limits of the medieval new town plan. Map Each dwelling had access to rear gardens through passage ways off Long Street and these subsequently became entrances to the Victorian Yards (See

South Street section below).

5.1.13 Although individual buildings were replaced by different owners at different times the essential form of Long Street as a continuous corridor of buildings from Station Road to North Street survived until

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Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal well into the last century and the central section of the street has largely escaped disfiguring 20 th c building.

ARCHITECTURAL INTEREST

Townscape

5.1.14 Although a Roman road, the Long Street section of Watling Street does not have a perfectly straight alignment through the town, but meanders very gently. Nor do the buildings which line it run in straight sections, but instead curve gently, and do not always follow the line of the highway’s edge. As a consequence the Street is not of constant width but swells and narrows along its length. Long vistas are, of course present, but they do not always disappear to a single point on the distant horizon. Sometimes they are closed by the curving building lines, and, in addition, some stretches of buildings are gradually revealed to view rather than all seen ‘at a glance’. All this helps to avoid visual monotony in street scene that could otherwise result from rigidly straight building and highway lines that are so characteristic of post-war 20 th century development schemes.

5.1.15 The junctions of Long Street and other medieval streets are very inconspicuous. The narrow entrances to the Market Street, Coleshill

Street and Church Street are very difficult to spot along the continuous lines of buildings in oblique views until one is right upon them.

5.1.16 The buildings lining the street form a continuous tightly packed frontage defining a long corridor space that in the narrow sections feel quite constricting when there are three-storey buildings to either side.

5.1.17 The subdivision of burgage plots and their rebuilding at different times for different owners and uses over the centuries has resulted in varied street scene and a ‘fine grain’ to the building pattern which is highly characteristic of Long Street.

The Street Sections

5.1.18 Different sections of the street have subtly different but related characters arising from differences in the underyling medieval plan, subsequent patterns of use and ownership, the age, quality and type of building these gave rise to, and the impact of 20thc development and use on their integrity, both individually and as groups. These factors have been used to divide street into the following sections for the purpose of describing their special interest .

1a Western approach to Station Street

1b Station Street to Church Street - including the 1960s civic precinct

1c Church Street to The Council Offices – The Commercial Heart

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1d The Council Offices to North Street

5.1.19 The central section (1c) to the east of the market place has the best quality buildings and is the most uniform in scale style and date. Many of them are listed buildings grade2.

5.1.20 As one moves further away from the centre to both east and west, the range of buildings becomes more diverse in scale, quality, style, type and age. The predominance of three storey houses of the centre gives way to a mix of two and three storey buildings and there is more later

Victorian building, which generally lacks the grace and cohesiveness of earlier Georgian buildings and streetscape. The weakening of visual harmony is compounded by later 20 th century development, a general lack of building maintenance and adverse poor quality modern alterations and repairs.

17

APPENDIX A


SECTION 1A WESTERN APPROACH

(Grendon Lodge to Memorial Hall)


5.1.21 The western built edge of the town has historically been sharply defined by the course of Innage Brook that once ran along the western side of Station Road before the latter was realigned late last century.

The brook formed the parish boundary between Mancetter (to which

Atherstone belonged before 1841) and Merevale, the latter preventing westward expansion of the town in the 19 th century. Outside Grendon

House a worn stone in the pavement marks the limit of both the old

Mancetter parish boundary and the medieval town.

5.1.22 Innage Brook has played an important role in the economy of the town over many centuries, the pure water running off the Arden plateau to the south being used firstly by the cloth industry in the medieval period, then by the tanners and finally the hatting industry. The hatting factories of Vero and Everitt once stood on the site of the car park to the Co-op Superstore and the present line of South Street where it joins Long Street. They together with Melbourne House of Charles

Vero and yards of worker housing behind, were cleared gradually over the second half of the last century.

5.1.23 The Trent Valley Railway came to the town in 1847 and had an important impact on the immediate area to the south of Long Street, accommodating not only the town’s station, but also an LNWR Goods

Shed and extensive yard. By 1972 the station had become an unmanned halt. It closed completely in the 1980s and was saved from demolition by the Atherstone Civic Society in 1985. It is now used as offices. The site of the demolished Goods Depot is now occupied by car-parking areas and the Co-op Superstore.


Townscape

5.1.24 The conservation area begins where the former line of the A5 emerges from under the railway line and joins the bend of the spur road to the

1963 By-Pass (P1). The latter is now the main vehicular approach, and as one rounds the bend from the north, the town suddenly, almost surprisingly, comes into view.(P2) Here the character and appearance is quite rural with trees and greenery to both sides of the street dominant and enclosing(P3) Those on the north side belong to the to the extensive gardens of Grendon Lodge whilst those to the south are part the former railway station forecourt. These trees also play an

18

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal important role in the views westward along Long Street from the town centre where they can be seen to close the vista and remind the observer of the town’s closeness to the surrounding countryside (P4).

5.1.25 Past Grendon Lodge, the west end of the town proper begins abruptly and to pleasing effect on the north side with a row of varied buildings -

2-10 Long Street- that provide attractive enclosure, visual interest, and

‘stopped views’ from Station Street. (P5). On the south side views from

Long Street open out firstly to the former station forecourt (P6) then over a later 20thc landscape of large free standing buildings surrounded by extensive areas of surface level car-parking.

Caption to P1. The leafy approach to the town from the west where the former A5 road emerges from under the tracks of the main-line railway.

The tall gable end of 21 Long Street in the distance marks the beginning of an almost mile-long stretch of buildings to both sides of the street.

Caption P2. The quite sudden transition from leafy almost rural approach to built-up town is apparent in this view. Boundary walls to Grendon Lodge

(left) and the Former Atherstone Railway station (right) define the street edge at lower levels beneath the trees and shrubs.

Key Building Groups



White Hart Hotel and 2-10 Long Street

Caption P9

The eye-catching former White Hart Hotel and 2-6 Long Street has a frontage of 1901 in English Domestic Revival Style with some good detailing. It remains much as first built though a bay window at first floor level to the gable has been lost.

The Listed Buildings



Grendon Lodge

Caption P7

Listed Grade 2. Built in 1828 for a Mary Satterwaite - an independent lady of some wealth, part of which was gained from financial interests

19

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal in several of the towns many public houses. These included The White

Hart Hotel nearby, and the Red Lion Inn, which she owned in 1838.



The Former Atherstone Railway Station

Caption P6

Listed Grade 2. Built in 1847 by JW Livock in Jacobean style for the

Trent Valley Railway



Grendon House

Caption P8

Listed grade 2, Typically late Georgian in proportion and style three storeys with square attic windows

Key Unlisted Buildings



2-4 Long Street (Former White Hart Hotel) Building refronted in 1901 in

English Domestic Revival Style with eye-catching large dormer and black and white mock timber framing. The etched glass pub window survives.

Architectural Interest: Details

NEGATIVE FACTORS





Lack of built enclosure to south of street opposite 2-10 Long Street

Plastic Windows and Doors:

8-10 Long Street



Concrete Roof Pan-tiles:

8-10 Long Street

20

APPENDIX A


SECTION 1B LONG STREET (WEST)

(From Memorial Hall to Church Street.)


5.1.26 Much of the historic interest of the section resides in the reminders it contains of the industrial role this part of the town played from the later

18 th and particularly the 19 th centuries. Hatting developed as a cottage industry in the crowded yards to the rear of houses fronting the streets until the mid 19 th century. It then moved to factory production. Only fragments of these factories remain, but they are nevertheless valuable reminders of Atherstone’s principal industry. They include the Hattons

Hat Factory (formerly Sharrotts) part of which can be glimpsed from the street (see also Zone 2 The Market Place) between 48 and 50 Long

Street, (P1) and the remains of Joseph Wilday’s model hat factory, the first in the town, to the south side. This dates from the early 19 th century but was substantially remodeled after a fire in 1841. It lies hidden behind the 20 th shops 53-57 Long Street next to 59-61 Long

Street (the co-op) (P2) which itself was the house of Wilday. Behind it were his offices and bank. The Wildays were not only one of the oldest hatting families in the town, but also its first bankers.

5.1.27 Escape from the harsh living and working conditions of the hatting workers was offered by the many public houses in the street. Two prominent ones in this section are The Bear and The Wheatsheaf. The latter not untypically gave its name to the yard or court of worker housing (P2a). The inn was the venue in the 1880s for celebrating the day of St Clement the patron saint of the hatting industry by workers.


Townscape

5.1.28 From Station Street buildings line both sides of the street with a mix of two , two-and-a-half and three storey buildings (P3 &3a). The tallest three-storey buildings can vary significantly in height on adjacent plots.

(P4) The highest are mostly Victorian and in some cases occupy narrow single bay frontages. (P5) These accentuate the vertical emphasis and the impression of crowding of buildings in the streetscene. They well illustrate a growing tendency towards individualism in frontage development that was characteristic of the

19 th century. (P6). Variety in building height is matched by variety in frontage widths which range from single bays (P7) to ones of five or six

(P8) & (P9). While this makes for variety and interest, the loss of uniformity and the loosening of Georgian rules of proportion and composition in façade design of Victorian and later buildings, both

21

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal individually and collectively, results in a deterioration of townscape quality compared to areas near the commercial centre of the town.(See

Section 1c below)

5.1.29 Towards the end of that century buildings tend to be two-storey and of lesser quality than previously (P10). This may well be a reflection of the industrialized nature of this part of the town by this time and possibly also a reflection of the weakened economy of the 1880s and 90’s when there was a depression in the hatting industry, coupled with several major disputes and strikes.

5.1.30 With the demolition of yards and buildings associated with hatting works that took place from the early 20 th century onwards, redevelopment continued the practice of replacing three-storey buildings with ones of two storeys and to a lesser quality, particularly as the century progressed. Mid 20 th Century redevelopment in places markedly interrupts the vertical emphasis and rhythm established by the frontages of Victorian and Georgian building.




21 to 31 (Wheatsheaf Inn) Long Street (P11) 34 (White Bear Inn) to 80

Long Street (P12&13)



59 to 83 Long Street

Listed Buildings











45 Long Street (P15)














27-29 Long Street (P2)


63 Long Street (P6)


Important Building Details and Features



Shopfronts:

45 Long Street

69 Long Street



Doorcases

22

APPENDIX A



 The 1960’s Civic Precinct: A small precinct of civic buildings which, though now of some historic interest as an example of civic planning and architecture of the mid-century, relates poorly to the fine grain of traditional development along the street. The set back from the common building line interrupts the rhythm of the street and fails to provide enclosure. The buildings have large floor-plates and their low simple box-like forms, horizontal emphasis, lack of detailing, and use of materials that do not relate in texture and colour to older buildings, make these buildings sterile and alien in outward appearance, and harmful to townscape.



Poor quality 1960s buildings:

33-43 Long Street & 49-57 Long Street



17-19 Long Street Undeveloped site currently part of Monumental

Masons Yard containing untidy temporary buildings.



Plastic Windows in Upper Floors

23 & 25 Long Street



Other unsympathetic alterations including poor quality timber windows to upper floor

Numerous



Poor Quality Shopfronts

Numerous – the majority



Poor Building Condition. Lack of maintenance and repair

23

APPENDIX A


SECTION 1C LONG STREET (CENTRAL)

(From 82 to 112 Long Street (North Side) and from 85 to 133 Long Street

(South Side))


5.1.31 This section, roughly between Church Street and Ratcliffe Street, adjacent and to the west of the Market Place, is the commercial centre both of the street and town. It is the focus for the banks, Victorian commercial buildings, former houses of prosperous tradesmen and merchants - later given over to shops -, and, near the Market Place, long-established inns, and places of public assembly. There was also a corn-exchange and post-office. Though its architecture is not opulent, it is of some architectural distinction and quality. It is evidence of a reasonable degree of economic prosperity enjoyed by leading members of the town’s populace from the mid-late 18 th through to the mid- 19 th century, following improvements to the roads, opening of the

Coventry Canal, and industrial growth.


Townscape

5.1.32With the exception of the Market Place, this section has the finest quality of townscape in Atherstone. This is due, in the main, to the group value of its buildings, many of which are individually of architectural and historic distinction, and listed Grade 2. Along the section there is generally a greater architectural coherence between the buildings in the rows than elsewhere, with the majority having three storeys and similar eaves heights(P1) & (p2). They also mostly follow

Classical patterns of design and proportions, even when constructed late into the Victorian period. There is full enclosure to both sides of the street and a consistency of rhythm along the continuous facades produced by the regular spacing and grouping of vertically proportioned windows. Even 20thc infill, though badly detailed, has managed to reflect, to a degree, the proportions and spacing of earlier buildings.

There is a noticeable effort to create harmonious townscape by

Victorian designers evidenced by reflecting the scale and character of late 18thc buildings, and in paying careful consideration to the treatment of corner buildings.




85

– 101 Long Street. (P3) A block of varied form, style and quality The west half of the block, up to The Three Tuns, is of lesser quality than elsewhere and has suffered from poor alterations and lack of maintenance (P4). It is more diverse in storey height and size. The

24

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal eastern half comprises a group of good quality buildings of varied form including the atypical parapeted gables of the Red Lion Hotel (P5)



82-86 Long Street. Victorian three storey blocks with hipped roofs in

Italianate Classical style successfully turn the corners to Church and

Market Street. (P6 & P6a). They flank a two storey building underscaled for its position in the streetcape and lacking the architectural refinement of its neighbours (P7)



88-108 Long Street.(P1) The finest row of buildings in Long Street. It begins at the west end adjacent to Market Street with a series of

Victorian three-storey commercial buildings of the mid-century or slightly later (pre c.1870.) They have stucco, ashlar, or brick facades and classical detailing to windows and the first three (88-90) have prominent projecting timber modillioned eaves cornices. Large chimney stacks are also apparent from the street. At the east end (96-102), is a fine run of late 18 th to early 19 th Century merchants houses, later converted to shops (P8). These are among the finest of Athe rstone’s buildings and all are listed grade 2.



103-133 Long Street (P2) Another fine row (with the exception of 113-

123) but mostly later than those opposite. They are predominantly mid to later Victorian though still basically following the later Georgian

Classical pattern of façade design. Again three-storey buildings with the exception of the two-storey White Horse Public House. 129 (Old

Bank House) and 133) are earlier, dating again from the late 18 th to early 19 th centuries.




93-97 Long Street (Three Tuns and Lloyds Chemists) (P9)





97 - Fine mid-eighteenth century merchants house. 93 - Victorian formerly the

Three Tuns, 95 - late 18 th c formerly the Black Boy Inn.







94-102 &108 Long Street

110 Long Street HSBC Bank

125-133 Long Street






The Red Lion Inn

82-92 Long Street including the former Coffee Tavern ( 82 Long

Street). Coffee Tavern P Important to working class history a place of self improvement.



85-85a Long Street. Poor alterations but a good building in the

Georgain Tradition sited in an important position terminating views down Church Street.

106 Long Street

The Albert Hall

25




125 Long Street

Important Building Details





Shopfronts to 113-115 Long Street date from c. 1850

Doorcases

NEGATIVE ELEMENTS



Warwick House. To tall, awkward form.

APPENDIX A

26

APPENDIX A


SECTION 1d LONG STREET (EAST)

(Ratcliffe Road to North Street)


5.1.33East of the Albert Hall the dominant historic uses were once again houses occupying the fronts of subdivided medieval burgages, with the yards of worker housing developing along their lengths from the late

18 th century, often to either side of the plot, and extending back, in some cases, to North Street. As at the west end of Long Street, hat factories also developed amongst them including the premises of

Denham and Hargrave behind 122 Long Street (P1) and another, The

Tannery Hat Factory ,adjacent to the Conservative Club. (1888 OS

Map). The latter was located close to an old brook course that traversed the street at its low point by Atherstone Garage. Before the hat factories took over, this brook, like Innage Brook at the west end of town, was used by the towns leather tanneries. When the road was excavated early last century, black stones were discovered, stained, it was said, by oak leaves used in tanning.

5.1.34 All the yards and factories were again comprehensively cleared in the last century to be replaced by much indifferent 20 th century housing development. (P1a)

5.1.35 Some of the medieval plot boundaries survive on the north side to either side of the Hat and Beaver Public House. They have a distinctive reversed S-shape indicating they were laid out over the open fields.(Map extract Mod and Vic.)

5.1.36 The town’s workhouse was located in this section but was demolished for the Regal Cinema in 193?, . The cinema was subsequently developed as ‘Regal Court’ in 197?

5.1.37 Historically, there were large gardens to the rear substantial early 19 th century houses and to several other properties on both sides of the street, including the Conservative Club, which occupied a single burgage plot. Many of these survived into the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, and, as a result, the east end overall did not experience the same degree of overcrowding and high density of development as the west end. This is reflected in the subsequent development of the character two sections in the 20 th c, with the east end having more of a residential, less industrial-urban, character than the west end.

5.1.38 The Grammar School built 1863 and the adjacent junction with north street marks the east end of the medieval new town. Beyond it the

27

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal character changes as the suburbs and ribbon development, on the edge of the town proper, begins. Included within the bounds of the existing conservation area are two large semi-detached houses or villas set in extensive grounds. One, dating from the early 19 th century, was known as Holte Villas, the other, Brereton Place, from the later

19 th century.


Townscape

5.1.39 Beyond Ratcliffe Road, Long Street dips down to its lowest point by the Conservative Club and Atherstone Garage, before rising steadily up a long incline to a high point marked by the Queen Elizabeth School and Hill House.

The rising and falling topography, together with the straight alignment of the street along this section give rise to noteable long vistas when looking either towards the town from the east (P5), or from the town centre looking east.

5.1.40 The continuous frontages which characterise west and cental Long

Street give way to short blocks of housing, interrupted by narrow gaps, most of which were created in the last century. Some of the gaps towards the east however are the undeveloped remains of, what were once, short lengths of walled garden adjacent to the street. At the western end of the section, are two much larger spaces created from large scale clearance of factories and yards in the 20 th century. They were subsequently used for a large surface level car-park and garage/petrol filling station. (P2a & b).

5.1.41 With the odd exception, the quality of building falls from that of the center. It comprises, in the main, smaller mid-to-late 19 th century houses interspersed with Victorian public houses and 20 th century housing (P2c). The latter ranges from interwar sub-urban semi detached houses, to blocks of flats in a mixture of styles from the thoroughly uncompromising postwar ‘modern’ style (P4), to bland later 20 th century pastiches of traditional buildings (P5).

5.1.42 Near the eastern conservation area boundary on the crest of a low hill, two short rows of three storey buildings of good quality face each other.

(P7 & 8)They act as a visual gateway into the town from the east marking another abrupt transition from the urban character of Long

Street to the leafy suburban character of Witherley Road to the east

(P9).

28

APPENDIX A



5.1.43 There are few rows of historic buildings of any length along this stretch of Long Street. Older buildings are intermixed with 20 th century development which has done little to create noteworthy groups. In addition the quality of Victorian buildings here is not high, and, as most buildings are residential, many have been the victim of unsympathetic modern alterations.

177-189 Long Street. A real mix of house types from the 16 th to the early 20 th century.

211-217 Long Street. One of the two gateway blocks at the east end of the town. A fine group of late 18 th and early 19 th century town houses. Nos

211-215 are listed.

208 Long Street and Queen Elizabeth School. This small group forms the other gateway block. The three storey house is listed.


122 Long Street (Denham House)

The Conservative Club. Late 17 th century in origin but heavily altered and added to in the 19 th century.

The Old Swan

Stands prominently on the corner of Welcome Street. Outwardly it is the towns most intact example of a timber-framed building, dating from the

16 th century with alterations in the early 19 th and 20 th centuries.

208 Long Street Late 18 th early 19 th century House.

211-215 Long Street. Part of an attractive row with no. 217. Very nicely detailed including 19 th century ranges that extend to the rear. Railings make an important contribution to the streetscape.

5-7 Witherley Road.


217 Long Street

Queen Elizabeth School.The Grammar school built in 1863 to house the school which previously occupied the Chancel to St Mary’s church.

Brereton Place 1-3 Witherly Road. (Photo)

Important Building Details

Railings to 211-215 and 208 Long Street

29


Bay windows to Swan

Doorcase to Georgain and Victorian buildings identified above.


Regal Court

189

–209 Long Street

184-206 Long Street

Council Car Park

Atherstone Garage

APPENDIX A

30

APPENDIX A


5.2 THE MARKET PLACE & CHURCH ENVIRONS


Early Topography

5.2 .1 In every sense the area around the Market Place and Church is the heart of the historic town. Though much physical evidence has been destroyed in the last century, historically and archaeologically it remains of great significance for understanding the evolution of the

Atherstone both before and after the setting out of the13 th century new town.

5.2 .2 The origins of the area before the creation of the medieval market place are obscure and conjectural but some interesting possible relicts of the pre-urban settlement are suggested by historic plot boundaries and the locations of buildings lining the square 1 .

5.2 .3 On looking at accurate pre-20 th century mapping, before many important topographic features were lost, (see 1:500 1888 OS fig. below) we see that, to the west of the market place, a series of short burgage plots to the north of Long Street immediately west of Church

Street, all stop short of the extremely long plots that run back from properties on the west side of the square. This is more graphically and schematically shown on the 1786 Plan of the town (see fig). Very elongated plots are normally associated in this part of the Country with early foundation, and the fact that they appear to obstruct the medieval new town burgage plots to the south, strongly suggests that they existed before the 13 th century town was laid out. Given this it seems likely that they are the relicts of the pre-urban village crofts.

5.2 .4 The houses that ran once along the north side of the square, before demolition in the late 1950s, provide a second pointer to the ancient origins of the area around the market place. (Old Photo) They were located in front of the church, between it and the most important public space in the town. It would be difficult to think of plausible circumstances whereby houses would be sited here once the church been built. The obvious conclusion is that there were houses on these plots before the establishment of the first chapel on the site in the late

12 th century.

5.2 .5 A third possible indication of the ancient settlement, lies in the arrangement and alignment of these demolished properties and those which still exist around the northern half of the square particularly on its west side. Rather than following a regular rectilinear layout, as do the properties to the southern half of the square, these properties (from 12

Church Street northwards) follow a distinctly curvilinear pattern, almost part of a semi-circle. Might this be the relict of an earlier open space,

31

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal possibly a village green around which village crofts were grouped which the medieval new town incorporated and extended to the south when the Long Street burgages were laid out?

The Medieval Market Place

5.2 .6 As originally laid out in the 13 th century, this was a large space opening directly off Long Street. Its extensive area, now disguised by encroachment (or possibly planned infill) by later buildings in the southern half, emphasises the economic motive behind the creation of the new town.

5.2 .7 It appears from the regularity of the infill at the southern end of the square that this was planned, (rather than buildings gradually evolving from encroaching market stall), perhaps not too long after the creation of the new or enlarged market place. The Hewitt Plan of 1716 (Map) shows a well-ordered island of building around an open inner courtyard, though its long axis is shown at right angles to the present arrangement. The plan of 1786 shows the infill, essentially in its current form, with the narrow Derby Lane splitting the block in two.

5.2 .8 The 1786 plan also clearly shows, somewhat schematically, the alignment of the east side of the square and Market Street along a road out of the northwest corner of the market place. This led directly to

Atherstone Hall, built in 1619 on the site of an Augustinian Friary

(founded 1375). It then went on indirectly out of the town, to form the main road northwards via a crossing of the River Anker at Feildon

Bridge.

18 th c. Development

5.2 .9 In the late 18 th century, Abraham Bracebridge, a leading entrepreneur, major landholder, and influential local figure, won authority to close off this ancient north-eastern route into the market place. He diverted the road to enter the market place at its current location in the northwestern corner of the square between the church and Angel Inn. The diversion meant the road no longer passed in front of Atherstone Hall, the family residence since 1690. Amid local protest he constructed a high brick wall across the old road (now Friars Gate) between the chapel of the Church and Chapel House, the dower house to the Hall

(Photo 1a). In addition he formed a direct link from the market place to

Ratcliffe Street by taking a narrow road through what had been the yard of the Swan Inn.Now forming part of North Street, it passes under the former Inn’s carriage arch (the Swan Archway) to link with Ratcliffe

Road. (Photo 2a & 2b)

Historic Uses

32

APPENDIX A


5.2.10 The types of building to be found around the market place relate, unsurprisingly, to past commercial activities. Different parts of the square carried on different trades. On the east side, Market Street was known as Butchers Row. In the mid 18 th century there were eight or nine butchers shops there. Today, one shop, on the corner of Derby

Lane, continues the tradition. On the east side, Bakehouse Lane (now

Church Street) contained the town’s bakehouse, which served the community from medieval times. It was still standing up to 1780.

5.2.11 Houses in the market place had obvious commercial advantages and they tended to become the property of the richer citizens dealing in more valuable goods, especially, mercers and drapers dealing in cloth.

In the course of the 18 th century some of these began to offer banking services as well, and ultimately developed into specialist banks nearby in Long Street (see section 1c above). Bankers continued to live above the shop, so that their banks were scarcely distinguishable from the neighbouring houses until the Victorian period, when new ones were built more pretentiously along Long Street but still near the market place. .

5.2.12 Inns were another common building type to be found in and around the market square. They offered food and refreshment to those attending the market, stabling for their horses, and accommodation for those who wished to stay the night. They were also increasingly used as places in which to make bargains privately rather than in the open market.

Atherstone still has several that have been on the same sites for hundreds of years including The Angel Inn (Photo 7) and the New

Swan Inn in Church Street, and the Red Lion Inn and The Three Tuns nearby in Long Street. Others in the square have disappeared, including Phoenix Inn (16 Church Street) The Swan Inn (21 Market

Street) and The Royal Oak (18 Market Street) (Photo 2c). In 1720 the town had 32 alehouses.

5.2.13 West of the market place, behind the Church Street frontages and within the boundaries of the, possibly, pre-13 th century plots, feltmaking for the hatting developed. It began as a cottage industry, in the outbuildings and yards here and elsewhere across the town, providing seasonal work to supplement a living from the land. From the midlate19 th century the felt making and hat making processes were gradually brought under one roof in purpose built factory premises.

That to the rear of Church Street and Long Street was built by a Mr

Sharrott in 1873. Following several strikes in the industry it was sold in

1899 to W H Hatton a member of one of the oldest families associated with the industry in the townin 1900. The factory closed in 1956, its machinery sold for scrap and the buildings unsold. A small group of them still survive and are among the now very few surviving fragments of Atherstones most important 19 th century industry.

The Church

33

APPENDIX A


5.2.14 There is no historical record of an ecclesiastical building at Atherstone before the 12 th century. Mancetter, not Atherstone, was the parish, and therefore held the parish church. In that century the Monks of Bec, as

Lords of the Manor, gave12 acres of land to the church at Mancetter in order to endow a chapel in the town. The foundations of this probably lie under the chancel of the existing church.

5.2.15 The chapel, which also had a tower at its west end, was taken over by the Augustinian Friary in the 14 th century and they added a nave and aisles c. 1385.

5.2.16 After the Dissolution the chancel of the chapel was used as a grammar school, a use that continued up to1863, when it again became part of the church.

5.2.17 The rest of the medieval building continued to serve as a church.

(Drawing VCH p.131). In 1835 it became the parish church of the newly formed parish of Atherstone. It was completely rebuilt in 1849 with the exception of the tower. The upper parts of the tower, above the roof, were rebuilt in 1782. (Photo 3b)

5.2.18 To the north-east of the church a private entrance led directly into the grounds of Atherstone Hall. This incorporates a 12 th century doorway from the church of Baddesley Ensor, demolished in 1842. (Photo 4a)

5.2.19 Today the Victorian church has been deconsecrated, and only the chancel and tower remain in church use.


Townscape

5.2.20 The market square has the finest townscape in Atherstone. (Photo P1).

The buildings which define this attractive space have a high degree of individual historic and architectural interest and integrity, and high group value, with no visually disruptive modern or 20 th century development present. The building facades retain important architectural features that characterise their age and type, and have generally avoided mutilating alterations and inappropriate replacements that have devalued buildings elsewhere. Several good quality 19 th century shopfronts survive. Various architectural periods have left their mark with good examples from the 16 th century, through to the early 19 th century; the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries are particularly well represented.

34

APPENDIX A


5.2.21 The buildings almost continuously line the square. Attractive views are to be had from many vantage points around it. (Photo P1, P2, & P3).

The high density of infill bocks in the southern half of the original medieval market place creates picturesque townscape even when the architectural interest of individual buildings is not particularly high.

(Photo P3e)

5.2.22 The main focal point of the square, and indeed the town, is the church and its tower. (Photo P3a & 3c) It stands on the highest point of the town on the north side of the square adjacent to a quiet and leafy precinct around Friars Gate. Immediately to its east are two substantial former houses in large mature gardens with high brick boundary walls; one, Chapel House a dower house to Atherstone Hall, and the other, St

Mary’s House, the former church rectory.

5.2.23 These gardens, though private and mostly hidden from view, are important and rare green spaces within the conservation area. So too are the historic gardens surviving behind Beech House (which contains a magnificent large beech tree) and 15-17 Market Street. (See

Townscape Appraisal Plan)

5.2.24 From the south-west corner of the church adjacent to Sheepy Road, there are important views to be had over rear of historic plots fronting

Church Street and the north side of Long Street. This location, on the main approach to the town from the north, presents visitors entering from Sheepy Road with their first views of the historic town centre. The view south-westward is a wide vista (rare in the conservation area) over a historic semi-industrial townscape of long ranges of rear outbuildings stretching down the plots from Church Street, to join up with a small group of taller industrial buildings that dominate the skyline. (Photo P3d) These are the surviving remains of Hattons Hat

Factory, very rare now, and the most substantial and evocative reminder of the town’s hat making heritage. Important glimpse views to part of the factory can be seen through the gated archway between 10 and 12 Church Street.

Key Building Groups:

Church Street (West Side) – (2 Church Street – Angel Inn.)

5.2.25 This is a long group that almost continuously encloses and defines the west side of the square. (Photo P4) It comprises a mixture of mostly two-and-a-half storey and three storey houses that outwardly appear to date from the early-mid 18 th, to early 19 th century. It is fairly obvious, however, without too close an inspection, that some of these facades are just that, and merely re-front earlier buildings. Classical Georgian proportioning of the brick facades of the middle of the row (sometimes a little compressed to fit with the low storey heights of the earlier building hidden behind) helps create a satisfying sense of rhythm and a

35

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal degree of unification and coherence between buildings (Photo P5).

The group is also notable for the number of traditional shopfronts it contains. Those to 2-4 and 18-20 (Photo P6) are particularly fine. The black and white mock timber framing and gables of The Angel Inn present an attractive contrasting note to the parapets and red brick, at the end of the row (Photo P7) All of the buildings are listed grade 2 with the exception of the Angel Inn.

Church Street (East Side)

5.2.26 Part of a small cluster of island blocks which filled in the southern half of the original 13 th century market square, thereby forming a fully enclosed street, off Long Street, with the southern half of the group on the west side. (Photo P11) It comprises substantial three storey buildings to either side of Derby Lane, and a more modest two storey building on the corner of the Market Place

Market Street (East Side) – (1 – 21 Market Street)

5.2.27 This is a particularly fine group (Photo P1), containing, at its centre, one of the most elegant of early 18 th century town houses to be found in the region – Beech House. It also includes one of the town’s finest timber-framed buildings, hidden behind a good early 19 th century facade. The group illustrates very well the evolution of individual plot development over time that is associated with burgage tenure in important commercial locations. Different owners would replace or, more often, re-front their buildings at different times in the fashion of the day, so styles vary. The plot widths also vary because plots could be subdivided or amalgamated. Such richness and variety is usually to be found only in places where the value of building and plots was high over long periods, and consequently where building quality was also high. (Photos P9 & 9a). Fortunately this rich tapestry of building has not been eroded by amalgamations of large numbers of plots and redevelopment, as often happened in industrialising towns from the mid

-19 th century onwards. Nor has its harmony been disrupted by 20 th century building.

Market Street (West Side)

5.2.28 North of Derby Lane there is another good run of buildings of the late

18 th and early 19 th century. Much more uniform and closer in date than the east side, the row is designed with an obvious eye for creating satisfying townscape (Photo P12). The facades are carefully composed, with a pleasing rhythm of windows, and obey Classical rules of proportion for all their parts and the whole. The rendering of the end building unfortunately weakens the block’s unity, and the shopfront’s plastic sign also detracts. .


36

APPENDIX A








Nearly all the buildings lining the market place are listed. They comprise:

 St Mary’s Church Grade 2*









Beech House, 19 Market Square Grade 2*

2a-20 Church Street

New Swan Inn

7-23 Market Street

Chapel House

St Mary’s House

2, & 6-18 Market Street




The Angel Inn Early 20 building behind th mock timber frame hiding a genuine 16 th c





16 & 16 a Market Place 1877 one of the few Gothic style buildings in the town. Occupies an important position in the square.

Hatton’s Hat Factory Buildings Late 19 th century. Rare surviving small group of townscape and historic value

37

APPENDIX A


5.3 THE BACK LANDS - NORTH STREET, SOUTH STREET AND

STATION ROAD

Introduction

5.3.1 Section 1 dealt with the frontage buildings set within the framework of the medieval new town along Long Street. This section looks at the backs of these plots from along the two lanes that marked the north and south boundaries of the town and the beginning of the open fields beyond them.


5.3.2 Development of the medieval plots could lead to variety in the backlands, as well as on the frontages. Most started as gardens but only one or two in the center survived industrialization of the town, and none of these in Long Street. The Council Gardens to the rear of Bank

House gives some impression of what they were like. The 1888 OS shows a number of gardens surviving at that time to the east of the town.

5.3.3 Over the centuries the majority filled up with a mixture of back extensions, stores, stables, workshops, and warehouses (1888 OS extract). From the mid 18 th century they were being developed as courts (known as ‘the yards’) of rented housing to accommodate the increasing numbers of mostly hatting workers and their families. The owners found developing high-density housing tenements behind their houses irresistibly profitable. Often, after having developed the rear plots, they moved out of the house fronting the street for more desirable locations, and let the old property as a shop with accommodation for the shopkeeper above.

5.3.4 That this process happened in such large numbers in so small a town as Atherstone, is remarkable. The inevitable result was the creation of acres of slum dwellings with cramped and insanitary conditions that led to repeated outbreaks of killer diseases including typhoid and cholera.

5.3.5 It was a legacy that local government was left to tackle, but it did not have the resources to do so effectively until well into the 20 th century.

When it did, the action taken was comprehensive. All the yards were swept away in the 1930s and 1950s along with the ancient plot boundaries they were built within.

5.3.6 Station Street has historically housed the town’s livestock market. The funnel shape of, what is probably, the 18 th century market, can be seen on the earliest town map of 1716 adjacent to Coleshill Street. Animal markets were usually kept separate often on the edge of town so that they caused the least inconvenience when they were moved in and

38

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal out. During the 19 th century it was resited to a large area of open space south of Station Street to the west of Innage Terrace. Here it remained until the early 1960’s since when it has been used as a surface level car park (Photo 2).

5.3.7 Development on the south side of South Street and Station Street did not take place until the early- mid 19 th century. Existing older buildings on this side comprises mainly mid-late Victorian housing and public houses, the latter serving the working populations of the yards opposite. Station Road, formerly known as the ‘back way’ acquired its new name with the opening of the station to the Trent Valley Railway in

1853.


Townscape:

Station Street & South Street

5.3.8 Today evidence of the former presence of the yards exists only in the form of the gaps they have left in the townscape on the north side of

Station Road and South Street, They have been replaced by largely unplanned surface level car-parks of the mid century (Photo 3), together with the large footprints and bulky and often alien forms of later 20 th c civic, commercial and industrial buildings, rear extensions, and housing. These have coarsened the fine grain of the pre-20 th century town, and left Station Street and South Street with a visually unsatisfactory service area character and appearance: An unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable consequence, of having to accommodate modern activities and the car, so vital to the functioning of the town today.

5.3.9 There is a lack of satisfactory means of enclosing the street on the north side and the cleared yards have left the backs and rear extensions of North Street properties exposed to view from the street.

(Photo 4) The latter are characteristically simple rectangular gabled structures whose height generally decreases the further they are away from Long Street and the roof forms and chimneys create an interesting and attractive skyscape (Photo 4a). To the back of 63-83

Long Street, an untidy, informal square has been created through demolition of the former yards, and now occupied by parked cars and the bus station. (Photo 5) On its west flank, there is a group of 19 th and early 20 th century factory buildings (Photo 6).

5.3.10 Development along the south side is mostly Victorian housing some of it continuing the Georgian tradition (Photo7) but with many of these later buildings having

39

APPENDIX A


North Street:

Secton1 Friars Gate to Ratcliffe Road

5.3.11 This section of the road dates from the late 18 th century and results from Abraham Bracebridge’s successful initiative to create a direct link from the market place to Ratcliffe Road (formerly Dog Lane) through the former courtyard of the Swan Inn under the Swan Arch. The view through the arch from the square, framed by trees, to a collection of the chimney stacks of buildings lining the street in the far the distance, though not spectacular, is of interest. (Photo 2b of Market Square )

5.3.12 On passing through the Swan Arch the narrow road passes among the rear extensions and backs gardens of plots stretching back from

Market Street and Friars Gate. Buildings and garden walls enclose the north side and mature garden trees make a valuable streetscape contribution, but on the south there is an unfortunate absence of enclosure (Photo 9a) allowing views over to the rear of Market Street properties (Photo 9) . Beyond the gardens to St Mary’s House, the road widens. Again on the south side there are views into long rear plots, this time belonging to Long Street properties. Brick walls and low outbuildings adjacent to the highway are of limited intrinsic merit dating mostly from the early 20 th century, but provide valuable street enclosure and mark historic boundaries where they are present. Some stretches of wall adjacent to the highway have been removed whilst others between plots have been amalgamated with the loss of brick walls between historic plots. (Their reinstatement is highly desirable)

(Photo 10) . On the north side enclosure is weak as a result of 1960s suburban house type development but an attractive view of the church tower can be glimpsed among the trees.

(Photo 11) At the junction with Ratcliffe Road views southwards towards Long Street are stopped by the handsome façade of BankHouse while on the east side trees to the rear of HSBC Bank make an important contribution to the streetscene. (Photo 12) by helping to disguise further car-parking areas and softening the hard urban landscape. Back on the junction, there is an early 19 th century three-storey double-pile house, now painted black and white, which successfully holds one of the corners.

(Photo 13) Opposite is the large volume of a former late 19 th century board school.

(Photo 14) Its tower is a local focal point.

.

Section 2 Ratcliffe Road to St Marys Road

5.3.13 Beyond Ratcliffe Road the character of the street to the junction with

North Street changes, with modern 20 th century housing development predominant along the south side but with a good group of public building on the north. On the south side the listed late 18 th century

Mews stands within plots of medieval origin indicate by their characteristic reversed S shape. Historically this part of North Street

40

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal formed part of the Backlane of the medieval town marking its northernmost extent and separating it from the open fields beyond.

Section 3 St Marys Road to North Street

5.3.14 Beyond St Marys the conservation area boundary moves to the south side of the road to exclude the1930s housing on the north side from St

Mary’s Road which marks the beginning of the large northern estate of interwar public housing. Many of the houses on the south side are modern interspersed with some late Victorian housing. The special architectural and historic interest along this section of the road is therefore rather limited. It falls within in the conservation area primarily to include the plan of the medieval new town, the few surviving long historic plots to the rear of 158 to 176 Long Street, and the 19 th century chapel and schools near Ratcliffe Street.


Station Road South Street



21-29 Station Street





Veros Factory

Victor Works






The Cloisters

The Mews








Station Street/South Street





The Former Bull Inn

Independent Chapel

North Street

The Rowan Centre

Former Boys School

41

APPENDIX A


5.4 THE SOUTHERN APPROACH


5.4.1 This a narrow and short zone to the south of South Street and Station

Street centered on Coleshill Road, the main southern town approach. It is characterised by a mixture predominantly residential development of various dates from the early 19 th century to the present. Development here marked the beginning of the slow and sporadic expansion of the town southward beyond the confines of the medieval borough during the 19 th century. Up until 1768 it comprised of open fields. Then land was enclosed, parceled up, and placed in the hands of a small number of private individuals who were slow to release it for sale.

5.4.2 Also in 1768, work began on the construction of the Coventry Canal, from that city to the Grand Trunk Canal at Fradley. From the south the navigation had reached Atherstone by the end of 1771 but then work stopped. The terminus of the canal was presumably by the Coleshill

Road Bridge at the top of the proposed fight of locks and outside the present conservation area boundary.It was only continued after several years argument, in the summer of 1790. Construction of the Canal and its associated basin and wharves was probably the stimulus to building development along the Road from the early 19 th century

5.4.3 However it clearly proceeded slowly and in piecemeal fashion over the next century and beyond. It began on the west side with the construction of a substantial three-storey terrace of middle class housing part of which is listed and three storey three bay house of similar date which is also listed. Filling the gap between them was the equally substantial Victorian Coleshill House of c. 1870 complete with carriage arch and rear stabling.

5.4.4 The east side was occupied by two ecclesiastical buildings until the late 19 th century, a Wesleyan Chapel of 1827 and a non-sectarian chapel of 1850 on the corner with South Street. The construction of

Hudsons Buildings a terrace of two storey housing of c 1880 set behind more shallow front gardens, marked a distinct move down market on this side of the street. This was followed by a further terrace of slightly more grand early 20 th century lower middle class housing and, grander still a detached house on the corner of Terrace Road.


Townscape

5.4.5 Immediately noticeable is the relative spaciousness of Coleshill Road when compared with the width of Coleshill Street which lies within the confines of the medieval borough. So narrow is Coleshill Street that is

42

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal not at all obvious in views from the south that the road continues beyond Station Street/South Street into the town. (Photo) Buildings on either side of Coleshill Road north of the railway line are set back well behind the back edge of pavement (7m on the west side) and adhere to consistent building lines, with the sole exception of the separate corner building on the west side - No. 2 Coleshill Street. This much altered 19 th c three-storey, semi-detached pair, steps forward exposing a tall and prominent white rendered gable end on which is fixed a large advertisement hoarding (Photo).

5.4.6 Houses on the west side form a continuous row and all are of threestoreys but not all consistent in eaves height. As originally designed the early 19 th and Victorian house facades were all three bays wide, but several have undergone seriously adverse alteration. (Photo)The early

19 th century terrace has also been truncated at its southern end where there is an access to modern housing development to the rear. The

High Victorian Coleshill House (No. 20) is prominent in the streetscene by virtue of a two-storey bay tall deep-bracketed eaves and elaborate detailing, contrasting with its more sober Georgian neighbours. A 1960s terrace has replaced earlier buildings at the northern end of the row. It has attempted to reflect the Georgian tradition in a contemporary mid-20thc way but with little visual benefit to the townscape (Photo).

5.4.7 On the east side the highlight in townscape terms is the façade of the early 19thc Wesleyan Nonconformist Chapel with its attractive Gothick windows, and later crenellated eaves. This sits to the north of a row of unremarkable late 19 th and early 20 th c two-storey terraces, (Photo) and to the south of a new development of three storey flats. This is, perhaps, more successful in its attempt to capture the townscape qualities and character of Georgian building than its 1960s counterpart opposite (Photo).




18-38 Coleshill Street. (Photo) A row dominated by a substantial early

19 th century terrace and linked to another fine late Georgian house (No

16) by the later Coleshill House. Five houses in the row are listed. The southern end of the terrace has unfortunately been badly damaged by

20 th century alterations.










Trinity Church Early 19 th c Wesleyan Chapel in Gothick Style with crenellated parapets. (Photo)

No.16 Coleshill Road (Photo)

Nos. 22 and 22a Coleshill Road (Photo)

Nos. 28 and 30 Coleshill Road (Photo)

43

APPENDIX A














 Fox’s Chapel. Built shortly after a dispute within the local

Congregational Church in 1852 when a faction split from the congregation in North Street (now the Cloisters). It failed to attract the level of support anticipated and the two churches rejoined in 1877. The redundant chapel became a grain warehouse.






(Photo) Coleshill House, No. 20 Coleshill Road

Former Congregational Chapel


Permitted development

Rendering of elevations

Plastic Windows

Unsuitable materials e.g. Concrete roof tiles

Loss of front boundary walls and railings

Creation of car parking spaces in front gardens

44

APPENDIX A


5.5 THE SOUTHERN HOUSING AREA

Introduction

5.5.1 This extensive sub-area is characterized by its historical origins and use as an extensive residential area of private speculative housing built mostly under the housing bylaws during the later 19 th and early 20 th centuries but extending into the inter-war period and beyond. It runs in a wide band mostly south of South Street and Station Street down to the railway line, from Tenter Street in the west, to Stafford Street in the east. A short section along the east side of Welcome Street is the only part of the sub-area to extend north of South Street. The sub area also overlaps with the Coleshill Street zone, the major southern approach to the town, most of which was developed earlier, and therefore described separately at Section 4 above. A significant part, in the centre of the sub-area, was developed in the later 20 th c in the former grounds of two

Victorian detached houses

– The Grove and Grove Cottage. This housing, because of its form and style, has weakened the architectural and historic integrity of this part of the conservation area and thereby its interest.

Historic Interest.

5.5.2 During the latter half of the 19 th century national legislation was gradually introduced to prevent further building of court housing of the sort found in the Yards of Atherstone. It was a response to the overcrowding and poor sanitation created in such places by an often unscrupulous private market for a section of the population who had nowhere else to go other than the workhouse.

5.5.3 The legislation, in the form of the house building bylaws, was aimed at ensuring decent standards of health and hygiene for the homes of ordinary people. Contemporary theories about health resulted in an emphasis on ventilation and improved sanitation. Builders in the town and landowners often resented them because they added to costs and therefore reduced the price that builders could afford to pay owners for their land.

5.5.4 Landowners were reluctant or unwilling to reduce their land prices, which meant, ironically that private housing was very slow to come forward, and if it did, it was generally only in small parcels and affordable only to the better-off working classes and lower-middle classes: small shop keepers, railway and postal workers, bank clerks, and white collar factory workers. Sometimes though poorer families in desperation did occupy the newly built premises by sharing. Such as a case is recorded in Stafford Street where eight adults and six children were living in three rooms of a house no more than 20 years old in

August 1908.

45

APPENDIX A


5.5.5 The lower working classes, occupants of the Yards, had to wait until well after the 1914-18 war, when many would be housed in the large council estates built on the north and southern fringes of the town from the 1930s onwards.

5.5.6 The sub-area was part of the open field system of the medieval town before enclosure in 1768 and was still completely undeveloped over twenty years later. With the exception of Coleshill Street, development outside the boundaries of the medieval town did not begin until the mid

19 th century.

5.5.7 It commenced in 1855 when Welcome Street was laid out at the expense of Charles Holte Bracebridge. This was his thank you to the townsfolk for the warm reception they gave him, his wife, and the sister of Florence Nightingale, on their returning from the Crimea and the war with Russia. The earliest buildings there are substantial three-storey houses of the mid Victorian period built for the middle classes.

5.5.8 During the next fifty years land to the south was laid out with a grid of roads and land in small parcels slowly taken up by builders. At first it appears that it was of interest to the wealthier middle class market for detached houses or villas in large gardens such as Grove House, and

Grove and Rose Cottages and larger semidetached houses in Grove

Road built in the 1870s. However by the early 1880s, it is clear, from contemporary maps, that housing development here was rapidly moving down-market to cater for the lower middle classes and artisans.

They show the grid of streets still only partly developed with first of many short terraces appearing. By the time of the first war, most of the street frontages along an island bound by Stafford Street, Grove Road and Dudley Street (originally Union Street) were lined with long continuous rows of conjoined short terraces and paired houses and their backs separated by narrow rear gardens. The grounds of the small number of detached houses remained undeveloped until the latter half of the last century. Then their grounds were developed, firstly along their perimeters to South Street with flat roofed blocks of the

1960’s, and later the remaining gardens were filled with terraces of social housing.

Architectural Interest

Townscape

5.5.9 The layout is a grid of long straight streets following the main northeast / south-west grain of the medieval town plan, connected and punctuated by shorter cross streets aligned at right angles to them.

They are lined predominantly with rows of solidly constructed, short, two-storey terraces, built in blocks of four to six houses, which are sometimes paired. Different builders gave them slightly different architectural treatments in details such as window heads, eaves details

46

APPENDIX A

Draft Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal and door treatments. They are generally wide in their front- to-back measurements producing bulky gable ends. There were no trees and no front gardens, and are generally built to a common building line immediately on the back-edge of pavement. At the south eastern corner of the area, along Dudley Street and the east side of Stafford

Street, the long rows give way to a series of closely spaced early 20 th century and interwar semi-detached houses again with narrow but longer rear gardens built for the lower middle classes.

5.5.10 Among the housing are a small number of public buildings, churches and schools built mostly around the turn of the last century.

5.5.11 While the essential components of this essentially late Victorian / early

20 th century suburb - its street grid, housing and public buildings - is intact, its interest and value has been substantially diminished by late

20 th infill development. The management of the older building stock over the last quarter century has also been unsympathetic in many respects. Historic detailing especially of windows and doors has been lost on a large scale, and external brick decoration-often shared by a number of house fronts- has been compromised by the application of cladding, rendering and painting by individual occupiers.

Key Individual Buildings and Groups

5.5.12 The rows of short terraces and semidetached houses are the predominant building types, and there are no particular key buildings

(other than the small number of public buildings) or groups, in an area where few if any individual buildings or groups stand out from the others. It is an area where typicality rather than exceptionality or

“specialness” is the nature of architectural and historic interest.

Buildings, which retain their architectural integrity through escaping unsympathetic alterations in modern materials, are historically the most valuable. Unfortunately very few individual houses indeed retain their original features and materials intact.

5.5.13 The plan of individual houses of the smallest worker housing is usually a variant of the two up and two down, with a narrower back extension.

Their facades show variety in the use of architectural detailing. The brick of their construction allowed scope for economic decorative effects achieved by using different colours to form simple patterns, the setting back or projection of courses, and the use of mass produced terra-cotta ornament. The bay-window makes an appearance in the some of the terraces though unfortunatey not many survive intact. It was used in by-law housing from 1870 and was something of a status symbol. It generally marked off the houses of the lower middle classes from their working class neighbours.

47

APPENDIX A





Former Atherstone Boys School, South Street

Built in 1842 close to the demolished Tannery Hat factory (see Section

1d above). In his diary of 1865-6 the headmaster complained of the high absenteeism among his pupils when the hatting trade was brisk. It has been converted to flats with the loss of much of its historic interest.



Atherstone Girls School, Owen Street and Meadow Street

Built in 1893, this modest and somewhat austere single storey building occupies a prominent corner location.



St Benedicts RC Church and Presbytery, Owen Street

A simple but attractive late 19 th century group

48

Key Unlisted Buildings - Warwickshire County Council

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