The Town & Country Planning Association (TCPA for short) has been going ever since modern planning was invented. It was originally called the Garden City Association and has direct links to the heritage of the Arts & Crafts Movement (writ large) and the three pioneering garden cities of Letchworth (by Barry Parker & Raymond Unwin) and Welwyn Garden City (by Louis de Soissons), both in Hertfordshire, and the larger Wythenshaw (by Barry Parker) in Manchester.
Over the last two days there has been the statutory hearing into the Hyndburn Borough Development Management DPD, a key part of the Hyndburn Local Plan. Hearings are one of the rituals of town planning and part of the slow process of drawing up the statutory development plan. Continue reading “Local Plan Hearing”
My son took this shot of me photographing the view over the parish of Barley from Pendle Hill… perhaps as a poke at my header image!
There is a structure to the fields of Barley parish which was created by the medieval Barley vaccary, established here in the mid-1200s. I have been studying the vaccaries of the Pendle, Accrington, Rossendale and Trawden medieval forests with David J. A. Taylor for over a decade, supported by the Pendle Heritage Centre archaeology group. The development of the landscape of these areas is quite fascinating and the rural landscapes are a lot older than most people imagine. Continue reading “Pendle Hill and Barley Vaccary”
The Rhododendrons in the garden were looking good yesterday evening, so here are a few shots… a record of spring…
Two enjoyable projects currently on the go involve large Victorian houses, Elmfield Hall, Church and Churchfield House, Great Harwood.
Though quite unrelated as buildings and projects, successive meetings today reminded me of their close similarities. Both are the former houses of locally important Victorians, which subsequently passed into the hands of the pre-1974 local authorities, then to Hyndburn Council and now to social enterprises which provide community related services. Both draw upon a common set of funding sources and both have a cafe! Continue reading “Elmfield Hall & Churchfield House – old houses, new roles”
Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (see this post) reminds me of the work of a late colleague, Colin Gilbert, a Manchester artist with a passion for heritage. Colin also liked to add figures observing the scenes of his paintings. In this picture (click to enlarge), he was responding to a location in the Middleton conservation area… a view from Durnford Street, just behind Ye Olde Boar’s Head pub, with Jubilee Library and St. Leonard’s Church beyond. The intense colours and his manipulation of scale and perspective expresses the hidden power and significance of that particular place. Continue reading “Colin Gilbert – video”
The capitol complex of Le Corbusier’s city of Chandigarh in northern India… truly great architecture from a great man. Have a look at these photos in the Guardian.
(The cute dogs are just like mine!)
I visited Briarcourt today. It’s an early Arts and Crafts Movement house at Lindley, near Huddersfield, built in 1894 for the Sykes family. The designer was Manchester’s Edgar Wood. He was related to the Sykes and consequently designed several buildings in the area, including the famous Lindley Clock Tower. Continue reading “Briarcourt – a place of hope”
Travelling back from the Lakes, it was time for my annual pilgrimage to Mackay Hugh Baillie-Scott’s Lancashire masterpiece, Blackwell near Bowness, Windermere – a truly wonderful house. Below are some of my happy snaps taken on the phone (please forgive the quality).
If you’ve never been before, Blackwell is well worth a visit… the house excels as a beautifully kept ‘walk-in art exhibit’. It is a fantasy house every bit as much as, say, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s House for an Art Lover. I am trying to learn some of the lessons of the excellent crisp presentation at Blackwell, for when I advise my colleagues on the care of Walter Brierley’s house, Hollins Hill, a.k.a. The Haworth, Accrington.
Continue reading “Blackwell – The Arts & Crafts House”
