SCAS Newsletter Contact: Nick Knight [nicholas_knight@btinternet.com] with your ideas Page 1

Conservation Area Society (SCAS)

Newsletter August 2012 Stoneygate

SCAS Chair: David Oldershaw SCAS Website: www.stoneygateconservation.org

Newsletter: Nita Foale, Nick Knight Printed by: AVS-Print, University of Leicester

Richard Gill Guided Walk– South Stoneygate Another enjoyable guided walk by Richard Gill took place on Saturday 26th May - this time following a small discrete circle along Knighton Drive, Elms Rd and Ratcliffe Rd. We were fortunate to share a gloriously sunny day with around 35 people, mostly existing SCAS members but also some new folk, attracted by Mr Leicester’s mention in the Leicester Mercury, so we ended up boosting our membership as well! We all enjoyed Richard’s hallmark style combining factual, historical information with insights and opinions, questions and answers, not to mention humour and anecdotes both from the guide and from the floor. We'll be offering another walk later in the year - watch out for details!

Photos: Graham Johnson Anthony Matthew

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Review of the SCAS Annual General Meeting

SCAS Applies for Heritage Lottery Funding

SCAS Committee member Nick Knight has recently completed plans for a project that he has been developing for some time. Working with Dr Rebecca Madgin of the University of Leicester’s Centre for Urban History, Nick has now applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund `All Our Stories’ programme for the financial support to turn it into a reality.

Titled `The A to Z of Stoneygate’, the six-month project has two aims. The first is to provide a team of researchers with the opportunity to explore the history and heritage of Stoneygate through local archives (such as those held by the Leicestershire Public Records Office and the University of Leicester) and by sharing personal recollections and family photographs with residents. The second is to use the results to produce a compendium of information, photos and audio recordings that will be linked to a map of the area on a website to provide an interactive guide to Stoneygate. `Content’ will also be used to create walking trails, an exhibition and a `roadshow’ for local schools.

The new `A to Z’ website would be added to the existing SCAS site and its relative sophistication is one of the reasons why financial assistance is needed. The site will be designed by professionals to allow the addition of further `content’ by non-computer experts in the future.

The HLF's Nottingham office has confirmed that the bid has been accepted. We now have to wait until October for a final decision.

This year’s AGM in May was, again, a full house of just under fifty people. Committee member Neil Crutchley acted as master of ceremonies and everything went without a hitch, even (thanks to Nita Foale) the technology, which we had acquired at short notice and had only a short time to familiarize ourselves with.

The review of 2011/12 showed a year of increasing activity on several fronts, full details of which are now available to view on the website. Membership Secretary Jenny Westmoreland thanked those who had renewed their subscriptions and confirmed our record membership of 153. There was a warm welcome for our new Treasurer Arthur Stafford and a prolonged round of applause for retiring Treasurer Canon Henry Evans whose short speech suggested that his leaving gift had medicinal properties not normally found in a travelling alarm clock (!)

Member Andy Bent stood up to thank the Society for its support in successfully opposing a planning application that would have seen a large modern house

shoe-horned into a space between his and an adjacent historical property. The development company subsequently went into liquidation and we are delighted that Andy and his neighbour Richard Smith (also a SCAS member) have managed to jointly purchase the vacant plot and intend to maintain it as green space in perpetuity.

Our guest speaker for the second half of the evening was historian Elizabeth Amias, who we featured in the April Newsletter and whose fascinating Clarendon Park `blog’ (www.yourhistories.com) is well worth a look. Elizabeth explained how she had become interested in local and family history and told us all about her research methods and the challenges and sometimes unexpected rewards of piecing together the `small stories’ of our Victorian and Edwardian predecessors. The touching story of the Clarendon Park Road minister and the young housemaid whose pregnancy saw a dramatic change in her fortunes was a sober reminder of the realities they faced.

Nick Knight

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This Year’s Leicester Heritage Open Days

Heritage Open Days is a celebration of England's architecture and culture which offers free access to properties and premises which are usually closed to the public or which normally charge for admission. This year it takes place over the weekend of 6th - 9th September 2012.

The list of participating venues has been extended and includes a number of heritage buildings such as the Castle, the Magazine Gateway and Wygston’s House which have been closed to the general public for some time. In addition to favourites such as the Town Hall and unique places of worship such as the Orthodox Synagogue and the Unitarian Great Meeting House, there are buildings that have been lovingly and beautifully refurbished (The City Rooms), those that have been imaginatively converted for new uses (The LCB Depot) and others that are in the process of being restored (the

old Grade II listed Charnwood Hosiery Factory in Rutland Street, soon to become Makers Yard, a studio space for artists and designers).

This year’s programme also features outdoor guided walks (Victoria Park and New Walk) and a number of heritage-based events designed to appeal to the whole family. On Saturday 8th at 12.30pm and 1.30pm the Off the Fence Theatre Company will explore some of Leicester’s well-known end less familiar characters from the past, performing in the open space between the Castle Great Hall and St Mary de Castro. Are they telling the truth or spinning yarns? On Sunday 9th between 11.00am and 5.00pm the Leicester Transport Heritage Trust will be displaying their collection of 1950s and 1970s Corporation buses and running regular 20 min tours of the city and longer trips to Quorn & Rothley Station where visitors can soak up the atmosphere, visit the new Butler Henderson Café and take a steam train ride on the Great Central Railway.

Download a brochure at http://www.leicester.gov.uk/heritageopendays/

The University of Leicester’s Centre for Urban History staged two open events in June as part of the Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded `Connected Communites’ programme. Judging by the attendance there is a widespread and genuine public interest in history, heritage and conservation projects and a growing appetite for `hands-on’ involvement..

The `Building Shared Heritages’ Open Day on June 16th at the David Wilson Library was a resounding success, attracting over 80 people keen to discover how the Centre could help them and their groups to pursue their historical interests and seek financial assistance from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The day consisted of a series of presentations and workshops (see http://tinyurl.com/bp7x2vz) which showcased the University’s very extensive resources for researchers, outlined staff members’ areas of expertise and current interests and allowed visitors to explore their ideas with University and HLF staff.

An Open Evening on June 26th at the Guildhall was also well-attended. Speakers from Leicestershire Museums, Groundwork Leicester and English Heritage discussed their current programmes with the audience while the City Council’s Senior Building Conservation Officer, Jenny Timothy and Conservation Team Leader Anne Provan outlined the new `Heritage Action Plan’ that we mentioned in the April Newsletter. Details are at (http://tinyurl.com/bsllbwl) .

Open Days and Evenings a Success

Wygston’s House

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Social Networking can be good for you!

Why would you spend time sharing your thoughts, feelings and experiences, via an electronic device, with someone you don’t know and may never meet? To the uninitiated, social networking seems a baffling modern practice but if you stop to think, it’s no stranger than having a `pen pal’ (or several pen pals) in different parts of the world was in the 1950s and 60s. Now as then, social networking and a social life in the traditional sense aren’t substitutes for each other – they’re complementary – and organisations including English Heritage and the National Trust are recognising their usefulness in communicating with prospective supporters.

I’ve recently started a SCAS Twitter account. Twitter is an online social networking and `microblogging’ service that enables its users to send and read messages of up to 140 characters (`tweets’) using a hand-held computer such as an Apple i-phone. While social media such as Facebook focus on connecting you with ‘friends’ in a virtual world that is invitation-only, with Twitter anyone can become involved in the conversation. Twitter allows you to search for people or organisations and to `follow’ those whose interests and goals you share. In my case so far this has included groups such as the Leicester Civic Society and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and individuals such as Elizabeth Amias (who spoke at the last Stoneygate Conservation Area Society AGM) and several Stoneygate residents and SCAS members.

Twitter has a whole range of practical uses. I recently had a conversation with a heritage volunteer from Todmorden about the replacement of windows in a Grade II-listed forge in Whitby which led to a discussion of SCAS’s new conservation advisory leaflet for estate agents. The owners of Stockdale House, featured on the cover of the April Newsletter, post regular updates about the progress of their renovation project, the most recent being to announce that landscaping and boundary work has begun. Twitter allows you to draw attention to your posts using `hashtags’. By placing the character ‘#’ before a word (the `hashtag’), you can ensure that anyone who searches for that word will see your message in their results. For example, when advertising the SCAS AGM I included #Stoneygate, meaning that anyone who was searching for `Stoneygate’ would see my message. During De Montfort University’s recent conference on the application of new digital technologies to heritage, the audience were encouraged to use the hashtag ‘#dbhconf’ and post news on Twitter during presentations. This not only allowed them to identify other `tweeters’ in the large audience (and perhaps meet them during breaks), it also instantly notified people who were not present what was happening.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of being able to connect with so many people and organisations so easily is learning about local and national news. Interesting items spotted on Twitter recently include the

prosecution of people for heritage crimes, the campaign against the removal of VAT relief for alterations to listed buildings, opinions from Civic Voice, the Historic Towns Forum and others on the new National Planning Policy Framework and the announcement of local events such as the recent Festival of Archaeology and history fair at Beaumanor Hall.

As well as posting news and details of forthcoming SCAS and other local events, I post details of weekly planning applications for properties in the area. If you join Twitter you can follow our updates and we will be happy to follow you back. Alternatively, you can read all of our `tweets’ at: http://www.twitter.com/StoneygateCASoc .

Tim Savage

Tim Savage

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Art House has become an annual event since 2008. Several houses occupied by artists in Stoneygate (not all in the conservation area) have been opened for a weekend in June to show the work of the occupant and other local artists and to offer it for sale. The houses taking part have varied from year to year and this year included 190 Clarendon Park Road, which is about to open as a gallery, and round the corner in Lytton Road Eskimo Blue, a pottery shop and workshop. Some houses with gardens had work on display there too. Fortunately visitors were

not discouraged by the weather (9th-10th was not the worst weekend in the month) and this year for the first time there were two council minibuses circulating round the route in opposite directions.

The works included paintings, prints, photographs, sculpture, leatherwork, textiles, ceramics, jewellery with some cards and small items to tempt those who were not going to purchase a substantial piece without giving it more thought first. Some of the houses provided refreshments too. Before voicing an opinion about works on display it was worth finding out if the artist was standing beside you. In many cases they were and were keen to talk about their work. I met Sarah Kirby for the first time, whose lino prints of Leicester scenes will probably be familiar to many readers and whose work is in

the New Walk Museum collection. Gerry Unsworth (ceramics) and Austin Orwin (sculpture) were artists I had met before. It was also a chance to see inside some interesting houses of course, which the owners had evidently put a lot of effort into preparing for the event.

If you would like to see what else you may have missed, go to the website http://www.art-house.org.uk/ and click on the front door. I am looking forward to next year's event already. Anthony Matthew

Art House 2012

Leicester Civic Society

Saturday 22nd September 2012 at 10.30am

ANCIENT LEICESTER - PART 2 A Guided Walk by Stuart Bailey

Stroll through 2,000 years of history in the Castle Heritage Park, Jewry Wall, Roman Baths, Saxon Church of St. Nicholas, High Cross, Wygston’s House, Elizabethan Grammar School and Medieval Guildhall.

£3.50. Advance Booking Essential: Tourist Information Office, Every Street

(Cash or card) or direct to: Stuart Bailey, 48 Meadow Avenue, Loughborough, LE11 1JT. Cheques Payable to: “Leicester Civic Society”.

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Planning Matters (May to August 2012)

12 Woodland Avenue

These days the City Council takes a robust approach to threats against trees protected by Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs). This is at least partly due to the prolonged enforcement action at the spinney on the corner of Ratcliffe and London Road which SCAS supported (see Newsletters Aug, Dec 2010, Feb 2011) Last October they produced a set of revised `Tree Enforcement Procedures'’ explaining the steps that can be

taken against anyone who lops or fells protected trees without authorisation. The City Mayor showed his commitment by increasing funding for enforcement and tree protection in his first budget. It is depressing that one of the first tests of the Council’s resolve will be in Stoneygate as a result of the severe over-pruning of a protected mature lime tree at 2 Southernhay Road. The tree, which is clearly visible from London Road, has been reduced in height from 16 metres to 5 metres and has been shorn of all its branches – an action that has removed its public amenity value and left it looking grotesque. The City Council’s Tree Officer tells us that `consent was given for crown thinning of the tree by 30% and crown lifting of the tree….The pollarding of the tree is a contravention of the TPO consent and the matter is being investigated by the planning compliance team'. This is such a gross breach that it cannot be ignored. We have urged planners to act and they have until the end of September to do so. Why, we wonder, do the owners of some businesses, care homes and

tenanted properties attach such a low value to the public amenity which makes Stoneygate a desirable area? And why do they feel able to take such a cavalier approach to the planning system ?

Some years ago the owners of the care home at 13 Toller Road replaced its timber front windows without the necessary planning consent. In June they removed the property's front boundary hedge and replaced

Before….. After

Latimer House

it with concrete posts and timber fence panels, again without consent. Boundary hedging is a feature of the

Toller Road street scene (every other property has one) and is specifically mentioned as a distinctive fea-

ture of South Stoneygate in the Stoneygate Character Appraisal. The new fence not only stood out like a

sore thumb, it also revealed an unsightly line of bins that were previously concealed. We contacted the City

Council’s Planning Enforcement Team and most of the panels have now been replaced by small sprigs of

new hedging which may, in a few years, grow to resemble the hedge that was lost. Bizarrely one panel still

remains so we will keep chipping away.

The University of Leicester is seeking to modify its planning permission

to convert College Hall into a conference centre. The changes relate to the

design of Block E, the landscaping scheme, the relocation of plant to the

roof of Block D and changes to internal layouts. The amount of traffic that

will use the Carisbrooke Road entrance has also been reduced in response

to neighbours’ concerns. Plans to renovate Latimer House and The Grove

will not now go ahead but the UoL remains committed to maintaining

them to the required standard until a suitable use is found. Latimer House

SCAS Newsletter Contact: Nick Knight [nicholas_knight@btinternet.com] with your ideas Page 7

Plans to convert the Grade II listed coach house at 38 Ratcliffe Road into two self-contained flats and demolish an ugly extension are relatively uncontroversial. Together with the main house, it has already been substantially modified and the further modifications are fairly slight as far as external appearance is concerned; some roof lights and an external staircase. Our only serious concern is that the proposed staircase is very close to the boundary of the property and is likely to have an effect on the privacy of neighbours at No40.

The application to build two student accommodation blocks on the cleared site at 22

Knighton Park Road was refused by the Planning Committee in July. Committee members thought that the design was unsympathetic and that the development would overlook neighbours. They were also concerned that further student accommodation in the locality would have a harmful cumulative effect on residential amenity and lead to parking pressures.

An application to build a 5-bed house on the side garden to 14 Woodland Avenue has concerned us. The historical houses on the eastern side of Woodland Avenue make up one of the most important and attractive street scenes in the Conservation Area. Built after 1909 their relatively low density, irregularly-shaped plots with large gardens and design contrasts strongly with the Victorian town houses on the opposite side of the street. The semi detached pair Nos 8 and10 and the detached house at No12 all clearly owe a debt to the Arts & Crafts movement . The semi-detached pair at Nos 4 and 6 are less overtly Arts & Crafts but still include traditional rendering and decorative timberwork on the upper storey. Nos 2 and 14 are very grand Queen Anne style houses which `book end’ the row. As well as providing an appropriate setting, the side garden to No14 separates these characterful houses from more modern infill properties at the southern end.

The proposals are for a house that would, by virtue of its size and its proximity to No14, have a marked impact on the street scene and that would result in the loss of seven TPO-protected trees and over a dozen

others. Despite the assurance that `the site is laid to ensure the protection of existing mature trees’. In our view, development would only be justifiable if the property were of a very high quality – and this one is not. The timbered front bay mimics that of No12 but the house is essentially a modern hybrid whose visual impact would detract from the neighbouring property at No14. The three-page Design & Access Statement does not explain how it would satisfy the requirements of the Core Strategy and there is no detailed description of the style of windows, the proposed front boundary

treatment or landscaping materials. The peculiar use of render and brickwork on the front elevations has no nearby precedent, the red clay roof tiles would not match the grey slates on adjacent properties and uPVC windows and doors are specifically identified by the Character Appraisal as a threat to the area.

Changes to national planning policy guidelines in 2010 mean that garden sites are no longer classed as `brownfield’ and that there is no longer a presumption in favour of such development. We hope that planners bear this in mind..

Nick Knight

14 Woodland Avenue

38 Ratcliffe Road

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Committee News Our new treasurer, Arthur Stafford, is already making his mark. At his first committee meeting in the role, Arthur suggested that it should be possible to renew SCAS membership by standing order. Most organisations offer this helpful facility which saves the bother of annual reminders while allowing the payer to retain control of payments. The committee unanimously agreed so the first newsletter of 2013 will include a form which you can send to your bank or building society instructing them to pay your SCAS membership fee on April 1st.. No more hastily scribbled diary entries or notes on scraps of paper!

Clarendon Park Playgroup Leader Honoured.

I/we wish to maintain my/our membership /become a member of SCAS and enclose a cheque for £5 (per household per year) as from April 1st 2012 Name:……………………………………………………………………………………………..............

Address:.………………………………………………………….................Postcode…………………

Contact Phone: ......................................................... email.........................................................................

Send to: Jenny Westmoreland, Membership Secretary, 358 Victoria Park Road, LE2 1XF Phone: 2705828 email: michael@westmoreland.demon.co.uk

Membership News

Although the Society was formed in 1978, our membership records only go back to 1983. No-one knows why but perhaps it is because, like many small societies formed as a response to events, it took several years for the committee to take itself seriously. Whatever the reason, like Usain Bolt, we didn’t let our slow start handicap us and like Mo Farah, we have just kept on running. Thanks largely to our Chair David Oldershaw’s efforts at the Art House events in June and Richard Gill’s guided walk, we already have more new members this year (36) than in any year in the Society’s history. Remarkably there are also 10 individuals and couples who have maintained their membership more or less continuously for the entire thirty year period.

Our recent reminder letter has seen the number of renewals rising steadily but there are still a fair few of you who are yet to respond. Please do. The Society is run on an entirely voluntary basis and is entirely self-financing. Your support ensures that we can continue to promote Stoneygate through our Newsletter, website and campaigns and safeguard the area against unsympathetic development.

Finally, we learned of the death of Gill Thomson too late to include it in the April Newsletter. Gill, who passed away in March aged 87, was, sadly, one of those original members who had joined SCAS at the outset. She was married to Dr Stuart Thomson and lived for many years in the house on the corner of North Avenue and The Avenue before moving, after Stuart’s death in 2001, to a more manageable flat in Dukes Drive. She was a long time volunteer for The Samaritans and was, Nita Foale tells us, warm, humorous, humane, hospitable and very direct.

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee has been marked in various ways and one has been the reintroduction of the

British Empire Medal to recognise the contribution to their local community of people whose charitable,

voluntary or other work is outside the public eye.

We were delighted to learn that the June Birthday Honours List included Janet Tibbey, the leader of the

Clarendon Park (Christchurch) playgroup, whose BEM was awarded for services to children and families.

Mags Lewis, who told us the news, wondered whether someone at the Palace had been reading the SCAS

Newsletter. Bill Wells, whose two children both attended the playgroup, referred warmly to Janet in the

Spring 2009 issue as `the woman who has shaped a generation of Stoneygate‘s children’ and mentioned the

possibility of downloading an MBE nomination form from the No 10 Downing Street website. Bill got the

letters in the wrong order so this may just be a coincidence – but you never know. The List also included

an OBE for Gareth Malone, the inspiring choirmaster who brought Lancaster Boys School to the nation’s

attention in the 2007 BBC series `The Choir: Boys Don’t Sing’.