There is nothing so disappointing as the discovery that a favourite view has suddenly been despoiled: a line of radio masts has been added, a field of solar panels, a large modern house that’s been plopped onto the landscape.
Thankfully, however, this does not happen too often and much of that is attributable to The Gardens Trust, a key bulwark against unsuitable development. However, this role is now under threat following the Government’s proposal, announced earlier this year, to remove the charity’s position as a statutory consultee in planning permissions for up to 1,700 historic landscapes and gardens in order to speed up building. The trust has been fundraising to fight this proposal.
The Warmley Giant.
The Gardens Trust’s mission is largely carried out with minimal fanfare, yet, without its work conserving, researching and campaigning, some of Britain’s loveliest places might have been irreparably damaged. In the garden at Warmley in Gloucestershire, former home of the 18th-century Quaker industrialist William Champion, the trust helped block the expansion of a mobile-home park. This would have infringed upon the Warmley Giant, a statue of Neptune that is the country’s largest garden statue and its oldest concrete one.
In Endsleigh (above and main image) in Devon, it stopped the building of a holiday cottage that would have scarred the sightline of a Humphry Repton masterpiece. At Leeds Abbey in Kent, the local branch has been pushing for the safeguarding and restoration of the ‘regrettably unregistered’ Capability Brown landscape.
As a statutory consultee in the English planning system, currently the trust must be informed whenever a planning application might affect a garden or landscape under its remit. These include the 1,700 on Historic England’s Register of Historic Parks and Gardens meriting special historic interest. The charity is a protector against local authorities keen to push through changes and its role ensures that radical decisions are not taken without due consideration.
‘We don’t recognise ourselves in the Government’s characterisation of statutory consultees,’ reads a statement from the trust, which has recently supported, with some reservations, the Lawn Tennis Association’s plans for Wimbledon Park, London SW19. ‘We only rarely miss the 21-day response deadline and, last year, objected to less than 10% of our consultations, with the remainder of our responses being simply supportive advice… The Government claims these reforms will speed up housing delivery, but at what cost?
'Our expertise ensures that development is done sensitively, respecting all that these special places have to offer while still allowing for progress.’
-
The art fairs and exhibitions bringing colour to this autumnCountry Life details the museums and galleries that are putting on a show this season.
-
Raising the steaks: Which native animal produces the best beef?We tasked eight gourmands — including food writer Tom Parker Bowles and chef Jackson Boxer — to find out which native British cow produces the best côte de boeuf.
-
'There is only a handful of fruit trees I’d grow for their non-edible charms — quince is one'A versatile fruit that's superb in jams and with booze, quince also doesn't make you work too hard for all that pleasure.
-
Everything you could ever want to know about growing, eating and cooking plumsMirabelles, gages, plums, damsons — the best ones to buy, the ones to avoid, and how to use them. Charles Quest-Ritson has you covered.
-
The proposed National Gallery extension is a ray of light in a stormy sectorThe announcement of a new wing for one of the nation's top art galleries 'is a transformative initiative undertaken through private philanthropy to clear and universal benefit. What is there not to celebrate?'
-
Sophie Conran's garden at Salthrop Manor, and its journey from bare field to Cotswold paradiseThe walled garden at Salthrop Manor — home of Sophie Conran — hums with life and colour. It’s hard to believe that this was merely a field not so long ago, as Tiffany Daneff explains; photography by Ngoc Minh Ngo for Country Life.
-
Don't blame it on the sunshine, don't blame it on the moonlight, don't blame it on the good times, blame it on the batsBats and newts are an easy target, but can they actually be blamed for not building enough houses?
-
Alan Titchmarsh: You wouldn't think it, but Surrey is the most wooded of all England's counties — and its Scots pines are as beautiful as any of its treesAlan Titchmarsh is selling his house
-
'Knowledge, energy, creativity and enthusiasm... He's a sensation': Meet the golden boy of English horticultureCharles Quest-Ritson meets the best of the next generation of gardeners tending to some of the nation's best gardens.
-
What Britain's top garden designers are planting now to create dazzling spring meadows around their homesNon Morris reveals the techniques behind the contemporary take on William Robinson’s original idea of naturalising bulbs in long grass, creating an effect even more dazzling than a meadow.
