garden 2 - inc images of homes

NANTWICH WALLED GARDEN - 2

Homes plan would have wiped out old garden

(updated June 2019)

How they might have looked

THREE views of the houses and apartments that the developers had in mind for the walled garden site on Kingsley Village housing development in an earlier application.

Top left are the homes as they would have been seen from an upper floor of the Beatty Court retirement home. In the bottom right of the picture (white area), in front of what is the north wall, is Byron Walk. The gate in the corner of the east wall is currently a gap filled with a large bush.

Above right is, of course, the development as seen from the opposite end.

In the front right of the image is a wrought iron gate allowing vehicular access from the roundabout in Fairfax Avenue to residents' parking bays.

The layout of the walled garden area in a plan submitted to Cheshire East Council in 2019 is not the same as in the model here.

That has six dwellings in half of the half-acre site and a knot garden in the half nearest to the town.

For details see this page on this website.

The houses and apartments in miniature and the images were produced by model maker David Easton of Furness Vale, High Peak, Derbyshire. These were created for a planning application submitted to Cheshire East Borough Council Planning Department in 2008.

(See panel about copyright below)

THIS is how the walled garden on the Kingsley Village housing development could have looked. But the latest (2019) plan if different in that the six houses stand on half of the half-acre site. The plans cannot be reproduced in newspapers or websites as that would contravene the copyright of the applicant.

But whether it is the above plan or the new version I, like many local people, would prefer them not be built, leaving the site to be used for a restored Elizabethan walled garden instead.

The sixteenth century walls, surrounding about half an acre of land, are a Grade II Listed Building. Yes, although a wall is a construction, such artefacts are classed as a building.

The listing by English Heritage - and later confirmed - means that the wall cannot be demolished and must be restored, whichever option they eventually encompass.

The wall was built around the kitchen garden of Townsend House which stood in Welsh Row until just after the middle of the 20th Century.

Taking the opposing view to the developers' is Nantwich Walled Garden Society (NWGS) which was formed in 2004 to oppose development within the walls. Although part of phase one of the Kingsley Village housing development, the site has not been developed.

NWGS is not opposed to the building of the apartments - especially in a time of

national housing needs - just not on the historic walled garden site. They would prefer a site to be found on Kingsley Village 2 - the second phase of the development which stretches from the current houses right out to Reaseheath College, north of Nantwich. (See this page).

My thanks to copyright holder

THERE is a widely-held belief that if something appears on a website it is in the public domain and available for use on other websites . . . without a by-your-leave or a thank you! This is not true. If you want to use something that you did not create - picture or text - you have to ask the person who produced it for their permission to do so. Thanking them is purely good manners.

So following those principles I gratefully acknowledge the permission to use images of his models on this page by David Easton of Furness Vale, High Peak, Derbyshire. http:parabuild.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-nantwich-walled-garden.html.

Garden campaign society calls for walls repair plan to be stopped

NANTWICH Walled Garden Society called for the plan to repair the crumbling garden walls to be stopped.

Which, on the face of it, seems odd. They want the walls to be repaired, don't they? Well, yes. But it was the application to create footpaths and a vehicle parking area (see pictures above) tied in with the repairs that the society objected to.

News of the objection was broken by the "Nantwich Chronicle" on December 30, 2015.

The Chairman of the NWGS, Peter S.Harrington - described by the paper as a society member - was quoted as saying "As this historic walled garden is an important piece of the town's heritage and also acknowledged by English Heritage to be of national importance, we believe that the walled garden should be restored in its entirety.

"The restored Elizabethan walled garden would also provide the town with a significant and very beautiful visitor attraction that would compliment

the town's many other fine historic buildings."

Peter felt that allowing the wall to be breached for vehicle access would be followed by a row of houses which would have meant any hopes of restoring the garden would be lost.

NWGS asked people to send objections to the latest application to Cheshire East Council. The deadline for comments has long passed.

Site owners submit new planning applications | Is idea "pie in the sky"? | Is plant a sign of things to come in garden? | A bungalow on the garden | Taking a picture I wanted