The House Group Committee commented on the recent consultation on the City's plans to establish two new conservation areas. The committee broadly welcomed the proposals but found the exclusion of the Barbican Wildlife Garden worrying. Our comments, written by Peter Inskip, were as follows;
Barbican Estate and Golden Lane
Estate Conservation Areas Consultation: Shakespeare Tower RTA
comments
We write as residents in the
Barbican Estate and as members of the Shakespeare Tower House Committee to
support the proposal that the Golden Lane and Barbican Estates should be
protected by conservation area status. Ted Reilly is Chairman of the
Shakespeare Tower House Group, and Peter Inskip is an architect concerned with
the historic built environment.
The division of the area into five
zones, however, is open to question, and we urge you to treat it as one
comprehensive conservation area. Zone 1 (Golden Lane) and Zone 3 (Barbican) are
already protected by their listed building status and this would extend to the
associated hard landscaping and other structures that fall within the curtilage
of the listed buildings. So, in reality, the protection of these areas is not
enhanced by placing them within a conservation area. The two estates are also
related as they were both designed by the same architectural practice of
Chamberlain, Powell and Bon.
What is necessary is the
protection of Zone 2 (Fann Street and Bridgewater Square) and Zone 5 (Area to
the South) as both are integral to the character of the two housing estates.
The Barbican Wildlife Garden in Fann Street and Bridgwater Square (Zone 2) are
crucial not only to the setting of both Blake Tower (YMCA Building) and Bunyan
Court in the Barbican, but they also secure a very important link between the
two estates, by extending across Fann Street to the large, urban square defined
by Crescent House, Cullum Welch House and Great Arthur House. The Barbican
Wildlife Garden and Bridgewater Square also provide a borrowed landscape to the
Golden Lane Estate which has very few trees or soft landscape within its
boundaries. The other parts of Zone 2, to the east, are less important, but they
do include two listed buildings and form the setting of Cuthbert Harrowing House
and Bowater House on the Golden Lane Estate. Looking east from the Shakespeare
Pub along Fann Street, the open spaces, buildings, and the Welsh Church provide
a very good informal landscape that compliments the surround areas. Ideally,
the whole of Zone 2 should be included in the new conservation area.
With Zone 5 (south of the Barbican
Estate) the importance of the area is that it defines the extent of the south
boundary of the Barbican, out to London Wall. A characteristic of the Barbican
and Golden Lane Estates is that they are bounded by the surrounding roads. This
south boundary links the housing through to the heart of the City and retains
the high level walkway along its perimeter that one notes as the edge of the
Barbican. Zone 5 also includes sections of the Roman and Mediaeval walls that
are part of the heritage of the Barbican site. The integration of Chamberlain,
Powell and Bonn’s housing, school and cultural centre with the historic elements
of St Giles, Cripplegate, the city walls, and the Jewish burial ground is clear
in all the plans for the designs of the estate, and these historical references
informed the scheme and gave it a sense of Place. They need to be
retained within the proposed Barbican Conservation Area.
Zone 4 (Brewery), on the other
hand, is less of a concern as its character is quite different from other areas.
At the west end of Chiswell Street one enters a quite separate realm that is
removed from the Barbican. The urban character is that of the 18C Brewery and
its 19C ancillary structures; on its frontage to Silk Street, the road is a
clear boundary to the Barbican running along its west and south sides and there
is no rapport with the commercial buildings and the Guildhall School across the
road. The tongue of space outside the east entrance to the Beech Street Tunnel
fronted by the forecourt of Cromwell Tower, that is shown as part of Zone 4
should, however, be incorporated in the Barbican Area.
We would request that the
exclusion of Zones 2 and 5 should be reconsidered, and that they should be
included in the proposed Golden Lane/Barbican conservation area.
Finally, if the whole of the area
formed by Zones 1,2,3, and 5 is considered as one, it would more than satisfy
the criteria for designation as a conservation area. Dividing it into small
zones inevitably misses the larger picture, as Appendix 2 in the consultation
papers has shown Historic England advises that “discernible character areas or
zones are often evident in larger conservation areas,” and we would urge you to
approach Golden Lane / Barbican as such with one conservation area encompassing
the two estates and the ancillary zones.
