The Battle of the Bedroom Sheets

17th May

 Following the death of Baroness Thatcher, the Daily Mail today reported how we have re-named the Gatehouse bedroom in which Lady Thatcher and Sir Denis once slept in at Upton Cressett in her honour. 

As I explained in my Blog of May 12th, the former PM spent two days at the house in September 1995 as private guests of my father Bill Cash MP. The re-naming of the bedroom as the 'Thatcher Suite' has resulted in a social downgrade at Upton Cressett for the Prince Rupert Bedroom where the Thatchers slept named after the nephew of Charles I and Commander of the royal troops in the Civil War had also famously slept before the Battle of Bridgnorth in 1646. 

But it is not just the bedroom that has been given a Prime Ministerial make-over - along with the walls now being upholstered in new deep Venetian red 'Arden' velvet, in a 16th century design by Melissa White (below) depicting medieval hunting scenes. Melissa operates from a small studio in Sussex and is a celebrated Elizabethan textile designer - specialising in late Elizabethan designs. 

The Master Bedroom in the Hall at Upton Cressett has a large linen hanging cloth by Melissa - commissioned for Upton Cressett before she was 'discovered' by Zoffany a few years ago - and I think it is only fitting that the Lady Thatcher suite is decorated with Venetian velvet 16th century designs - as very much favoured by Elizabeth I herself - by one of Britain's leading female artisans. 

So that's the Thatcher Suite walls and side-tables. But what about the bed itself ? And most importantly, what about the bed linen? When you give a historic bedroom with 16^th century ornamental plasterwork a new name, you also have to give the entire room new life - and the holy grail of any guest rom these days is the quality of your bed sheets. 

In the Thatcher Bedroom, I thought the new sheets and bed linen had to somehow reflect the Thatcher legacy. Ideally, they needed to be trimmed in navy blue  and express the fastidious housekeeping standards for which Lady Thatcher was known. 

In the Thatcher Bedroom’s case this meant a quest for the perfect sheets (and matching duvet) to do justice to Lady Thatcher’s famous housekeeping standards – the old worn plain cotton sheets and old white duvet from the White Company (now years old) was not going to muster. I needed a new set of the very highest quality linen for the bedroom that was going to do justice to the formidable political housekeeper after which the bedroom is now named.

Knowing Lady Thatcher’s trenchant views on manufacturing quality – Britain’s first female prime minister was, after all, the daughter of a shop-keeper from Grantham-  it was never going to be ‘appropriate’ to choose any linens from such chic Italian or French luxury houses as Frette or Hermes  - or Germany for that matter. Lady Thatcher may have died in a suite at the Ritz but it was at least the London Ritz.

Yes, it’s true Frette – the super-expensive Italian linen house that has been around since 1860 – do admittedly do a very nice set of bed linen that is edged in a very Thatcher-esque mid-satin blue (the colour of many of her favourite suits) but somehow I just don’t see a Thatcher Bedroom being ‘correct’ if the bedroom guide notes state that the sheets  on the Thatcher Bed are from the Taormina Baglio Bordo line of Frette, as available from Harrods.

It would be like Madame Tussauds issuing a press release saying they had just done a new model of BaronessThatcher, only instead of her brandishing one of her famous classic British hand bags from Launer (the same brand as favoured by the Queen), they had her carrying a ‘tote bag’ from the luxury Argentinian handbag maker Prune.

No. That would not do. So I embarked on The Quest for the Perfect Linen for the Thatcher Bedroom and it took me several weeks before I was happy with what I found.

The perfect set of bed linen I have found for the Thatcher Bedroom are trimmed in a dark navy blue and can be bought in a small luxury bed linen shop near World’s End on the New King’s Road called Josephine Home. The set I selected are called the Classic 500 Thread and are made from 100% Egyptian satin cotton. The smart navy blue trim was the obvious choice - but they also come in other colours. 

Despite being ‘only’ a 500 thread they feel more luxurious and softer than any of the higher thread count linen being sold by other brands, including the White Company and even Peter Reed, who holds the Royal Warrant for supplying bed linen to Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and all the royal residences. 

Since Josephine Home already provide the Madarin Oriental and the Soho House group with their sheets - along with many other hotels/clubs in the world and various oligarch bedrooms and luxury yachts- I am guessing it is only a matter of time before boutique brand Josephine Home - the international luxury addict connoisseur's choice for bed linen - are given royal approval. 

In the end, the Battle of the Bedsheets, came down to a choice between Josephine Home and Peter Reed - who can be bought from Peter Jones. Reed has been manufacturing sheets in Lancashire since 1861 - the same date that Frette was founded - and in many ways the brand likes to position itself as the Frette of British bed linen. 

But the Peter Reed brand has suffered badly over the years and there is little doubt that the quality is not as good - not the drive for perfection - as Josephine Home, which is run by former Lehman banker Stephanie Betts (pictured right) and her husband Martin Betts. 

Their office is not some flashy office near Bond Street but rather a basement below the shop on the new King's Road where piles of glorious cashmeres and throws and more beautiful sheets than Gatsby had beautiful shirts in his closet.

For years, the Reed brand was eponymous with the finest British cotton quality, When the Reed family ran their mill in Nelson, Lancashire, it was called Springbank Mill and contained the second largest weaving shed in the world at that time (748 shuttle looms). 

The firm's problems began with the controversial 1959 Textile Rationalisation Scheme which led to family members being paid off and the company being split into different parts - followed by a disastrous public flotation in 1966 (becoming part of Allied Textiles plc). 

In 2003 the company 'changed hands' again after what it admits was 'a difficult period'- with quality and branding slipping badly at a time when people were spending fortunes on their bathrooms and kitchens but were still putting up with inferior quality bed sheets and bed linen.

Today, Peter Reed still have their Royal Warrant of Appointment to Her Majesty The Queen - granted in January 2008 - as manufacturers of bedlinen. 

But knowing how fanatical HRH Prince Charles can be about his cushions and toothpaste and pressed linen sheets, I'd be surprised if the word about Josephine Home doesn't reach royal ears soon. Today the brand is still something of a boutique 'cult' - once you have Josephine Home on your bed, there is no going back.  

The vision behind Josephine Home is that of Stephanie, an elegant French former banker and lawyer who started the business after having her first child Tristan and wanting to set up home near Henley on Thames - but not being able to find sheets or bedroom accessories or 'special things ' that matched the quality and style of her grandmother Josephine's old house in Paris. Hence Josephine Home. 

'She lived in the most inviting home I have ever known' says Stephanie, who is always dressed immaculately.  'She had the most wonderfully comfy beds, which gave me the sense of being not just expected, but more importantly, cosseted and loved. In that, she was the ultimate hostess'. 

Stephanie travels around Europe sourcing only the very finest artisans and craftspeople to source for Josephine Home - using Scottish wool mills and very best artisans from both Britain and the Continent (and certainly not China, as some 'luxury' linen mail-order luxury behemoths now do to keep up with the volume of their orders.

Stephanie's shop on the King's Road is an extension of her Henley home  and her private self. It is al about comfort, colour and what the French like to call The Art of Life - or joi de vivre. Nothing about Josephine Home could be further removed from the glossy alpha glass and steel world of her former life at Lehman Brothers with with its soulless meeting rooms, board room tables the size of swimming pools and hard leather and chrome chairs. Now she has quite banking for bed linen, Stephanie gets inspiration for each new collection's mood boards from sitting in the garden at her house near Henley and creatively absorbing the seasons around her.

'Frost or dew, sunshine and shade—I find inspiration all around me. I like to focus on the simple but often forgotten, homeware products which we use every day, and which I knew from my childhood growing up in France'. 

But a warning. As I mentioned earlier, Josephine Home is not just a cult - seeking out the perfect ben linen can be expensive and compulsive. I've never heard of support groups for people obsessed with buying the most beautiful sheets, cushions, throws and pillow cases - a new line of silk pyjamas inspired by the works of David Hockney have recently been launched  - but I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a new "LL" (Luxury Linen) category of addict being treated at the Priory. 

As Stephanie says; 'The experience of genuine quality becomes addictive'. Ive never heard of sheets or linen (ruinously expensive to iron every day) carrying health warnings before, but having now experienced the Josephine Home sheets in The Thatcher Bedroom I think each tissue wrapped set of sheets should definitely contain a warning card inside. To the effect that sleeping in Jospehine Home sheets can seriously damage one's ability to sleep in anything less.

The reason for such comfort is that her Italianbed linen is made from the same type of linen that the Pope uses at the Vatican - her linen is also the  favoured choice of various Russian oligarchs, including Eugeny Lebedev, owner of the London Independent and Evening Standard. Whether his billionaire father - who is facing jail in Russia for assaulting a fellow guest on live television - would be allowed to use Josephine Home in prison to make his possible stay more comfortable, I didnt like to ask.

Upton Cressett Bedroom Upgrade: When Royalty is upstaged by a Grocer's Daughter

 12th May

The opening of the new season was on Bank Holiday Monday after we had a full house of guests for the weekend. One of the best things about house opening on a Bank Holiday Monday (we are open in 2013 every Wednesday, Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday from 2pm-5pm, with tours at 2.30pm and 3.30pm) is that it gives you the perfect excuse to gently evacuate any lingering house guests from their bedrooms – make that the whole house – following an early lunch.

As I wrote in an email to all house guests before they arrived for the weekend, Bank Holiday check-out is at 10am. ‘ Lunch on Monday will be at 12.30pm as we open to the public at 2pm – unless you have no objection to having punters inspecting the contents of your open suitcases and seeing your clothes scattered around your bedrooms, can you please be PACKED UP and ready to have your bedrooms cleaned by 10am'. 

The reason I was quite excited about the beginning of the 2013 season is that Upton Cressett was featured on the front page of the Bridgnorth Journal the Friday before the holiday weekend – with the headline: “The History Hall’.

Following the death of Baroness Thatcher, who stayed the night in our Gatehouse with Sir Denis as guests of my parents in September 1995, I decided to re-name the former Prince Rupert Bedroom in the Gatehouse, the ‘Thatcher Bedroom’ – with the Prince Rupert Bedroom now being the upstairs second floor bedroom which we have previously called both the ‘Turret Bedroom’ and the ‘Library Bedroom’. Prince Rupert of the Rhine hid in the Gatehouse during the Civil War, bringing with him a ‘troop of royal horse’ according to local history books. 

One house guest over the weekend was William Dartmouth, UKIP MEP for the South-West, 10^th Earl of Dartmouth and no stranger to many of the best known country houses. He was billeted to sleep in the Prince Rupert Bedroom . As I led him up the 16^th century oak spiral staircase, past the new 'Thatcher Bedroom' on the first floor, I explained that the Prince Rupert bedroom had now been moved  ‘upstairs’. William quipped: ‘This must be the first time a grocer’s daughter has supplanted royalty in terms of bedroom status in a country house’.

Prince Rupert, of course, was the nephew of Charles I and the Commander of the Royalist Troops in the Civil War. Francis Cressett – who lives at Upton Cressett in the 17^th century - was Treasurer to Charles I and would unquestionably have known Prince Rupert personally and would have hosted Prince Rupert. The soldier prince reportedly came to hide at Upton Cressett in 1646, before the Battle of Bridgnorth.

The only snag about re-naming the Prince Rupert Bedroom the Thatcher Bedroom (or ‘Thatcher Suite’ as the Bridgnorth Journal prefer to call the set of rooms) is that Prince Rupert’s 1646 historic visit to the Hall and Gatehouse is captured in a set of ink linen wall hangings – called The Four Seasons of Prince Rupert - that decorate the corridor of the first floor. They cannot easily be moved as they were designed to hang specifically on this landing and fit perfectly.

Oh well. Maybe I will have to get a new set commissioned by Adam Dant to commemorate the visit of Lady Thatcher – to accompany the black edged framed Funeral Service Programme from St Paul’s and various photographs of Lady Thatcher and Sir Denis with my parents, taken during the Thatcher visit to Upton Cressett in 1995.

The whole subject of the naming of bedrooms in country houses is as sensitive, complex and delicate as the naming of dogs, and even one’s children. A female art world friend of mine recently admitted that they had not spoken to a married friend for over a year after they leant that their ‘friend’ had ‘copied’ the name that my art world friend had given to their daughter.

Evelyn Waugh beautifully satirized the English country house obsession with bedroom names in A Handful of Dust, where Tony Last’s adulterous upper class wife Brenda appropriately enough sleeps in an Arthurian fantasy bedroom called Guinevere.

A Handful of Dust was upper class fiction; but the tricky subject of naming bedrooms after illustrious visitors to houses is often as much a game of fiction – or fantasy - as fact. There is another Elizabethan house in Shropshire, for example, that claims a visit from Elizabeth I – but having looked into it, I am not convinced they have much evidence at all. Still sounds good for the guidebook.

Going back to the 14^th century, claiming visits from illustrious royalty was the oldest trick in the pilgrim tourist handbook Perhaps the best example being the fraudulent claims of Glastonbury Abbey in the 14^th century that the ancient tomb of King Arthur was buried at the famous abbey after he died there. It was later exposed as a pilgrim numbers seeking gimmick (medieval version of tourism)  as well as a way of boosting national/royal confidence at a time of great civil unrest.

The truth is that bedroom names, just like the re-attribution of paintings and titles on family portraits, often tell you as much about the social history of a house than the official guidebooks.  Much of the naming of bedrooms tells you more about the owners of the houses (or their aspirations) than the actual people who have stayed.

Even the most cursory of investigations into castle and country house bedroom names will reveal that  many of those that stayed probably didn’t; or even if they did ‘visit’ (as opposed to stay, which happened at Upton Cressett with Boris Johnson) the actual room they stayed in is misappropriated or embellished in the interests of romance or commercial convenience. For the historical recoord, I can guarentee that even if Boris does one day become PM, there will never be the 'Boris Bedroom' at Upton Cressett

This was especially common in the Victorian era when the vogue for romantic fantasy led to castles and country houses being re-modelled furiously by 19^th century ancestors who wanted to romanticize the history of their houses, with perhaps the best example being the 8^th Earl Berkeley who sold off Berkeley Square in London in order to pay for the re-modelling of Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire – buying up old medieval screens and ancient fireplaces from salvage yards across Europe and England in order to make his family castle seem grander and older and more historically important than it really was.

The subject of country house bedroom names is a potentially rich and under-researched chapter of social history. I look forward to attending an Attingham Trust lecture on this intriguing subject. 

Sadly, the new Thatcher Suite idea did not translate into blockbuster visitor numbers. Despite it being a glorious day, we only had around two dozen visitors on our opening day, despite it being a glorious day. The following Wednesday, numbers slipped to just six, with the Richard III Society the following Saturday only mustering a very disapponting troop of just thirteen members to see where the eldest Prince in the Tower (young King Edward V) allegedly spent the night at Upton Cressett on route from Ludlow Castle to his death in the Tower of London in Apri 1483.

I cant explain this rather dispapointing start to the season - other than perhaps the Richard III society membership were put off by my varoous references on the website to how the young king stayed at the Hall on way to 'being murdered by his uncle in the Tower'. 

Last Orders for The Pheasant Inn

There used to be a pub (or should I say 'tavern'?) here at Upton Cressett - Miiddle of Nowhere Hall - called the Blue Boar. I believe it was at the top of Meadowley Bank and was knocked down in the last century - I am not sure when. But it features regularly in the Shropshire County Archives for Upton Cressett that I have been reading through recently for my book on restoring the house.

I mention the Blue Boar at Upton Cressett because - as in evolutionary theory - the remote rural pub was knocked down by some landowner after it had fulfilled its useful social function. In the middle ages, there was a population of several hundred at Upton Cressett. In the Victorian era, there was an Old Rectory and a full time vicar at the 12th century church of St Michael's at Upton Cressett - now it is empty, romantic, deserted and of another age. There hasn't been a religious service at the beautiful Grade 1 Norman church since my sister was christened there in 1971.

I'd love to get married at S Michael's and have my own children christened there but there is no realistic chance of the church ever returning to being a 'community' church as it had been from the 12th century to the 19th century. The same applies to the Blue Boar - there is no real 'community' at Upton Cressett any more.

The story is the same around most of the romantic and isolated hamlets of Shropshire -and the rest of the shires for that matter. Which is why I have just written a letter of support to a local planning application for Change of Use at The Pheasant Inn at Linley Brook, near (or at least fairly near) Bridgnorth. Linley Brook is so out of the way and remote and a road to Nowhere that it make Lear's heath look like Milton Keynes.

After Simon and Elizabeth Reed (pictured above) opened in 1983, they ran the pub for 29 years until they were forced to close for business last March after struggling for a long time to generate sufficient local business to justify remaining open.

Simon Reed's daughter Catherine used to work for me at Spear's, in our early days, above a kebab shop in Notting Hill gate, and was a huge asset to us. As somebody who runs a historic house which is located at the end of a three mile lane in the middle of nowhere in Shroshire, I know only too well the pressures that must have arisen in deciding to close the pub. I visited the pub on several occasions over the last decade and am witness to how the pub often struggled to find any locals to go there - even on a Friday or Saturday night.

The location of the Pheasant Inn - like the Blue Boar at Upton Cressett - is very obscure and remote and times have moved on from when the pub was the hub of local rural communities in Shropshire. People have cars and seek other forms of entertainment - such as the internet or Telford's discos and 'tribute evening' pub nights. Simon Reed is not a Wham 'tribute night' sort of landlord.

He and his wife have been at the Pheasant Inn for some 30 years. I recall the pub did sell good quality pub food at a reasonable price and was a great experience - I used to take house party guests there who wanted to authentic Shropshire pub and despaired of the 'tribute nights' at such locals as The Punch Bowl - but it was always empty.

To be honest, I was surprised that the pub had remained open as long as it did because of the changing nature of rural life, not just in Shropshire but all around the country - from Norfolk to Northumberland. I know the Reed family had a strong emotional attachment to the pub. It was their family home as well as a business.

But local communities have changed greatly since when the building was an agricultural worker`s cottage - and then became a pub in the late 1800s selling home brew to the local farm workers.

I am amazed The Pheasant Inn survived even until last year but that was the end of its useful or practical life. I understand that 6000 pubs have closed in the UK over the last 5 years and the closure of the Pheasant is just another sad statistic. The smoking ban, increased alcohol escalating tax and brewery increases, and the 2003 Licensing Act and drink/drive laws, have decimated the pub trade.

The Pheasant is just a two room pub, with septic tank drainage, no disability facilities, no catering kitchen and it would require a vast investment to transform it into any sort of gusto-hotel and even then there would be very little likelihood of success due to its remote location and Shropshire not being one of the UK's most wealthy communities. It would be throwing good money after bad.

Also I should add, should the pub be given this change of use, it will require considerable building work to transform the property into a private home and this will result in employment for local building firms and local jobs will be created which is exactly what the government is trying to achieve with the new NPPF planning reforms.

The worst of the scandal over the previous refusal to grant Change of Use is that Shropshire Council are now trying to claim a significant sum of money of the Reed family if they succeed with the appeal.

Has anybody heard of a Section 106 Agreement? It is a levy imposed on those who gain planning permission which is supposed to be spent by Councils on "affordable housing". I am told by Simon Reed that it 'applies where new residential space is being created i.e. by building a house.

We are not doing that but the more devious brains in the depths of the Council in their quest for extricating money off decent people and handing it out to the reckless and feckless have decided that the 106 thing can be applied to us because, although we are building nothing new, we are creating extra space by making a commercial area residential'.

The usual Council planning dept obfuscation and confusion then worked its art. As Simon continued: When, last Autumn, when the Council recommendation to approve the application was made to the Committee, this condition, if the Council were minded to apply it, should have been applied but it was not. They forgot to do it, it seems, and now they are seeking retrospective application of it. Our planning consultant is of the view that retrospective use of this measure may not be lawful and he is also of the view that it may not apply to us because nothing new is being built.

However, we know of two other change of use pubs where the condition was imposed at the time of the approval recommendation. Like us, both applications were refused (by the same Committee that refused us); we know that one of them (The Squirrel at Wollerton near Hodnet) has since entered into a 106 Agreement with the Council which will mean, in that case, that £11,700 will have to be paid if the appeal succeeds. If we had succeeded at the application stage, as recommended, we would not have had to pay anything.

The Council want us to enter into a 106 Agreement before June 12th when the appeal Hearing happens. Our planning man is looking into it all. They have threatened us by saying that if we do not have a 106 thing done the inspector has powers, if he thinks the 106 Agreement is applicable, to reject the appeal just on those grounds even if he is of the view that, apart from that, the appeal should be allowed.

I will let readers make up their own mind but if I was on the Planning Committee and I fully understood the principles and motives behind the new revised NPPF - which is to rip up the old planning laws and make the whole planning system more logical, simpler and geared towards economic growth - I would have no hesitation at all in supporting the planning application for Change of Use at the Pheasant Inn.

Saved from Pig Hell?

March 20th 2013

It looks as if this could be the case following an email I received this morning from Shropshire Council in relation to a highly controversial factory pig farm proposal - 2000 pigs - by a local farmer just 500 metres or so from Upton Cressett. Just 24 hours after I had deposited the bulky findings of an 80 page special Transport and Highway Access report prepared by Phil Jones Associates on the famously narrow, steep and impassable lane at Upton Cressett to Thomas Cannaby, the Bridgnorth planning case officer at Shropshire Council,  I received a reply that cheered me. He had been ill for a few days and that 'whilst I was away the applications for pig rearing buildings at Upper House Farm have been withdrawn and so there are no longer any applications under consideration with regards to this matter'. 

He had also received a copy of the Traffic and Highways report from Graham Dalal of Phil Jones Associates which was now placed on the Highway files for future reference.

The proposed intensive pig farm for 2000 pigs would have been about as far removed as imaginable from the idea of the sort of Shropshire pig breeding espoused by Lord Elmsworth in the Blandings novels where his 'Empress Blandings' - more of a Berkshire Sow pet than a pig - regularly wins the local county prize for best pig. I always assumed that the local agricultural fair that PG Wodehouse - who was brought up around Bridgnorth, and used to cycle the parsley filled lanes around Upton Cressett as a boy - used as his model was the Burwarton Show, which last year was washed out. 

Anybody who lives in the remote rural countryside these days knows what it is like to be living under constant siege from developers, or local farmers being tugged by the temptations of EU subsidy - such as wind farms - or big supermarket chains (the very same who sold us horsemeat lasagne) who will throw generous 'backing money' at local farmers for intensive farming proposals so they can stick a nice 'Shropshire reared' label on their cheap sausages or chickens.

I dont know the reasons for the 'withdrawl' of the application for the pig factory at Upton Cressett but the first thing I did was to call my neighbour Mark Bullock, who lives at Rectory Lodge, which is even closer to the proposed pig factory at Upper House Farm than Upton Cressett. Mark, who owns a successful industrial paint business, is a very decent man and has been horrified - like me - at the way the planning application was handled, with no consultation or any sort of dialogue with neighbours who also have to use the notoriously treacherous and winding cul-de-sac lane that leads to Upton Cressett, winding for nearly three miles from the main Bridgnorth road. 

Mark said:  'It's good news for Upton Cressett as the traffic situation along the lane really has become impossible in recent years and huge HGV lorries would only make traffic access along the lane even more unsustainable. Lets hope this gets the Council now to put warning signs on the road below Meadowley and at the entrance of the lane to say the road is "unsuitable for HGVs". It is a one in four gradient in places - totally unsuitable for giant lorries. I had a gravel truck company the other day simply refuse to deliver gravel as they said the road was too steep and dangerous - or else they would only come in a pick up truck and charge me for dozens of loads. School taxis use the road every day. The road is falling to bits and lorries are having to be towed up the hill by tractors because of their loads and poor weather. The local community at Upton Cressett welcome this decision to withdraw the unpopular and controversial application'.

Other residents of Upton Cressett are also delighted that the application has been 'withdrawn'. All of those who live at, or around, Upton Cressett applaud the Cantrills (the local farming family ) for their decision which will now help to protect and preserve both the historic landscape and beautiful countryside.

The supermarket chain that was behind their proposal were only interested in short term commercial gain - and like the many Welsh farmers who have found themselves falling out with the wind farm companies who they thought they were getting such a good deal with, but in reality were being 'used' - and abused - for commercial profit, I suspect the Cantrills will be grateful for taking back their independence and doing what real farmers do best: farm their own land themselves without being puppets, muppets or mercenaries for anybody else. 

Upton Cressett is one of the heritage jewels of Shropshire and has been acclaimed by the likes of John Betjeman who called Upton Cressett a 'remote and beautiful' place. Let's hope now it can remain so, for everybody to enjoy, including the local farmers who are an important part of the community themselves. So often in recent years, the farming community see themselves as outside the community, as if the countryside only belongs to them, when the Shropshire landscape - especially in such a beautiful place as Upton Cressett or Wenlcok Edge - belongs to all. 

Everybody who is lucky enough to live in a place like this needs to realise that that the landscape and heritage assets like Upton Cressett are bonds that bring the community together and that planning development which divides communities and makes 'quality of life'  unbearable for locals is anti-social and unreasonable, and which is why Britain not only has the the strongest landscape/heritage protection system in the world, but is also why our countryside and heritage remains the envy of the world. 

This is the over-arching point that is made again and again in the brilliant new BBC 4/English Heritage television series currently running called Heritage ! The Battle for Britain's Past. The three-pat series - last episode is this Thursday  at 7pm - follows the heritage movement to protect Britain's historic landscape and heritage from the 19th century to the modern day. The series complements the centenary of the 1913 Ancient Monuments Act - the legal act that really started the heritage tourism business giving the public the right to enjoy ancient monuments like Stone Henge - which I have blogged about before. 

'The Act was a landmark moment for heritage' says English Heritage. 'It created many of the powers still used to safeguard the nation's legacy of historic buildings. It aslo effctively  established the National Heritage Collection, Britain's outdoor museum today consisting of 880 historic sites'. 

Upton Cressett has - since the 12th century when the Norman church of St Michael was built, with the current Hall being built around 1430 - always been an important part of the 'outdoor museum' of heritage that makes not just Shropshire 's history resonant with architectural history, but also the history of the events that have taken place at Upton Cressett, and the people who have visited ot lived here and shaped the nation's history - from young King Edward V, the eldest of the Princes in the Tower who reputedly stayed at Upton Cressett in April, 1483, on route to his death at the Tower of London - to Prince Rupert of the Rhine (below) who stayed at the Gatehouse in the Civil War, to Margaret Thatcher in the 1990s.

There was never a pig farm stenching out the place when such visitors came here and I only hope there never will be as heritage is not really about the past - as Simon Thurley, CEO of English Heritage - likes to say: it is really about the future, and deciding what is worth preserving and saving. 

The historic landscape around Upton Cressett is an important part of why people love living and visiting Shropshire. There are so few of these ancient hamlets left today and is why Upton Cresset was awarded 'Best Hidden Gem' as a heritage destination in the entire country last year. An industrial pig farm, with huge HGV lorries blocking the narrow cul-de-sac lane and causing havoc to the lives of local residents is the very last thing the historic and peaceful and remote hamlet of Upton Cressett needed.  

A major factor in the 'withdrawl' of the application is likely to have been the hundreds of emails and letters of Objection to Shropshire Council from local residents, as well as heritage lovers from around the country who have been to Upton Cressett. A common theme was that the narrow lane at Upton Cressett is simply wholly unsuited to more heavy industrial traffic and the intensive pig farm would have made access to Upton Cressett increasingly unmanageable for both residents and visitors.

As part of our local community campaign to protect Grade 1 Upton Cressett from industrial development, led by myself and Caroline and Mark Bullock, various local residents at UC commissioned a leading planning and transport consultant firm called Phil Jones Associates, based in Birmingham, to visit Upton Cressett, and make an independent survey of the traffic and highway issues. We were advised by Phil Davies that the Traffic/Highway and transport access issues relating to the industrial pig units at Upper House Farm, Upton Cressett were grounds alone for having the planning application refused. 

The company is one of the most highly respected planning consultants in the UK and work closely with various Councils and also the Government advising on safety and access issues for highway planning issues. 

The 80 page report from Phil Jones Associates (who advise councils and the government on transport planning) concluded that : 

1 CONCLUSIONS

1.2 The Note has reviewed the likely HGV trip generations related to the development proposals and has found that the proposals will increase HGV trips on the access route to and from the strategic highway network. 

1.3 The standard of the site access route has been reviewed, particularly with regard to its suitability for access by HGV’s. It has been demonstrated that the access route is clearly unsuitable for access by HGV’s.

1.4 The Note includes a review of relevant guidance and policy to be taken into account regarding this type of development and concerning appropriate standards for providing access by HGV’s. 

This has demonstrated that the access route is clearly substandard for use by HGV’s and that the proposed development is therefore inappropriate at this location.

1.5 It is concluded that there are a number of material considerations regarding HGV access and that planning consent for the development proposals should be refused accordingly.

Another important factor in getting the farmer to re-consider the application - now 'withdrawn' - is that last October Upton Cressett was given Grade 1 Status by English Heritage, making Upton Cressett one of the most heavily protected heritage sites in the country with three Grade 1 listed buidings and three Scheduled Ancient Monuments. 

The Upton Cressett pig farm would have been an important test case for the NPPF and heritage protection following the precedent setting High Court ruling just two weeks ago in favour of protecting a Grade 1 heritage asset from inappropriate wind farm development  - the 16th century National Trust heritage asset of Lyveden New Bield in Northants (right). 

This is now being regarded as a test case for the working of the NPPF in regards to protecting the 'historic setting' of Grade 1 heritage assets of national significance. 

Another factor was the report of  English Heritage which raised concerns that the historic landscape and Hall would be directly impacted materially by the issue of the waste management of the pig muck. 

English Heritage asked for specifics on where the pig waste would be stored and spread after we were told by John Cantrill - son of Roger Cantrill - at Upper House farm that it would be 'everywhere' - which meant on various fields that are within 10 or 20 metres of dwellings anf the Grade 1 heritage assets at Upton Cressett. No consideration had been given to the impact on the heritage assets from air/noise pollution etc, as well as the increased traffic along the steep lane between Upper House Farm at the Hall, Gatehouse and Norman church. 

The traffic issue at Upton Cressett has been rumbling for a while now. Back in August/September 2012, Shropshire Council made an investigation into the Traffic and Highway Access issues at Upton Cressett relation to concerns by local residents at the traffic flow and size of industrial machinery being used along the very narrow lane. 

Shropshire Council closed the case immediately after learning the full details below, pertaining to how the Grade 1 Hall, Gatehouse and Grade 1 church of St Michael have been open to the public as heritage attractions (and for teas) since the 1970s and that there has been no 'change of use'. 

What has increased dramatically in recent years is the size of the industrial farm machinery - mainly used by Upper House Farm - and the increased traffic flow from Upper House Farm after the farm was expanded to nearly 500 acres. It should also be noted that we at Upton Cressett voluntarily do not encourage bookings (except very occasionally from schools etc) from large tour coaches to make group visits to the Hall in the interests of local community traffic flow along the lane and consideration for local residents and Upper House Farm. 

We lose out on very considerable revenue by taking this voluntary line but do so out of consideration for the local community and those that live around Upton Cressett as it is simply impossible for a large grain lorry or livestock lorry to pass a tour bus to pass at almost any point on the two and a half mile lane - hence causing serious danger (from one party having to reverse for often hundreds of yards), delays and huge inconvenience to residents - not to mention continual damage to kerbs, banks, and the road from having to manoeuvre large vehicles into make-shift passing places etc.  

Allowing a large number of huge HGV vehicles carrying pigs to be ferried along the narrow, steep and almost impassable unclassified lane - facing traffic coming the other way from school taxis, heritage visitors, Council rubbish lorries, local residents and other deliveries - would appear to clearly contravene various Shropshire Highway and planning guidelines as set out in your detailed report. It would be dangerous, irresponsible and only make a current bad traffic situation reach the point of being unmanageable. 

The local Council rubbish/waste collection lorries currently struggle to reach the Hall and Rectory Lodge (home of the Bullock family) in bad weather, and any increase in traffic from heavy farm vehicles would make the task of the Council waste disposal drivers even more difficult than at present. 

There are already regular major problems when the Council's waste/garbage lorries meet large farm vehicles on the impassable road and it would seem impossible that the Council would want to allow a situation where the Council's rubbish collection vehicles are regularly stranded on the lane due to the impossibility of passing increased number of large HGV vehicles containing pigs - around 2000 each 'rotation' - being delivered or collected from Upper House Farm. 

Thankfully, it looks now as if the Council won't have to decide on the matter as reason seems to have won the day from the farmers themselves. If only Roger or John Cantrill would now turn off that appalling 'shot-gun' noise machine for scaring birds - which wakes everybody up and is one of the most supremely anti-social 'farming' devices ever invented - then the hamlet can finally get back to being a 'remote and beautiful' - not to mention 'peaceful' - place to live again. As it has been for over a thousand years. 

The Destruction of Arcadia: Preview Now

The Adam Room of the Lloyds of London building in the heart of the
City was a well chosen venue for Dr Simon Thurley, chief executive of
English Heritage, to announce his plans for the celebrations to mark
the 100th anniversary of the Ancient Monuments Act - the legislation
that has led to the birth of heritage protection and heritage tourism
in this country; and why Cameron was able to spend £27 million on his
'Britain is Great' global campaign to promote heritage across the
world as a main driver of British tourism - bringing in over £20
billion to the economy. Tourism is the fifth biggest sector of the UK
economy - larger than than car manufacturing, film, advertising and
certainly publishing.

In his address to the leading honchos of the heritage
sector and Maria MIller, Secretary of State  at the DCMS, on 30th
January, Thurley began by asking a question. 'What do MacDonalds
burgers, baseball caps, and Cameron Diaz have in  common with the 1913
Ancient Monuments Act?'

Dr Thurley pointed out that it was the architectural pillaging habits
of Americans- such as California English castle owner William Hearst -
that led to the need for legislation that would prevent our great
stately homes, and their fireplaces, and great halls, staircases and
and bricks, being shipped over to the US, where they were
re-assembled. After years of shipping out crates of 'old England',
including panelled state rooms, even whole buildings, across the
Atlantic, an American tycoon decided he wanted to ship the better
parts of Tattershall Castle across the Atlantic. But before the fine
fifteenth century fireplaces were lost to America, Lord
Curzon stepped in.

As viceroy of India, Lord Curzon had been a champion of protecting
'the great  heritage of the subcontinent' and found it remarkable that
while, the British  Empire could prevent the plunder of the Punjab, it
was powerless to prevent the architectural rape of England's own
heritage. Then Dr Thurley showed a slide of the exquisite fireplaces -
shrouded in Union Jacks like the returning war dead - being returned
to Tattershall on the back of huge horse drawn carts.

One of the ironies of this story, of course, is that the very room on
the 11th floor of the hi-tech futuristic building in which Dr Thurley
addressed the audience, now known as the Committee Room, was
originally the 18th century dining-room designed for the 2nd Earl of
Shelburne by Robert Adam in 1763. Architect Richard Rogers had the
room transferred piece-by-piece from the previous (1958) Lloyd's
building. But at least the Adam architecture only crossed the road -
not the Atlantic.

The 1913 system involved creating a list of 'scheduled' monuments of
national importance - including Stonehenge (which will this year - as
the highlight of the anniversary - have the road that runs by the
'heel stone' through it finally closed down and diverted so as to
allow the ancient site to stand alone in its natural glory unfettered
by the noise and crawl of modern traffic). Responsibility for
governance of heritage protection the system was given to various
heritage geeks and mandarin eccentrics who worked at the ancient
monuments department of the Office of  Works - the modern 'direct
ancestors' of those that now work for English Heritage. A new BBC 4
series telling the story of these heritage fanatics will be broadcast
from March.

The 1913 bill was very forward looking. The idea was to tell the story
of Britain through its historic buildings and sites - stone by stone.
By 1938, the ministry had collected over 300 sites, open to the
public, with more than 3 million visitors a year. This, Dr Thurley
reminded the audience, was before 'our friends and colleagues at the
National Trust' acquired their first country house. Today, English
Heritage has over 400 historic sites and monuments in its care - all
enjoyed by the public. Add to this the 1500 or so privately owned
historic houses open to the public (represented by the Historic Houses
Association) and the 500 or so managed by the National Trust and you
have an overview of the 'national heritage collection'  that makes
Britain the envy of the world.

Following Thurley's speech, the Culture minister Maria Miller stressed
the importance of heritage protection but made it clear that it needed
to modernise in line with other government priorities - such as
'growth' (ie building and transport infrastructure).  'Preserving,
promoting and protecting our heritage has never been a backward
looking function...It matters that our heritage protection system also
continues to evolve, because we need to make sure that it is fit for
the 21st century.  Changes in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
Bill, which is currently before Parliament, will make the heritage
protection system work more efficiently.  They will provide greater
certainty to owners and developers, and reduce the numbers of
unnecessary consent applications.  Most importantly, they’ll do so
without diminishing essential protection for important heritage sites
and buildings'.

We have, of course, heard this rhetoric before. And it has proved to
be largely hollow. The new phase 2 - Northern link from Birmingham to
Leeds - of HS2 was announced just a few days before the Minister gave
these re-assurances. Take the Grade-II* manor house of Pooley Hall, on
the edge of Polesworth - the new line will cuts to within a hundred
metres. The first 'significant' country house to be affected will be
Grade-II* Langley Priory, near Diseworth, with the line slashing
through the 500-acre parkland, some 200-metres to the west of  the
main house.  A bit further on, the HS2 line slices through the western
parkland at Thrumpton Hall, which has close links to the Gunpowder
Plot and is the family home of the writer Miranda Seymour.

I could go on as the list of Grade 1 or Grade 2  * historic houses
that will be 'sacrificed' in the name of progress and jobs is pretty
long is pretty long. A notable exception that appears to have been
deliberately avoided is famous Hardwick Hall, in Derbyshire owned by
the National Trust. Perhaps the planners have learnt their lessons
from picking fights with the Trust, whose PR and petition resources
are exhaustive - and with around 4 million members, a body with more
members than all the political parties combined.

I can only hope that the often stated government promises of heritage
protection override the priorities of 'growth' and development.

Unfortunately, my historic house at Upton Cressett is under siege
again. First it was a threat from wind farms, now it is an American
style mega intensive industrial pig farm by another local farmer -
just 500 metres from the gardens and grounds of Upton Cressett; and
less than 450 metres from the church of St Michael where we hosted a
beautiful carol service just before Christmas with no power, a lonely
Calor gas heater and no lights - other than hundreds of hand lit
candles in the winter darkness.

So long, that is, as the visitor experience at Upton Cressett
remains unspoilt by super-industrial and intensive farming.
Regrettably, traditional family farming in so many parts of rural
England is now being supplanted by American and Polish style of
factory farming where pigs, for example, never even smell any grass or
see any sky - let alone a field. The proposed pig factory (backed by a
UK supermarket chain) is a very long way from the breeding style of
The Empress Blandings of Lord Emsworth.

Ever since we heard about the proposed intensive swine farm from
a neighbour - who only found out by accident since the planning notice
was posted out of sight from public view - it has been very 'Blot on
the Landscape' here at Upton Cressett. Only it is funny when you are
reading about warfare in the country in a Tom Sharpe novel. This application is not.

The only other similar application for a factory pig farm so close to a historic house in the
country was for a factory farm a few hundred metres from HM Forston
prison - a closed prison for 160 murderers and rapists. We have three
Grade 1 buildings and three Scheduled Ancient Monuments, exactly the
sort of sites that the original 1913 Act was introduced to protect.

There is a strong argument that for those houses or buildings of
‘exceptional merit’ (as Grade 1 buildings are described) which are
open to the public, and which directly contribute to the heritage
economy by way of employment, education and cultural heritage, there
should be a statutory defence against development in the immediate
vicinity.

Next year will see the 40th anniversary of the famous 1974 V & A
exhibition on 'The Destruction of the English Country House', which
was widely credited with raising public awareness of the cultural
vandalism that was being done to the country house and their great
estates, described by Evelyn Waugh as perhaps the nation's greatest
art form and greatest contribution to western civilization.

Let's hope there is not a UK planning history exhibition 100 years
from now entitled The Destruction of Arcadia.