DRAFT 3 OF THE VILLAGE DESIGN STATEMENT
PLEASE CLICK ON THE PARAGRAPH REQUIRED
Comments,
please, to Harland Walshaw (Chairman) on 01395 263928
Village
Design Statements were established by the Countryside Commission, with the
encouragement of the Government. Their
purpose is to describe the distinctive character of the village and surrounding
countryside, and to draw up design principles based on this local character.
As
the title suggests, they are concerned with design, with the visual appearance
of villages. Their remit does not include social policy, which is the province
of Village Plans.
The Village
Design Statement does not discuss whether development should take place: that
is the subject of the EDDC local plan. This Statement seeks to establish
guidelines about how planned development should be carried out, so that it is
in harmony with its setting and makes a positive contribution to the local
environment.
By inviting villagers to photograph the
features of Lympstone that they most care about.
By mounting an exhibition, attended by
170 people, which demonstrated the issues of design which the Village Design
Statement is concerned with.
By publishing and making available the
First and Second Draft of the Village Design Statement.
By taking into account more than 80
written submissions, and many more verbal contributions. All the views that were expressed were
carefully considered, and the Statement has changed and developed significantly
over the course of its three drafts as a result.
Lympstone is a
village of exceptional character, whose intricate and varied scale of
development retains the distinctive atmosphere of a fishing village.
It is a strip parish, winding its way down from the heights of
Lympstone Common to the Exe estuary. The main part of the settlement lies on
the north side of a valley, and the axis of the village is a long village
street, originally laid down in Saxon times. It emerges between two cliffs of
red breccia, a gravelly rock laid down by floods some 250 million years ago,
with a thin sandstone strata within them.
Farms and agricultural land have covered the upper reaches of the
parish with their sandy and clay soils. Meadows and orchards lie beside the
Wotton Brook, which together with Lympstone creek form an outlet to the sea.
This outlet, with its surrounding red cliffs, formed the site for shipbuilding
and fishing. Now it provides a shelter for leisure boats.
The railway line from Exeter to Exmouth runs on an embankment
through the lower part of the village, parallel to the estuary. One of its three bridges acts like a mediaeval
gateway to the square and the fishing village.
Few of the houses look directly on to the estuary. Mostly they
face each other across the main village street as it winds its way inland. Of
recent years, some cul-de-sacs of undistinguished estate houses have
been created leading off this street.
The architectural character of Lower Lympstone is determined by
the fire of 1833, when 58 cottages were burned down. Cob and thatch gave way to
brick and slate roofs. There are older cottages around the church, the
agricultural end. Larger houses were mainly built up Burgmann’s Hill, away from
the water, or further inland. The mill, which had existed since at least the
13th century, functioned until the 1950s. On the other side of the valley from
the settlement was the manor of Sowden, which is now part of the parish.
The church was originally Norman. The tower was built in 1409, but the rest of the building was rebuilt in Victorian times. The Primitive Methodist Chapel, of stone with lancet windows, is dated 1883, and next to it is a charming brick-built schoolhouse. These are tucked away behind the main village street, adjacent to a terrace of three-storey Regency houses, and a Queen Anne house. The open space onto which they looked has of recent years been filled in with bungalows and small-scale housing.
The railway, which cuts through Lower Lympstone, makes its
presence felt architecturally with three brick bridges. The station, hidden
away up a hill, has lost its Victorian buildings, replaced with a glass and metal shelter.
The landmark building of Lympstone is Peter’s Tower, a brick
Italianate memorial clock tower of 1885.
Although
Lympstone is a richly varied village, its unity and appeal comes from the use
of natural materials and traditional forms.
There is always room for imaginative new designs which can contribute
something new to the mix, if they respect the use of natural materials and
complement the existing building forms. Stock housing should have no place in
Lympstone.