Suggestions for Preparation of Character Appraisal and Management Plan
for the Ethelburt Avenue (Bassett Green Estate) Conservation Area

Guidance written by Alastair Duke

1. Sources of Information:

City Archives Southampton; Hampshire Record Office, Southampton Central Library -Special Collections; Southampton University Library (Hartley) - The Cope Collection.

2. Official Publications:

English Heritage Publications: These provide guidance on both appraisal and management plans and suggest how local community might be involved. 

Understanding Place: Historic Area Assessments: Principles & Practice. (June 2010)

Understanding Place: Conservation Area. Designation, Appraisal and Management (March 2011)

Understanding Place: Historic Area Assessments in a Planning and Development Context (2010)

Understanding Place: Character and Context in Local Planning (2011)

3. Aspects to be Covered:

3.1. Conservation Area Appraisal:

            - Summary of Special Interest of CA: What makes this CA distinctive?

            - Location and Setting of CA

            - Historic Development & Archaeology to cover development of area: for period before Collins Development refer to Southampton City Historic Environment Record, maps, North Stoneham Estate?

            - Spatial Analysis: layout of roads, communal areas, green spaces

            - analysis of Collins development: principles followed; stages in development of area since later 1920s until 1950s: Brochure by R.S. Collins ‘Ideal Labour saving Houses: The Model Estate at Bassett’ (1934? 1938?).[1]

            - buildings of particular interest: locally listed buildings; styles of architecture, analysis of building materials, features (doors, windows, chimneys, porches, roofscapes, rainwater goods, fences, gates).[2] Survey of houses to establish proportion with original features, digital photographic record of CA

            - green spaces and biodiversity: tree types, gardens, wild life

            - damage to CA; ‘neutral’ areas

            - problems:

            - summary of issues and opportunities Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats [SWOT table]

3.2. Management Plan:

The purpose is to manage change (e.g. renewable energy, use of new building materials, traffic) while respecting the special characteristics set out in the Appraisal and, where possible enhancing the quality of the CA. It helps if the management plan can be related to specific ‘Core Strategies’ of Southampton. If our experience with drawing up the Management Plan for Portswood Residents’ Gardens CA is anything to go by, this is likely to be the more contentious part of the document. In an endeavour to ensure the final document was ‘owned’ by the residents, our working party was deliberately chosen to represent a wide range of opinions. Some wanted ‘light touch’ regulations while others argued for quite restrictive policies. We also arranged for the draft document to be widely circulated by email and to be discussed at public meetings where residents could raise questions and express their views.

3.3. Enhancement Opportunities: 

In our case, we highlighted traffic management and parking.

3.4. Arrangements to review working of Management Plan at regular intervals.

Below is a list of maps, sources of information on individual houses and past householders,

4. Maps for Bassett Green

Ordnance Survey Maps: Area on 25 inch scale covered by OS LVII sheet 15 (or 57.15). Because the borough boundary until 1920 was Burgess Road, the City Archives do not have as complete a collection of OS maps for this area as you might expect. But Southampton Central Library (Reference Local History) has the relevant OS sheets for 1867, 1896, 1909. Probably a more complete collection is to be found in the Hampshire County Record Office, which also contains other documents relating to North Stoneham, including particulars of sale of North Stoneham Estate 1953. I have looked at OS maps for 1865, 1910, 1933. 

1865-8 57.15. This shows tree-lined road, called Bassett’s Lane in map of 1791 which would become Bassett Green Road. 

1910 57.15 Shows Allotment Gardens on south side of Bassett Green Road and on north side Underwood Farm

1933 57.15. By now Bassett Green Road has been straightened. The map shows Ethelburt Avenue but not of course Leaside Way (built 1934) or other developments on north side of Bassett Green Road. 

Other Maps:[3]

1844 North Stoneham Tithe Map 1844 Sheet T 6. Shows Bassett. Plots 436, 437 and on north side of road Plots 429 and 430 roughly correspond to area of CA. Original Hampshire Record Office. 21M65/F7/173/2; copy in City Archives. 

Some Other Possible Sources:

The Sales Particulars of large estates which were sold off in the late 19C and 20C can provide useful information about an area before it was developed. In the case of Ethelburt Avenue the sale of North Stoneham estate (1953), available in Hampshire Record Office and of the outlying parts of the Fleming estate might be interesting.

5. Information on Individual Houses

Building Applications

All major building work requires permission and the applications typically include information about the architect and/or builder and plans (block plans, ground plans, front elevation and cross sections) and dates. These plans can be readily consulted in the City Archives as applications are indexed by streets. The reference is SC/BI/ followed by the serial number of the committee, then the sub-number (i.e. the number of the agenda item).

6. Information about Householders:

Kelly’s Directories for Southampton & Neighbourhood: published annually. These were arranged by street but also include a separate index of persons. These allow one to discover who the residents were at a particular property in a given year.

The Central Library (Reference Section for Local History) has the most complete runs of this publication: 1930-1940; 1946, 1948, 1951, 1954, 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1966-75 The  City Archives also has a fair number of the volumes as does the Cope Collection in the University Library.

7. Some Books and Articles on Local History (North Stoneham & Swaythling), the Collins’ Family and the Garden City Movement:[4]

A. Bakes, A History of the Parish of North Stoneham with Bassett (1983; 2^nd ed. 1996)

H.G. Barstow, Recollections of North Stoneham (2000)

H.G. Barstow, Recollections of North Stoneham and Chilworth Manors (2001)

R.S. Collins, Ideal Labour Saving Houses. Model Estate at Bassett (London, 1934? 1938?)

D.C. Francis & M.T, Lally, Design Guidance for the Ethelburt Avenue (Bassett Green Estate) Conservation Area, (Southampton, City Council, 1993)

E. Howard, Garden Cities of Tomorrow (Faber & Faber, 1902)

W. J. Jacob, Hampshire at the Opening of the Twentieth Century. Contemporary biographies ed. W.T. Pike (Brighton: Pike, 1905) Hartley Library Rare Books Cope 95.

J.E. Mann, The Book of the Stonehams: North Stoneham (Bassett) and South Stoneham (Swaythling) (Tiverton, 2002)

Mervyn Miller, Raymond Unwin: Garden Cities and Town Planning (Leicester UP, 1992)

E.A. Mitchell, Southampton Occasional Notes (Southern Newspapers, Above Bar, 1938) [E.A. Mitchell = Townsman of Southern Daily Echo]

Raymond Unwin, Cottage Plans and Common Sense (Fabian Trust 109, Fabian Society, 1902)

Raymond Unwin, Nothing Gained by Overcrowding (Town Planning Association, London, 1912)

Raymond Unwin, Town Planning in Practice (Fisher Unwin, 1909)

Jessica Vale, The Lost Houses of Southampton. Exhibition Tudor House Museum from 16^th September – 20^th November 1980. Entry on Swaythling House built c. 1600; appeared on 1759 map of Swaythling (original by Isaac Taylor); demolished by 1802.

Jessica Vale, ‘The Country Houses of Southampton’ in Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society, 39 (1983), 171-90. 

E. Welch, Southampton Maps from Elizabethan Times (Southampton Record Series, 9, Southampton, 1964)

J. Whitcher, Stoneham Estate: the property of John Fleming Esq. (Liphook, 1818?)[5]

Robert Williams, ‘Herbert Collins (1885-1975). Architect and Planner’ Unpub. Thesis submitted as part of the Diploma of Architecture Oxford Polytechnic, May 1982. Copy in Special Collections Central Library pp. 83-97 cover the Bassett Green Estate and include many illustrations omitted from the more succinct edition published in 1985. 

Robert Williams, Herbert Collins 1888-1975 (Southampton: Paul Cave Publications, 1985) pp. 31-33 cover the Bassett Green Estate.