Pond owner says restoration work will go ahead
THE OWNER of Otford village pond has vowed to get restoration work completed, even though the building's listed status is hanging in the balance.
In February, the Chronicle reported how the 1,000-year-old pond, owned by the parish council, could be on the brink of losing its unique listed building status as English Hertiage, the organisation that chooses listed buildings, considered removing it.
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HALTED: Cllr John Allen by Otford pond where the building work has stopped because Sevenoaks District Council believes it contravenes listed building regulations
After Otford Parish Council- approved work started on the walls of the pond in 2006, builders downed their tools in August last year when Sevenoaks District Council's new conservation officer said the restoration broke tough rules on listed buildings.
It is thought to be the only listed pond in England and the parish council made a fresh application for the work in February, but it was rejected.
Now, parish council chairman John Allen has said the council will be appealing the decision and entering a new application.
He said: "I am confident we will get this sorted.
"We didn't provide enough photographs and information with the first application and we have more with this one.
"It's the least intrusive way of doing this work."
Listed status means buildings should be protected from any major development work, which needs special consent.
The prestigious status has been a source of great pride in the village.
Work is needed to repair the historic walls of the pond which are under attack from rogue roots of neighbouring willow trees and could also crumble under the weight of heavy traffic.
The parish council wants to line the pond walls with concrete blocks but admits that if that is not possible it could be forced to de-list it in a bid to get work going, and then apply to re-list it.
Spokeswoman for English Heritage Debbie Holden said the organisation had not yet applied for the pond to be de-listed but added that it would be "monitoring the situation".
2 Comments
by John Allen, Otford
Saturday, April 18 2009, 11:07AM
“Mr Veness and others need not be alarmed by the work on Otford pond. The council and village respect and have great affection for it and its history. The facing stone, which came from the nearby Archbishop's Palace after it fell into ruins, is stored to be rebuilt safely.
The pond "wall" structure in its present design was roughly cemented together sometime in the mid or late 1800's. It was a single layer of lumps of stone against earth that soon disintegrated and was restored in the early 1900's.
Then again by villagers over the winter of 1950/51 to make it safe and presentable for the Festival of Britain. Unfortunately they were amateurs (they used a sledgehammer) and a builder had to rebuild or repair it twice within the next ten years. We can deduce all of this from photographs and documents - but there may have been other renewals.
It inevitably became dangerous again and we now have to repeat the process - but this time we want to make sure the "Archbishop's stones" stay put for more than half a generation by cementing them to a firm, non-visible backing. This - in a nutshell - is where the difference of opinion lies.
It was not a medieval "wall"; in contrast to the rest of the pond the facing design and construction were poor and bound to have a short life.
It might not have mattered much at one time if water escaped onto a country road (it is all above road level), or the stones collapsed under someone and they fell into the pond, but now with the busy A225 passing it and people coming to feed the ducks on summer afternoons, there are very different perceptions of what is needed,
There is much, much more that can be said: the great labour that went into building the banks and the hardened base, the sluice and the diverted spring system a few hundred yards away, but the obvious bit that everyone sees, the crude rock facing, lets it down. There were and are good reasons for listing it and I expect a book will eventually be written about the eventful history of our pond .
English Heritage recognise that parts of listed buildings may need replacing. This is what we wish to do, this time in a sustainable way.”
by Jim Veness, Dunton Green
Monday, April 13 2009, 8:40AM
“How can the Parish Council think they can keep the listed status on the pond , they got the builder in to strip all the lining out and think they can just put a concrete block wall around followed by new stone , It is a bit like pulling down a listed building putting up a new building and think it is still listed . non of the original stone was kept and logged to where it should have been put back etc, to dismantle a listed object can take ten time longer than a project that is not listed ,Also it is a criminal offence to dismantle something that is grade listed without notifing English Heritage ,Debbie Holden is right to monitor it and if the pond loses it`s listed status only John Allen and the Parish Council are to blame And it will be a sad day for Otford village .”