From: Rob Newby, High Street, Knaresborough.
I HAVE watched with interest the various arguments for preservation of the row of six terraced houses at the bottom of the High Street at Bond End. Each argument seems to elevate these houses’ status higher and higher in the pantheon of architecture
and their importance to our built heritage.
The reality of the situation is that this is a row of unlisted, commonplace designed, typical suburban houses; built like millions of others to accommodate the Victorian swelling lower-middle classes. They have in recent years suffered from movement damage and have been unoccupied and vandalised in recent months.
The reason these houses are not listed is because they are not unusual, neither their design, construction nor their materials warrant special preservation or protection. Their lifespan is over – it is time to move on.
As a very near neighbour of these houses what I and others should be praising and thanking the planning department for is the sympathetic renovation of the single storey workers cottages and two townhouses adjoining the terrace. The architect and developer have shown great feeling in the preservation of the streetscene whilst making these houses habitable to 21st century living.
Whilst no fan of pastiche architecture, I would rather see the terrace replaced by family housing, albeit in a mock-Victorian style, rather than the ubiquitous apartment blocks springing up elsewhere across the borough.
It is also to the developer’s credit that elements of the original design and materials of the terrace will be re-used.To claim that simply because a fruit and vegetable merchant once occupied one of the houses merits its preservation, to jump on a political bandwagon to further the opposition party’s claim to loss of heritage or to want to preserve Knaresborough in aspic as some Civic Society voices would is to condemn our town to paralysis.
Let us learn to let go and embrace the new for the good of future generations and future residents, preserve only what is truly worthy of preservation and learn to know the difference.
