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On in Colchester?]
This page will give you an update
of what is happening with our town wall, in the light of its
maintenance.
NEWS ITEM
East Anglian Daily Times - Thursday 18th
March 2004
A MEMBER of Colchester's famous Town Watch has
made a scathing attack on the state of repair of the historic Roman
walls. Jess Jephcott said that instead of
being a major attraction for tourists, the oldest walls in Britain
had been left to crumble and in some places even become an
eyesore. His concern prompted him to take
photos of some of the worst affected parts and place them on a
website, which details the history of the town. Colchester
Borough Council spends around £2,000 a year on the upkeep and
maintenance of the walls with much of that spent on clearing dead
grass and weeds. On his website, Mr.
Jephcott says that the walls were built nearly 2,000 years ago when
the town was a Roman hillside stronghold during the occupation, but
asks: "Does anybody care? It's only a silly old wall."
The site then shows a series of pictures,
including some taken of overgrown grass on banks leading up to the
sections that back on to private gardens. In
another shot, he shows Duncan's Gate on the north face of the wall
claiming vegetation is crawling all over it, uprooting the
masonry. Mr. Jephcott said: "It's
unbelievable what's happening here. They are just being neglected
with grass overgrown, masonry falling off and weeds and tree routes
just being allowed to seep through and make it all look.
"I recognise that the council can't foot the bill
by itself, I don't think they spend enough. "But
we need more involvement – these walls are a national treasure.
If you look at Chester, they really look after their walls," he
added.
By general recognition, Chester has some of the
best-preserved walls in the country. Although some of the main
upstanding sections in that town were built in the Dark Ages –
well after the Romans left – they are built on Roman
foundations. The city prides itself on its walls with tourists and
shoppers free to walk above them, flitting between department stores
and the multi-storey car parks that have been built with the ancient
structures in mind. In comparison, one of
Colchester's car parks, in Priory Street, blocks visitors from
inspecting the walls close up.
However, Keith Nicholson, head of Leisure
Services at Colchester Borough Council, said this would soon be
remedied by removing the car park. He also said the walls would be
made a central feature of the plans for the regeneration of the St.
Botolph's quarter. But he insisted there
was no neglect. "There was a major project to repair the walls in the
1990s when Essex County Council and English Heritage spent almost
£500,000. "In fact, Colchester council
has just agreed a £50,000 capital programme to repair some
sections in Priory Street. "£2,000 is
probably not enough for yearly maintenance, but there's not enough
money for everything that we want to do. "If
these people complaining want to come up with some possible solution,
then they are free to do so," he added.
No one from English Heritage, the organisation
responsible for funding the maintenance of designated national
monuments, was available for comment yesterday.
(East Anglian Daily Times - 18th
March 2004)
Comment - Note that Keith Nicholson is
alleged to have stated that there was no neglect!
1/04/2004 - Email sent to English
Heritage requesting an explanation of why they are not taking
action.
Anon 2/04/2004 - I am not sure this is of
use, but it might be. I notice, on investigation, that the EH
‘Essex Historic Towns Extensive Urban Survey’, conducted
by the Archaeology Section, Essex County Council, does not appear
to include Colchester per se, which is the subject of a separate
Urban Archaeological Database. It might interest you to know, that
EH have paid Colchester Borough Council Urban Archaeological
Assessment grants (so far) that total £36,295.00 (GBP) to
conduct this survey.
Britarch 11/4/2004 - Coming very late to
this but I thought it worth pointing out how poor the care of the
Roman walls in London are. The section near the tower of London
was consolidated over 10 years ago now and they made a complete
cock-up of the restoration failing to understand the structural
history of the wall. Difficult to explain without being there but
there is a section through the wall which was particularly
interesting because the east side had Roman tile courses to above
head height, while the western side had Roman tile courses only to
knee height. The reason being that at some time in the past, the
inner (western) face of the wall had sheered off and collapsed,
destroying the neat Roman courses and tile courses on one side of
the wall. It had been rebuilt but the tile courses and neat Roman
coursing had been replaced by the typical post Roman wall without
neat courses using reused Roman material. It was a nice teaching
section, you could look at the section, show the tile courses
ending half way along the thickness of the wall, and show the line
marking the collapse of this huge section of wall and its
rebuilding in a different style in a different period. English
Heritage (I assume) gets in the wall conservation 'experts', who
completely ignore the evidence of the collapse of the wall, and
EXTEND THE TILE COURSE ACROSS THE THICKNESS OF THE WALL. Thus on
the uncollapsed eastern side you have a genuine Roman tile course,
and on the western side you have a pathetic one tile thick
pretence of a Roman tile course stuck on with modern concrete!
Ignorant or what!
27/4/2004 - Repeated email to English
Heritage requesting an explanation of their position, as they seem
to have ignored the 1st April email. To date, no reply has been
forthcoming.
FRONT PAGE COVERAGE IN THE ESSEX COUNTY STANDARD OF 30th
APRIL 2004
WHOSE WALL IS IT ANYWAY?
Ownership row over ancient monument by David
Grocott, chief reporter for Essex County Standard. Friday April
30, 2004.
No one is sure who owns large parts of
Colchester's ancient town wall. Although the council believes it
owns "more than half" of the historic structure, a question mark
hangs over other parts of the monument with neither the council
nor private landowners willing to step forward and take
responsibility. Many believe the confusion is leading to delays in
maintenance which are, in turn, damaging the ancient treasure.
This week the council officer in charge of the wall said ownership
brought with it "maintenance liability" and some parts were not
owned by the council. The confusion is particularly pronounced at
a "disgraceful" stretch of the wall behind homes in Roman Road.
Here the council is confident it does not own the remains of the
wall. Equally confident are the home-owners who vehemently deny
their control of the deeds. Resident Angela Hammond said: "I would
like to know why, if it is considered to be privately owned, the
council recently sent workmen to clear the trees, bushes, etc from
the structure? Surely it would have been necessary to have
acquired the owner's permission to do so." And neighbour Wendy
Anderson said: "It is an ancient structure. It's like me owning
Colchester Castle. As far as we are concerned we don't own it."
Resident Colin Nicholson also denies ownership. In the past he has
called the council a "neighbour from hell", accusing it of
allowing the wall at the end of his garden to collapse. However,
Keith Nicholson, head of Colchester Council's leisure services,
said: "Having looked at the deeds we believe that wall is in the
ownership of individual householders. Our understanding is that
they have the maintenance liability. "Some are more aware [of
their ownership] than others. What we would hope to do along
that stretch of wall is seek a new solution and work out what
financial responsibility the home-owners might or might not have.
"At the end of the day, the responsibility lies with English
Heritage." Asked how much of the wall the council does own he
said: "More than half". John Egan, chairman of the Colchester
Civic Society, said: "We don't want to see the wall fall down with
everybody denying responsibility for who should look after it."
The council also denies ownership of the long stretch of wall in
Vineyard Street. Philip Wise, curator of Colchester Castle museum,
said: "I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say we own that
stretch." Fiona Duhamel, estate services manager, said: "I think
we can assume the wall is in the ownership of the shops above."
This was surprise news for Sarah Nattrass, manager of the Minerva
Chocolate shop, one of the shops on top of the Vineyard Street
stretch of wall "We have never been aware that we could own the
wall. I don't think the boss would be too happy if there was a
cost involved." Rob Brown, of historical re-enactment group the
Town Watch, said he thought the question of ownership was
"ludicrous" and at Roman Road the arguments had already allowed
the wall to fall into a "disgraceful state". "It is just
ridiculous. The council can find the money to move office. They
can always find money apart from for our heritage." Mark Davies,
the council's former curator of archaeology and resident of Castle
Road, said: "What he [Mr Nicholson] is doing is
introducing a hurdle. The council has undertaken to manage the
wall whatever the ownership." A spokesman for English Heritage
said the issue of who was responsible for the wall's maintenance
was complex and would be discussed between English Heritage and
whoever is revealed to own the wall.
EDITORIAL COMMENT - Writing is on the wall
if we don't accept responsibility.
No doubt Basildon would be delighted to take
it on. Ipswich certainly has nothing like it. Nor Chelmsford,
Cambridge, Norwich or even London. Our Roman Wall is an amazing,
ancient structure, which has served this town well as a means of
defence and could now be a brilliant magnet to tourists. The wall
makes Colchester stand out head and shoulders above other towns in
the region and could, with investment, become far more famous. Yet
what happens? A legal stalemate over the ownership of the wall has
emerged, while the structure cracks and crumbles. The problem for
the council is money. But ducking the problem by trying to foist
responsibility on to private landowners is a false economy. Unless
something is done soon, the problem will get worse and cost more
in the future. And every day we fail to show off the wall to its
best advantage is a delay in attracting more visitors and an
embarassment to Colcestrians. Colchester Council needs to take
responsibility for the situation now. The wall is a public
treasure, so public funding should be found to make sure it is
preserved for generations to enjoy. Even if the council coffers
can't be stretched to carry out vital maintenance work, surely
other avenues of funding can be explored.
Britarch 1/5/04 - It is not surprising that
the Colchester Town Wall has got to be in multiple ownership -
that is only to be expected - it has probably been a lot of
people's property boundary for a lot of centuries. The problem
here is not with the Borough Council or the County Council or
English Heritage, it is simply a product of our antiquated
heritage legislation. There's not much the Council can do here.
Because the wall is both listed as a building of architectural
interest and scheduled as an ancient monument, the scheduling,
being the older legislation, takes precedence. That means that
no-one - apart from the Secretary of State - has any legal
responsibility for rescuing/repairing/conserving it. The local
authority does not have a role in scheduling, and English Heritage
cannot require people to maintain scheduled monuments. If the wall
was just listed, the planning authority could serve notices on the
owners requiring them to carry out repairs, but scheduling removes
that power from them. We had several cases where we successfully
asked to de-schedule listed structures in order to give them
better protection! The Secretary of State could, if so inclined,
undertake works at the government's expense, or tell English
Heritage to, but can only prosecute people who actively damage
scheduled monuments - mere neglect is not an offence. The
short-term answer is to petition the Secretary of State to take
action. Why not e-mail your MP? The longer-term answer is to
reform the legislation to bring it into the 21st century. The
ancient monuments acts go back to 1882, and they look their age.
Still, at least the 1979 Act introduced a requirement for owners
to get scheduled monument consent before they carried out works -
before that, the wall's various owners would only have had to
notify the Secretary of State of their intention to demolish, or
rebuild with breeze blocks, or whatever! [names removed to
provide privacy to the individual].
Britarch 5/5/2004 - No, the council is not
wrong, and no, it's not that an unusual situation. It's only too
easy for the ownership of walls to become unclear over centuries -
especially when buildings have been built against them in past
centuries, and/or parts of one wall have formed the boundary for
many parcels of land in different ownerships. Deed plans in the
past didn't necessarily delineate exact responsibilities for
boundaries. In England, responsibility for repairs of a Scheduled
Ancient Monument rests with the owners, except where the SAM is in
the care of the Secretary of State (in which case, English
Heritage takes responsibility on behalf of the Secretary of
State). The responsibility for the cost of repairs is the owner's,
not the Secretary of State's. The owners need the Secretary of
State's written permission to carry out repairs, that is,
Scheduled Monument Consent. The Government Department that
currently has responsibility for Scheduled Monument Consents is
the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. [names removed to
provide privacy to the individual].
contradicted by,
Peter Richards of the Essex County Planning
Office who states that:
4. Urgent repairs
It may come as a surprise to some
planning authorities that some of the the most important buildings
in their areas may fall into disrepair without the local authority
being able to take any formal steps to redress the matter. The
Wheat and Barley Barns at Cressing Temple are a typical example. A
large site here is a SAN (Essex No 211). The two barns are listed
Grade I. Recently it became apparent that some urgent repairs were
required to the wall of one of the barns, but the local authority,
because the site is scheduled, are precluded from serving a
Section 101 or 114 Notice. Apparently the only way in which such
repairs to a SAN can be enforced is for the DoE to go in and carry
them out. As a consequence of this position, the District Council
are left with a feeling of helplessness when they see a major
building in their area in disrepair; and in this particular case
it is ironic that the council concerned is one who give historic
building conservation a high priority, and who would readily have
served a Section 101 Notice to ensure urgent
repairs..........
to be found at:
http://www.ihbc.org.uk/context_archive/14/spoilt_dir/spoilt_s3.htm
18th June 2004 - The Essex County Standard
reported that a new sign has gone up on Duncans Gate to give an
interpretation of how things might once have looked. As to action
to repair and conserve, absolutely nothing! More talk and promises
- but no action! Nothing from English Heritage either. Following
recent elections, we have a change in the council's power
structure with a new Conservative party leadership. Heritage
issues have not been mentioned in their plans!
8th September 2004 - I made an inspection of
the Priory Street section to see whether any work had been done to
repair the damage to the bastion. Absolutely nothing! As to a
reply to my enquiries to English Heritage earlier in the year.
Absolutely nothing!
27th September 2004 - Rob Brown was
interviewed by local radio station SGR, highlighting the lack of
progress with conservation or repair.
