C O N T E X T 1 3 6 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4 41 FREYA MORRIS Heritage under foot Appreciating the importance of floorscapes to the character of conservation areas, Aylesbury Vale District Council is carrying out projects to maintain historic street surfaces. At Aylesbury Vale District Council we have benefitted from a grant from English Heritage to prepare a districtwide strategy for the management of our conservation areas. One of the strongest recommendations of the document, written by external consultants, was that we at the district council needed to improve our communications with our local highway authority, Buckinghamshire County Council. Recognising that good communication between responsible agencies was crucial if we were to improve the quality of our streets, the two councils applied to English Heritage for another grant to employ a consultant to write a highway protocol document for the district’s conservation areas. This document established basic principles regarding standards of workmanship on highways and made it a requirement that the district’s conservation team should be consulted on all works within conservation areas. The highway authority willingly signed up to the document and its four key principles: 1)To respect and enhance the character and appearance of conservation areas; 2)To use visually appropriate materials, also having regard to practicalities, for both new and maintenance work; 3) To de-clutter the street scene; and 4) To bear in mind the safety of the road user. Keen to follow up the success of this document, Aylesbury Vale District Council applied for and was awarded another grant from English Heritage to put some of the principles into practice. We developed four projects, some completed, some still continuing, designed to address specific issues raised in the highway protocol document. One project focused on repairs to existing Dennerhill sett crossovers and resurfacing crossovers with Dennerhill setts in Church Street, Aylesbury. Church Street is visually one of the town’s most important streets. It is the principal access route to St Mary’s Church, lined with listed buildings including four at Grade II*, and is the location of Buckinghamshire Museum, the Roald Dahl Museum and Aylesbury Town Council offices. Located along Church Street are four Dennerhill sett crossovers. Dennerhill setts and kerbs were cut from sandstone boulders (sarsen stones) found in glacial deposits in the Chilterns.They were used widely in the 18th and 19th centuries in Aylesbury town centre for paving the carriageways, kerbs, street-drainage channels, footway crossovers, privacy strips and in some cases footways. A finite resource, they are locally distinctive and make a strong visual contribution to the character and appearance of the conservation area. In a second project, in 2013 Aylesbury Vale District Council organised a free training day on traditional street surfaces for highway area technicians and operatives from Buckinghamshire County Council,Transport for Buckinghamshire and approved private contractors. The morning session consisted of a talk on conservation principles by experts from the NationalTrust.These topics were raised in the subsequent discussion: Communication •• Operative teams working on site are generally unaware that they are working within a conservation area. •• Virtually all delegates were unaware who to contact in the district council regarding conservation area issues. A Dennerhill sett crossover
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