C O N T E X T 1 1 0 : J U LY 2 0 0 9 17 JOHN SEWELL Design advice in the Peak District The Peak District has never been short of design advice. The best design guides explain what is special about the local tradition, and how to harmonise new and old. ‘The beauty of our English countryside is daily being disfigured, not only by the thoughtlessness of speculative builders, but also through the apathy and indifference of the public, for there are today great numbers of people, many in responsible positions, who think that the present has no obligations either to the past or the future, and that if a man wants to build a house he need consider only his own convenience and profit, and that it may be as ugly and out of place as he chooses to make it.’ This is fighting talk, written in 1933 as the foreword to the very first design guide for the Peak District prepared by the Peak District Advisory Panel of the CPRE, 18 years before the national park came into being. Much has changed since then. Successive planning acts have radically altered our approach to development. But there has also been a fundamental shift in public opinion towards valuing our heritage. Safeguarding the best of the past for future generations is now part of our national consciousness. The first design guide had one clear aim: stopping the spread of suburbia into the countryside. Successive guides in 1964 and 1973 by the then Peak Park Joint Planning Board emphasised the need for development to be within villages and for buildings to have horizontal rather than vertical proportions. The illustrations of good examples however, look somewhat startling to modern eyes. The 1964 guide had on its cover a modern bungalow whose front elevation is more picture window than walling. But compared with the red brick, bay-fronted horrors that had de-camped from Sheffield during the inter-war years, this was a big step forward. In 1976 the planning board produced a larger, more detailed document in Essex Design Guide mode. There were now ticks and crosses against massing diagrams and window designs. No one was left in any doubt about what was wanted. Revised in 1991, this guide remained the definitive statement on new build and conversions until 2007, when the current design guide was published. This broadens the coverage beyond residential development, and concentrates on the principles of good design and designing in harmony with the local tradition. It aims to inspire rather than dictate. Where are we now? The restrictive housing policy introduced in the 1994 structure plan concentrates on locally needed, affordable housing. This ensures that large-scale housing developments are a thing of the past. But what of individual house design? It is helpful here to look at form, materials and detailing. The battle on form is largely won. New designs tend to be low two-storey, of simple gable-roofed shape with a horizontal emphasis to the main elevation. In proportional terms, a length-to-height ratio of between 2.0 and 2.3 reflects the traditional Peak District farmhouse or cottage. In other words, a new house ought to be at least twice as long as its height to eaves. Comparing this to an elevation that conforms to the golden section ratio of 1.62 provides an instructive comparison between vernacular and polite architecture. Even when in the 1980s the planning board was still saying a reluctant yes to bungalows, it tried to improve submitted designs by vertically articulating (into a dominant and secondary element) what in proportional terms was nearer a railway carriage than a vernacular building. Nowadays bungalows are firmly discouraged, on the basis that there is no tradition of single-storey housing in the Peak: even almshouses have two storeys. The other key massing problem afflicting new housing in the 70s and 80s was the over-wide gable – almost double the traditional, five-to-six metre width in some cases – resulting in a corresponding increase in ridge height. As with middle-aged spread, continued vigilance is required, although fortunately the worst excesses have been curbed. Where a wider gable is unavoidable, it can masked by a secondary, A drawing from the 1933 design guide under the heading ‘Types of housing which deface the beauty of the Peak’ A bungalow in Ashford in theWater, from cover of 1964 guide.The front elevation is more picture window than walling.
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