Below is Tony Harrison’s written history of his recollection of living in Egglescliffe. You can follow what he says in his oral history by clicking the above and sitting back and enjoying what he says.
Tony Harrison was interviewed by Ian Reynolds on 26thMarch 2017.
I was born in 1941 and I have lived on Teesside for about 55 years and in Egglescliffe specifically since 1967. Initially I and my wife lived on St Margaret’s Estate off Butts Lane – this was exactly 50 years ago now – but since 1983 we have lived on the village green. I am here to talk about Egglescliffe Conservation Area, its establishment and what it’s done for the village since designation.
I’ll start way back, 50 years ago in 1967, when the government of the time passed the Civic Amenities Act which established the concept of conservation areas (that Act was subsequently amended by the Planning, Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas Act of 1990). At that time, several of us in the village had formed a little group called the Egglescliffe Village Amenities Society, which was a precursor of the present EARA (the Egglescliffe Area Residents’ Association). It was a group who came together to try and ensure the village character was preserved and that the village was neat and tidy. That group, in about 1969 or ’70, learned about the establishment of conservation areas and decided that would be very relevant to us in Egglescliffe Village. So a sub-group of the Society was formed – I think there were probably five or six of us in it. I can remember four names of those involved: myself, Johnny Smith (both of us still live in the village), there was a man called Johnny Slack and another man called Ian Duncanson. The first thing we did was contact Durham County Council, because at that time the bodies responsible for assessing conservation areas were the regional authority and at that time, before the days of unitary authorities, Durham County Council was responsible for Egglescliffe. So we said ‘how about us becoming a conservation area? We think we tick all the right boxes.’ The Council duly came back to us fairly promptly and said ‘yes, we think you have probably got a good case, but we can’t do anything about it at the moment because we’re so busy on our first one, which is going to be Durham City Centre and Cathedral, so I’m sorry, you’ll have to wait a few years. It’s purely a manpower problem.’ So we had a chat about it and thought, why can’t we do the report and assessment that’s necessary ourselves? So that’s what we did, starting in about 1970. Johnny Slack was involved in local government and gave us an in side track on how to write the appropriate report that met all the standards. It was split into two parts: part one was a description and analysis of the village and its character and part two were views on the actions needed to achieve designation as a conservation area and to maintain that status.
Part one: we focused on the factors that made Egglescliffe special in our view. We talked about access; the fact that there is only one surfaced road into the village, making it essentially a cul-de-sac and preventing all the problems that come from through-traffic. There are two other routes into the village, footpaths: Stoney Bank, coming from Yarm Bridge, and the track coming north from the allotments. We talked also in some detail about the history of the village, focusing particularly on buildings: our church, which is a Grade 1 building; Egglescliffe Hall, which is a two-star building and the fact that at the time (and we still do, I believe) we had twenty-two Grade 2 listed buildings. We touched on the history of the village going back to Norman and Saxon times. We also focused on the viewpoints, both of the village and from the village, particularly those of the green as you emerge from Butts Lane; of Yarm from the village, and of the village from Yarm. A final big chunk of part one of the report was about the trees, which give the village its special character. Those on the green, many of which were planted in the early 1910s, and the groups elsewhere, or in some cases trees which existed in isolation. In fact, nine trees were specifically described and their historical backgrounds covered in the report.
We then moved on to part two, which was our proposals for conservation. We talked about the need to retain the identity of the village by prohibition of demolition of any of the attractive buildings, virtually all of Georgian character and age. We talked about only carefully planned new builds going in, for example; we identified three in-fill residential sites within the village scope, all of which have now been satisfactorily in-filled by new builds. Regrettably, one or two of them are not to the Georgian character that I believe would have been more appropriate. We talked about the need for no industrial development, or any large development in the village which would immediately destroy its character. Also the need to maintain but not increase the access to the village either by footpath or by road. We noted the need for more tree preservation orders and proposed more tree planting. We noted the need to safeguard the rights of way in the village, particularly along the riverbank below the village, which has now been successful through the designation of the Teesdale Way. We suggested the village green , already at that time subject to rather punishing treatment from vehicles, should be protected by natural stones placed around it – that still has not occurred and it is still suffering badly from traffic, unfortunately. We noted the need to re-use derelict land that existed in the village at the time; for example, outside the south wall of the church were some rather unkempt allotments – and that has been successfully achieved. And also we noted the need to retain characteristic building features: pan tiles, transom windows, some Yorkshire sash windows that exist throughout the village. Probably controversially, nowadays, we recommended the removal of the World War Two pillbox that exists between the houses on Butts Lane and Yarm Road. A type-23 pillbox, so I am told. We suggested it was either removed or screened – it has now been screened by trees, but I wonder if today views have changed and we would regard it with a bit of pride as an historic building. We proposed improved street lighting, preservation of the village pump on the green (regrettably that never happened), but most importantly, we defined what we believed should be the area of the conservation area. We proposed the village itself, Butts Lane (the approach to the village) and all the fields to the south and east of the village as far as the river should be part of the conservation area, to maintain the views to and from the village from Yarm etc.
We submitted our report in April 1971 to Durham County Council. Believe it or not, all our proposals were accepted by them and they found the need to do very little more in terms of paperwork, assessments or reviews to award the village conservation area designation. They did, however, slightly change the area of land we had proposed be covered by the conservation area. They actually extended it and included land to the west of Yarm Road, where, as local villagers will know, there are historic railway artefacts including some rather interesting coal drops. So those too became part of the conservation area, which was designated in 1972. As a matter of interest, our report was very cheaply prepared, typed copies, only 19 pages long; we had seven maps in, one sketch on the cover of the church, we had no photos. We were one of the first in County Durham at that time to achieve conservation status. There are now eleven conservation areas just in Stockton Borough Council area alone, and I understand nearly 10 000 conservation areas throughout England. But we in Egglescliffe can rightly claim to be one of the earlier and, I believe, one of the most successful ones.
What’s happened since our designation? Firstly, responsibility for the upkeep and establishment of the conservation area moved from Durham County Council to Cleveland Authority, and then to Stockton Borough Council when unitary authorities were established on 1stApril 1996. One of the first things that Stockton Borough Council did, in May 1996, was they reviewed the boundaries of the conservation areas in the Borough, including Egglescliffe, and almost immediately removed from the conservation area the fields to the south and east of the village running down to the river. When the villagers and the Parish Council asked why, we were told confidently that this meant no lesser degree of protection because those fields were part of the ‘green wedge’. In fact my personal belief, and that of many, is that a ‘green wedge’ has nothing like the degree of protection that a conservation area has and that, in my view, was very much a retrograde step. However, that’s the situation as it exists today. Stockton Borough also removed from the conservation area the area to the west of the railway and also the houses on the north side of Butts Lane – possible lesser areas of concern.
Moving on, ten years later in January 2006, the Borough Council published a planning document which included a re-appraisal of all its conservation areas. They produced, effectively, an expanded version of our 1971 document, confirming virtually everything we had in our initial proposal, supporting everything that was written at the time about the features of the village which were unique, important and deserved conservation. They came to an overall conclusion that “Egglescliffe conservation area is generally in good health and does not need any significant intervention at this time.” Specific points that the re-appraisal made included the following: that the village would benefit from a programme of maintenance and repair work – point still relevant today in 2017. That there was too much in the way of inappropriate PVC windows and plastic rainwater butts – another point of equal validity today. They bemoaned the loss of features such as door footscrapers and I’m not aware of any initiative to prevent that continuing. They also noted the many inappropriate door replacements. However, in 2006, they proposed no further changes to the boundary of our conservation area.
So that’s where we stand today. If you ask me for a personal view of that work and the developments over the last 30-40 years – has it been worth it? – overall the answer has got to be ‘yes’. It has been a success. The achievement of designation as a conservation area has enabled Egglescliffe village to retain much of its unique Georgian character. Proposed inappropriate developments in and around the village have largely been fought against and successfully resisted, in part because of the fact that we have conservation area status. But I believe we, and particularly the Borough Council, could do a lot more relatively cheaply. For example, I think control of changes to Grade II buildings (and as I mentioned, we have 22 of those) involving things like PVC windows – there’s insufficient control on those retrograde changes. A lot of buildings have been changed internally as well as externally (Grade II designation covers the whole building, of course, not just external frontage). I think more could be done to raise awareness of listed building and conservation areas amongst residents, many of whom are new to the village. For example, it would be cheap and easy to circulate the 2006 comprehensive report on the conservation area. I believe they should do more, as well, to monitor small developments in housing. General upkeep in the village can certainly be improved. Stoneybank, for example; potentially a jewel in the crown of the village, really is a rather shabby disgrace. The village green is still being battered, there seems to be no real plan to tackle that. Probably the greatest threat still facing us (and I’m not sure conservation are status will protect us from this) is developers constantly chipping away at weak points in the village environment. Proposals, for example, for development on the north side of the riverbank to the south of the river all villagers believe should be resisted. But I’m not sure conservation status will help on that since it falls outside the conservation area.