‘Cathedral plan will destroy Constable view: Row over application by Church to turn Leaden Hall, feature of many of his paintings, into offices’ by Fiona Parker, Senior News Reporter (p.10, main section)
The article notes the controversy generated by the plans for Leaden Hall, including destruction of views made famous by the artist John Constable. It quotes a spokesman for Salisbury Cathedral stating that ‘The plans for Leaden Hall have taken into consideration many of the artist’s works and won’t adversely affect any of his most famous views’ but contrasts this with Professor Michael Rosenthal’s opinion (a respected academic who has written two books about Constable) that ‘Constable’s landscapes were…central to conceptions of our national culture, even perceptions (albeit contested) of national identity’… and that adding a new archive building in the grounds of the Hall would ‘terminally destroy an historical and culturally significant environment’. They note that one academic has compared the proposed scheme as ‘brick[ing] over the garden that inspired Monet’s Water Lilies paintings’ at Giverny.
The Wiltshire Historic Buildings Trust is quoted as saying ‘Constable is arguably the most popular of British painters, because he paints what he sees, and the public love him for it…[Leaden Hall’s grounds are] incredibly important to garden scholars, art historians, the numerous children who attended Leaden Hall School…and as the setting of the precious house, magnificent cathedral and the numerous highly listed buildings in the Close.
The article notes that Salisbury City Council objected to the proposals due to ‘not enough flood protection, the design was not in keeping with the surroundings…’ and that the historic garden was an ‘inappropriate location for solar panels’. A caseworker from National Amenity Society is quoted to have said that among other issues ‘…our primary concern relates to the high potential for this area to flood badly which we do not feel makes it an appropriate location for an archive that will house ancient and precious documents’.