Grade I listed Leaden Hall was originally built in around 1220 for the architect for Salisbury Cathedral, Elias de Dereham. The Cathedral and City had only just begun to move to their present site from Old Sarum, with the site of Leaden Hall and other buildings around the Close planned as early as 1213. Dereham intended Leaden Hall to serve as a model for other canonries within the Close.
Leaden Hall was largely rebuilt in the late C18th and its gardens redesigned in the fashionable landscape style. However, the Hall retains elements from the original building, including C13th moulded timbers, structural walls and reused masonry in its garden boundaries. The Hall, its gardens and grounds form an essential part of the precious, protected setting of the historic Close, alongside other high-listed buildings within it, including the Cathedral itself. Historic England’s listing of the Cathedral notes the importance of the setting.
In the early C19th, the artist John Constable regularly stayed at the Hall. There, he was inspired to paint many fine pictures of the house, its gardens and landscape, as well as his famous views of the Cathedral, some of which include the house. These works form an unrivalled record of the gardens, the Close, the Harnham Water Meadows and vistas beyond. They include the iconic “Salisbury Cathedral and Leadenhall from the River Avon” and “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” (the “Rainbow painting”) Extraordinarily, much of the landscape Constable painted, including the garden – a rare example of a designed landscape for a smaller Georgian house – remains.
The walled kitchen garden is particularl important. This is a rare survival of a Georgian kitchen garden in an urban setting. Constable painted it from within Leaden Hall. The view remains, unlike his similar paintings of the Constable family garden in East Bergholt, Suffolk.
Leaden Hall’s historical, architectural and archaeological significance and its cultural value is exceptionally high. Its conservation and protection as an asset for this and future generations is of national importance. That is why any proposal that compromises or diminishes that significance should be rejected. This includes the current proposals by the Cathedral’s Dean & Chapter.
The importance of the Hall is reflected in its Grade I listing, which protects the fabric of the building, as well as its curtilage and setting. The protections are designed to ensure that inappropriate interventions that will cause loss or damage to an irreplaceable historic building are not undertaken simply for the short-term interests of the building’s owner. Instead, listed buildings and their settings are protected for the benefit and enjoyment of current and future generations.
Harm of any degree should only be caused to a Grade I listed building or its setting under wholly exceptional circumstances. Where any degree of harm is proposed, clear public benefit must be demonstrated to mitigate such harm. The proposed scheme delivers no public benefit; it is merely the relocation of a private office for the Dean & Chapter from one building in the Close to another.
The majority of the harmful interventions at the Hall itself are proposed solely for the purpose of converting the building into a C21st century office space. New uses for old buildings are to be welcomed, but such new uses must take into account the significance of the building, its setting and surviving fabric, and the desirability of preserving or enhancing that significance. The proposed scheme fails to do so, so the question must be asked whether the proposed change of use is an appropriate one at this site.
A variety of instances of planning practice are evident in Salisbury D&C’s approach:
- Viable and less harmful sites were identified in the D&C’s strategic plan of 2017. They have failed to fully assess all options before proposing this scheme, which constitutes a degree of damage.
- Documents on the Planning Portal have seemingly been altered without paper trail: references to The National Archive consultants being involved in the archive design have been removed, (still present in the Design and Access Statement, and Paper 9 – The Design of the Archive) as they were untruthful (read WHBT’s correspondence with TNA about this here). The applicant misled readers into thinking the archive design was backed by experts who were not involved.
- The D&C has repeatedly worryingly conflated this proposal with vital repairs at Leaden Hall. This is not the only chance Leaden Hall has at repair. Pushing through planning proposals under veiled threats that a listed building won’t otherwise be repaired is in direct contradiction of National Planning Policy Framework paragraph 209: neglect and dereliction should not be used to inform planning decisions.
- The Dean and Chapter continue to seemingly abuse the planning system by submitting successive rounds of documentation and updates to delay the hearing, the latest instance being the EA’s update on the 14/07/26. The application drags, and Leaden Hall sits derelict. Sufficient repairs have not been completed, and so this constitutes neglect.
The D&C owns a substantial number of other highly designated buildings in Salisbury, many of which are currently empty and neglected. What will the fate of those buildings be, if this scheme is approved? Will the D&C be encouraged to accelerate its programme of neglect to push forward other schemes if rewarded for this bad practice? Their argument that the harm that this proposal will cause is justified by the harm that they have already caused through neglect is indefensible, and the application should be rejected.
Leaden Hall sits within the flood plain of the River Avon. This is not theoretical; the grounds flood regularly, with water extending across the lawn to the rear of Leaden Hall up to Stephenson Hall, which would become a a permanent fixture. Floodwaters also extend into the walled kitchen garden, the proposed location for air source heat pumps, a very large array of solar panels and an archive building.
Despite recent revisions to the design for the proposed archive building, it is still within Flood Zone 3 (High Risk). The Flood Risk Assessment document inaccurately describes the site as offices/services, permitting it to be classified as “less vulnerable” and therefore to meet National Planning Policy Guidelines. This sleight of hand means that an irreplaceable collection of medieval manuscripts would be stored in high risk flood zone, with no provision for their rescue in the plans
The Flood Risk Assessment also admits that plans for disposing of surface water – ie soakaways – are the “least worst option”. They are unrealistic in an area vulnerable to fluvial flooding.
The calculations which purport to show that the removal of a conservatory and classrooms at the site will compensate for the increased risk of flooding that would be caused by addition of the archive building, have been challenged. Any construction on a flood-prone area risks displacing water that would have been absorbed by undeveloped land. This increases the risk of flooding in surrounding areas. Therefore, to place a large, new archive building immediately adjacent to Leaden Hall will increase the risk of flooding not only of the archive, but of the Grade I listed Hall itself. The danger posed to the archive of rising water levels means that the building is likely to have a very limited lifespan. This contrasts with the permanent damage that its construction will cause to the rare garden landscape, the setting of the Grade I listed house and the setting of the other historic buildings in the Close — including Salisbury Cathedral itself.
The grounds of Leaden Hall are a remarkably intact survival of a designed landscape for a smaller Georgian house, which provides the setting not just of Leaden Hall, but contributes to the setting of the Close as a whole and of the other listed buildings within it. This precious designed landscape includes the only known surviving example of a Georgian walled kitchen garden in an urban setting. This unique survivor will be completely obliterated by the large new archive building which they propose to insert into its midst.
Much has been said about the adverse effect of the planning application on the ‘Constable Views’. John Constable, one of the most highly regarded landscape artists of the late Georgian period, still beloved by the British public and international community today, was a regular visitor to Leaden Hall and his famous painting The White Horse, hung above the mantle in its drawing room. The house, its grounds and gardens featured in many of Constable’s works as did the views from Leaden Hall. However, little has been said about his painting of the kitchen garden. It is a rare instance where a garden painted from an upper window still exists today, much as it did then. Historic England has focussed its comments on importance of the Constable connection at Leaden Hall on the distant views, some of which have inevitably changed over time. They have overlooked the kitchen garden, despite this being one of the most catastrophic and irreplaceable losses, should this scheme be approved.
