Local List
We are assisting the local council with the preparation of a 'Local List' of buildings with architectural merit and/or historical importance. The idea of a local list is to bring to the attention of the Planning
Department, buildings which, whilst not of sufficient importance to be Listed by English Heritage, are of importance locally and should therefore be given greater consideration when a planning application is made.
In the Conservation Areas of Malvern there are many such buildings that give, as an entity, the interest and character to the area. Our first submission was certainly one of these - Malvernbury - in Abbey Road. This Edwardian house was rebuilt in 1907 but the original house was a treatment centre for Dr Edward Johnson and his son, Walter, Florence Nightingale recuperated there and it was also a ladies' school. Now it awaits its latest reincarnation!
We are about to offer our findings on the Clerkenwell Markers - these cast iron markers,
resembling in most cases gravestones, were erected around the Cockshot Estate and there are still some 12 posts standing in the area stretching from Davenham in Graham Road, down Moorlands Road, into the fields the other side of the railway from Tennyson Drive and then back up St James's Road.
One of the best of these, visible from the road, is in the garden of Fairoaks in Cockshot Road, just behind the railings in the S.E. corner. Six of these posts were listed by ODPM some years ago and we hope that the remainder can also be listed. We have to thank Mr Michael Shiner for all the research he has done and for his great assistance. According the to OS map of 1927, there were 25 posts at that time so we must try and preserve these relics of the past.
The next possible listing is the old 1930s cinema in Hampden Road. This is now the One to One Fitness Centre but the original building can still be seen. Mr Michael Peach kindly let us have an
architectural sketch of the interior. Does anyone remember going there when it was a cinema?
There are a few more possible listings in the pipeline but if YOU know of anything you think should be 'locally listed' and if you have any details of its history or its architectural provenance or even if you just think it worthy of attention, PLEASE LET US KNOW.
ELGAR SURPRISE
Since moving to the Malvern area one continues to be surprised by the little coincidences that come your way. Last year your editor cycled from Southport on the west coast across the Pennines to Hornsea on the east coast with a group of friends and a good time was had by all as the saying goes. One evening we arrived at Wortley and from near Wortley Hall we could see the lights of Barnsley twinkling in the distance. I was surprised at how rural and peaceful everything was so near to the South Yorkshire coalfield. The next day before setting off I was looking through the local churchyard when I spotted the grave of Alice Stuart Wortley, the second wife of Lord Charles Stuart Wortley. The name seemed familiar and then I realised that I was looking at the grave of one of Sir Edward Elgar's lady friends. She became the spirit of the 'windflower' that had inspired his Violin Concerto and, so it is said, the unfinished piano concerto. She was the daughter of the celebrated artist John Millais and so the following inscription on the grave taken from verses by Kipling interested me:
And the tubes are twisted and dry
When the oldest colours have faded
And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest
And only the master shall praise us,
And only the master shall blame:
And no-one shall work for money,
And no-one shall work for fame.
But each for the joy of working,
And each in his separate star
Shall draw the thing as he sees it
For the God of things as they are.
John Handley