Intangible Heritage — A hypothetical proposal for the local listing of a community cricket club
The following article was written as a means of recognising the significance of local heritage sites that hold small-scale, community-level value. It attempts to show that similar sites, which are often undefinable in heritage terminology and may otherwise be overlooked, can be more important and meaningful to a community than a more conventional ‘tangible’ listing. It also attempts to establish whether other ‘intangible’ sites like this could be recognised and protected under the current UK legislative guidelines.
This article considers the potential as a heritage asset of the cricket field and associated pavilion in the village of Butleigh, Somerset. The land in question adjoins, and was formerly part of, the extensive parkland of Butleigh Court, a Grade II listed building. The following identifies its characteristics and significance and assesses them against relevant criteria for local listing set out in national and local guidance. It finds that the site meets a number of these criteria. It is proposed that the site be added to Mendip District Council’s Local List of Non-Designated Heritage Assets.
THE SITE AND ITS CONTEXT
Butleigh village, with a population of about 900, lies in open countryside: immediately to the north and east are the Somerset Levels while to the west are the wooded slopes of the Polden Hills (Figure 1). It is about 5km south east of Glastonbury (Siraut, Thacker & Williamson 2006: 82) and from the site there are uninterrupted views of Glastonbury Tor (Figure 2).
Butleigh is a settlement of considerable architectural and archaeological interest, having 39 Grade II and 2 Grade II* listed buildings which include a 14th century farmhouse and church. Facilities in the village include a shop, nursery and primary school (around 80 pupils), a pub and a number of societies and clubs including a thriving cricket club. Although unclassified, the road which runs along the west side of the village is a well-used short cut between Glastonbury and the B3153. The site directly adjoins this road at the very northern end of the settlement and is particularly prominent when approaching from that direction. Carved out of the historic parkland of Butleigh Court, the site provides a delightful foreground to the building, a large mid-nineteenth century neo-Tudor mansion which, with its extravagant and eye-catching turrets, battlements and tall stone chimneys, is a significant local landmark (Figure 3). Constructed in 1845–51, it occupies the site of a 14th century manor house destroyed by fire (Siraut, Thacker & Williamson 2006) The architect was J.C. Buckler, known for his design of similar buildings across England including several at the University of Oxford (Pevsner & Orbach 2014 :172).
Parkland of mature trees stretches away to the north and east of the site, bounded to the north by an impressive nineteenth century cedar avenue. Taken together, the house and parkland, the cedars, the Levels and the distant vista of the Tor provide an idyllic setting for the cricket field. The site, of about 1.5 hectares, is now an established feature of the local landscape. It includes the pitch, outfield, two cricket nets and building. The latter typifies an English cricket pavilion — a single storey timber structure with open-sided projecting porch, outdoor seating and shallow pitched roof of cedar shingles (Figure 4). It is discreetly sited, screened from Butleigh Court by a number of semi-mature deciduous trees.
RATIONALE
A Heritage Asset is defined in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) as “a building, monument, site, place, area or landscape identified as having a degree of significance meriting consideration in planning decisions, because of its heritage interest. A heritage asset includes designated heritage assets and assets identified by the local planning authority (including local listing)” (Dept. of Communities and Local Government 2012: 52).
It is acknowledged at this stage that the site which is the subject of this report is not of such special architectural or historic interest to justify inclusion in the statutory schedule of listed buildings. Consideration is therefore given to its possible status as a locally listed non-designated heritage asset. This would have the effect of giving recognition to its local distinctiveness and to its value as a significant community amenity, while also ensuring that its physical presence and characteristics were properly taken into account if it was found to be adversely affected by any future development proposals.
Mendip District Council’s published document relating to the assessment of non-designated heritage assets for local listing uses the commonly applied criteria set out in the Good Practice Guide for Local Heritage Listing (English Heritage 2012a)(Mendip District Council 2015). These have been used as a basis for assessing the suitability of the site in question. The criteria are given as follows: Age, Rarity, Aesthetic Value, Group Value, Evidential Value, Historic Association, Archaeological Interest, Designed Landscapes, Landmark Status and Social and Communal Value (English Heritage 2012a: 16).
The Guide notes that that not all the criteria will be applicable in every case. Of particular relevance to this site are the reminders in the guide that local distinctiveness may lie as much in the commonplace as in the rare and spectacular, and that it may be necessary to develop specific criteria in order to identify heritage assets of community value, which by definition may well be more intangible (English Heritage 2012a: 14). This element of intangibility may be most important for this site’s designation, with the idyllic surroundings drawing focus away from the social significance it holds itself.
Assessment of the site against relevant criteria
The Good Practice Guide for Local Heritage Listing recommends that usually a potential site must meet at least two of the criteria in order to gain a place on a local list (Isle of Wight Council 2011). In making the current assessment, it seems logical to group those criteria which can best be considered together. The first group can be covered under the heading of the visual and aesthetic characteristics of the site although in doing so reference is also made to age, rarity, group value, landmark status and landscape design. The second group focuses on the site’s social and communal attributes and in doing so touches on its evidential value.
The visual and aesthetic characteristics of the site
The site is prominent as one approaches the village from the north-west, the view of it framed by the extravagant Victorian architecture of the Grade II listed Butleigh Court and by mature and majestic parkland trees. All are features of a carefully maintained, man-made landscape and one which is immediately recognisable as being quintessentially English. It is also a type of landscape which is unlikely to be replicated in the future. The site is an integral element of this rural scene, its own setting enhanced by the house and park (Figure 5). Within this context, it could be argued that the site has at least some landmark status and goes some way to meet the criteria specification that it should “stand out within an area because of visual distinctiveness or prominence” (Exeter City Council 2012: 5).
While there may be little in the physical appearance of the pitch itself to distinguish it locally or nationally from others, it has a number of indicators that define village cricket: rusting grass rollers, moveable white sight screens, a hand-operated scoreboard and a tree growing in the pitch itself (4 runs if you hit the trunk, 6 runs if the ball reaches the canopy). The traditionally designed and simple, unassuming style of the site’s one building is immediately recognisable as a cricket pavilion. While it does not merit statutorily listing, there is no doubt that it has aesthetic value and is important in contributing to the “character or appearance of its locality” (Mendip County Council 2015: 2). With its covered veranda and outdoor seating, it mimics the architecture of nineteenth century cricket pavilions in England, which were in turn influenced by the Indian bungalow (English Heritage 2012b: 8). This shows the continuity and progression of architectural styles as they spread both temporarily and geographically to entirely different settings.
All these various visual aids give the site aesthetic value, contributing to people’s idealised images of an English cricket ground. Judging aesthetic value is a subjective process but it would be hard to argue that this particular combination of landscape and buildings, visible and accessible to both local residents and passers-by, does not here create a near perfect rural scene.
While it is acknowledged that the cricket field and pavilion have only been in place since 1962, they are nevertheless seen as integral elements of the village and of village life. This is exemplified by the comment of the chairman of the Butleigh Playing Fields Association who, in his report on the village’s sport facilities, write of how the cricket team have “proudly played here for nearly fifty years” (Edmondson 2010). This illustrates the point that it is a matter of perspective as to whether or not a site is ‘old enough’ to place on a local list. It also accords with the move to give increased significance to our more recent heritage and with the recognition that what communities value as heritage may well be important not because of age or rarity but because of visual familiarity and/or the role it plays in everyday life (Clifford & King 1993:4).
Social and communal value
Sites having social and communal value have been defined as “places perceived as a source of local identity, distinctiveness, social interaction and coherence; often residing in intangible aspects of heritage contributing to the “collective memory” of a place” (English Heritage 2012a:16). This definition would appear to be particularly appropriate in the context of the site to which this report relates.
For many residents of Butleigh the club is an important meeting place and an important means of expressing their identity by belonging to this community (Smith 2006: 152). The physical appearance of the pitch matters less than the number of memories and associations the generations of people who have lived and worked in the area all their life hold with such a place. Because of its physical characteristics this is a site which typifies the quintessential image of peaceful cricket on a warm English summer’s day in a rural village (Greenfield & Osborn 1994: 53) where the sight of a cricket pitch and pavilion is more than just “a mere game (but fulfils) an essential social function that overlaps with and impinges upon the life of the village as a whole” (Greenfield & Osborn 1996: 277). Conservation Principles, Policy and Guidance states that we should seek to ensure that the historic environment is a shared resource and that everyone should be able to participate in sustaining it (Historic England 2015). As one of the main sporting facilities in this small village, it is clear from the amount of activity taking place at the site that this is an important community facility. As with other heritage assets, it is the ritualistic acts associated with the place which give it shared, communal significance: the work of the groundskeeper, painstakingly mowing and rolling out the grass; spectators who turn out on the day of a Butleigh game with rugs and fold-out chairs, picnic hampers and cans of beer. There is a tangible sense of a shared anticipation and excitement amongst the spectators in readiness of the beginning of the day’s play. The open, friendly nature of the club towards the community has given it significance: there is a strong emphasis on younger generations with three youth teams alongside the two adult teams, as well as the free access at any time to the cricket nets (Figure 8) (Edmondson 2010). This accords with the advice in the NPPF that heritage assets should be “enjoyed for their contribution to the quality of life of this and future generations” (Dept. of Communities & Local Government 2012: 6)
Conclusions
The assessment above indicates that the site satisfies a number of the criteria set out in the Good Practice Guide for Local Heritage Listing. First, attention has been drawn to its physical attributes, especially its visually prominent location, its unspoilt, traditional appearance and its setting in relation both to mature parkland and a listed building. While it has already been accepted that statutory listing would not be justified, its inclusion on the local list would be recognition of the way in which these separate elements have together produced a particularly attractive rural asset.
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