Detailed Character Assessment End - Area 13.pdf4. Anglian Water Pumping station on Bartlow Road opposite the lane to Newnham Hall Farm 4. TOPOGRAPHY Undulating countryside, rural,

Knox End - Area 13

Detailed Character Assessment

KNOX END

1. LOCATION - Knox End is on the edge of the village surrounded by rural landscape and farmland.

2. VIEWS, TOWNSCAPE AND LANDSCAPE

From Bartlow on the Bartlow Road entering Ashdon towards the centre of the village. This area is sparsely populated, rural, with rolling hills, woods and farmland, mainly agricultural laid to crops with some cattle farming at Newnham Hall Farm.

There is a clear settlement gap, a meadow on one side and scrubland on the other, between Holden End and Knox End, this is of historic importance.

Anglian Water have two small facilities, one being the sewage treatment plant for the village.

1. Village sign entering Ashdon on the Bartlow Road from Bartlow

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2. Ariel view of Knox End and Bartlow Road

3. LANDMARKS

Football pitch and changing facilities2 Anglia Water FacilitiesOld Railway Bridge on the lane out to Lang MeadowsViews of the windmill from the hill above Newnham Hall Farm

3. Anglian Water Facility on the Lane down to Lang Meadows off the Barlow Road

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4. Anglian Water Pumping station on Bartlow Road opposite the lane to Newnham Hall Farm

4. TOPOGRAPHY

Undulating countryside, rural, with rolling hills, woods, farmland mainly agricultural laid to crops with some cattle farming at Newnham Hall Farm.

5. Footpath entering from the lane down to Newnham Hall Farm heading to the Lane down to Lang Meadows

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5. BUILDINGS

Mix of some listed properties, brick, flint, pargetting is evident with some roofs being thatched, peg tile, slate and in the main detached.

Houses and farms are folded into the landscape, except for The White House, prominent in the landscape on the road to Bartlow. In the main the houses are screened by hedges and trees. Some properties have land attached with out-buildings, stables etc.

Mansard Grade 2 listed.

Small Cl8 or early Cl9 timber-framed and plastered building. One storey and attics. Two window range of small casements. A modern central doorway has a gabled porch. Roof tiled, mansard, with 2 sloping roofed dormers and a large external chimney stack at the north end.

Nightingales hidden behind a high hedge.4

Knox Cottage and Knox End CottageBelieved to originally have been farm workers cottages.

Knox Co'age Grade 2 Range of C18 3mber-framed and plastered co'ages (now 2 tenements), L shaped on plan. Renovated. Knox Co'age is one storey and aFcs with casement windows, a thatched roof and dormers. Knox End is 2 storeys, altered in the C19 and renovated. Casement windows. Roof pan3led.

Knox Cottage showing unusual flint wall, recently uncovered.

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Lane leading to Newnham Hall Farm

Newnham HallNewnham Hall Grade 2 Timber-framed and plastered building of C16-C17 origin with a cross wing at the south-west end. Renovated. Two storeys. Casement windows with glazing bars. Two modern gabled porches project on the front. Roof 3led, with a central square chimney stack and an internal stack at the north-east end. The interior has some exposed beams.

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Listed barn at Newnham Hall Farm

Barn to south-west of Newnham Hall Grade 2 C17 3mber-framed and weather-boarded aisled barn of 6 bays with a gabled entrance bay at the south-east end. Roof slate. The wall plate has bladed scarf joints.

Lang Meadows off Bartlow Road, this area was historically known as Thykho, an ancient manor.

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The Railway Bridge (Railway no longer in use) on the Lane to Lang Meadows.Just past the bridge is the site of the old brick yard, where bricks were made and used locally.

The White House, standing prominently, on Bartlow Road

Bridleway from the Lane to Lang Meadow on the Bartlow Road up to the football pitch

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Football pitch Bartlow Road opposite the White House

View back across to Newnham Hall Farm from the Bridleway by the Football pitch

6. FACILITIES

Football pitch used by a local team - small building with changing facilities.

7. EMPLOYMENT

Newnham Hall FarmFarm Work 3.5 Full Time Employees and 2 – 3 additional for harvest time.

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8. GARDENS

Rural, in keeping with the house type (detached), lawned, some with additional land and out-buildings, far reaching views over the surrounding countryside.

9. GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE, BLUE INFRASTRUCTURE AND OPEN SPACES

Numerous hedgerows, small copses, woods and trees - a green landscape.River Bourne, a tributary of the River Granta, flows through area and flood plain.

10. ROADS AND LANES

Bartlow Road is the main road through the village with lanes leading off to Lang Meadows and to Newnham Hall Farm.Traffic is quite busy at rush house with commuters from Saffron Walden through to the village and on to Linton, Haverhill (A1307).The road is single lane in each direction with some narrowing areas only passable by two cars, ie a lorry or tractor would involve single file traffic.

11. PAVEMENTS, PATHS AND CONNECTIVITY

No pavements or paths with the road narrow in places and traffic (speed issues).There are plentiful footpaths that originally connected the farms and labourers to the fields and the village centre. These give far-reaching views over the undulating countryside. Stiles are used to enable walkers to access fields with livestock present.

The Brues - the footpath that connects Rectory Lane with Newnham Hall along the valley bottom beside river

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12. STREET FURNITURE

Village sign into Ashdon, speed signs, no street lighting.

13. BUS STOP

No

14. SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS

This area has been largely unchanged for centuries and as Christopher Blandford states in his Landscape Character of Uttlesford District, it is “ancient landscape with subtle qualities” and “this strongly rolling landform rises to a broad, open plateau, dissected by small streams whose valleys give great variety to the countryside. This produces a landscape character of upland with wide-open vistas on the ridge tops, and also enclosed wooded areas in the valley bottoms. Patches of ancient woodland remain. The tree cover is mainly deciduous, with blocks of trees and hedgerows framing channelled views.”

Presumed site of the battle of Assandun, looking from the top of Rectory Lane down the valley to Newnham Farm

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The Battle of Assandun

The Battle of Assandun took place on 18th October 1016 and completed the Viking conquest of Anglo-Saxon England, arguably this battle was more important than Hastings fifty years later. There has long been controversy over where Assandunwas located but local legend and the list of the slain would place it here in Ashdon.Edmund Ironside died just weeks after the battle, probably of wounds sustained there. In 1020 Cnut, now firmly on the throne and married to Edmund’s step-mother, Emma of Normandy, visited the battle site and built a church and installed Stigand, his personal priest. We surmise that the battle was fought in the valley between Ashdon Street Farm and Newnham Farm with the Old Rectory as a possible battle church site.It is intriguing to think that Cnut and Emma in all probability walked up Rectory Lanewith Stigand to consecrate their “stone and lime” church overlooking the valley. In 2016 the village commemorated this battle with a re-enactment in front of Waltons.

Re-enactors engaged in recreating the Battle of Assandun in front of Waltons.

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15. DETRACTING CHARACTERISTICS/DESIRE IMPROVEMENTS

Traffic Management / Speed Watch.Litter Management.Some unsightly overhead power/Telephone lines which would be improved with maintenance/replacement.Old Ashdon Village sign at the entrance to the village, damaged and easily missed. River Management and keeping ditches and verges clear to avoid water on the roads.Flooding caused by River Bourne breaking its banks and making the Bartlow Road (and hence to Cambridge) impassible and damaging property is a regular event.

Flooding from River Bourne at Knox End - Dec 2019

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