Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Written Evidence


Memorandum by Nancy Hollinrake (HIS 14)

MORLANDS FACTORY SITE—GLASTONBURY

  Although I am not an elected town councillor, I have been co-opted onto the Glastonbury Town Council's Morland Committee. This committee provides guidance to the Town Council on its dealings with the re-development of the 40 acre, Morland site, formerly a tanner, where the famous Morland sheepskin jackets were once made. Also included in the development area is the former Baily's leather goods factory, once producers of bearskin hats for the Brigade of Guards and of Mohammed Ali's boxing gloves, among many other products.

  This development site has been derelict for nearly 20 years. Regeneration has been marked by a series of failed plans, hampered by the severe pollution created by hundreds of years of tanning on waterlogged ground composed of peat mixed with alluvium, and complicated by the course of a medieval millstream running past both factories. The town was, therefore, delighted when, just less than two years ago, this difficult and complicated site was acquired by the SWRDA.

  Even before the involvement of the RDA, there had been a vigorous campaign to recognise the architectural value of several of the factory buildings. The millstream runs past a late-medieval mill, a Victorian brick-built office block and three storey factory building, a factory built in the early 1930's to a Bauhaus style (probably one of the earliest Bauhaus-style building in England), a 1970's pre-cast concrete and steel building enclosing an exceptionally large floor area (designed by Jack Hepworth, a cousin of Barbara Hepworth and a noted architect and sculptor in his own right), and the 19th century Baily's three storey factory block. Of these, the medieval mill and the Baily's factory are listed buildings.

  These two factory complexes contain purpose built industrial buildings ranging from the 16th century through to the 1970's ranged alongside an 11th/12th century millstream constructed by Glastonbury Abbey; a group of industrial premises almost unequalled in the country. However, quite apart from the aesthetic and heritage considerations, these buildings are worth preserving for purely pragmatic reasons: All were in reasonably good state of repair with deep foundations which have permitted high buildings, something impossible on other parts of the site where the peat and alluvium is very deep. These foundations protect the millstream from pollution making it very difficult, if not impossible, to construct other buildings in their place.

  It was the recent (August 2003) listing of the Baily's factory which alerted the SWRDA to the value of all of these buildings and allowed the Prince's Foundation/Regeneration Through Heritage to take an active part in advising the Town Council on their renovation, rather than the demolition which had originally been intended. Listing alerts the world to the value of heritage buildings; it acts as a quality control and enhances the possibility of grant aid for renovation and repair. Without listing, hundreds of valuable buildings would be lost forever.

  At the present time, the Glastonbury Town Council are hoping to establish a trust to take ownership of the town's factories and use them for the benefit of the town and the wider community. Since the closure of Morlands and Bailys, the Clark's shoe factories in Street, two miles away, have also been closed and the jobs relocated to Portugal and then the Far East and the area is suffering from the highest unemployment rate in the county. At least one of the leather-trade factories—Baily's—has been saved from demolition or change of use thanks to listing, along with probably two other unlisted factory buildings on the Morland site.—allowing the unemployed leather workers of the area a chance to revive their high-quality, craft-based industry. Any factory buildings converted to other industrial uses will also ensure a high-quality architectural and industrial landscape which will add diversity and interest to the whole re-development project.

  Renovation of these factories will allow Glastonbury to retain an industrial base, one that it has enjoyed for hundreds of years, originating with mills owned and developed in the medieval period by Glastonbury Abbey. The tanneries and sheepskin factories of Morlands and Baily's were, and still are, a matter of great pride to the local community and despite recent setbacks, they could, with some modern industrial additions, provide a new focus for the high skills and crafts which have been nourished in this town for almost a thousand years.

   The renovation of the surviving factory buildings adds character and inspiration to the development and enhances the marketability of the new business premises. We owe the survival of these buildings to the listing process and to the participation of the SWRDA.


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2004
Prepared 26 January 2004