Daffodils at the Darnley Mausoleum...

 

Cherry blossom, Cuxton library...

 Cuxton library's cherry tree seldom fails to deliver its Spring cheeriness...

Halling to Wouldham...

My earlier post described how this journey has been conducted over the centuries, until the advent of Peter's bridge.  Nowadays, it takes just 30 minutes or so to walk from the centre of Halling to Wouldham... 

Primroses at Warren House...

Wouldham church from Halling riverside...

By the riverside beyond the end of Marsh Road in Halling, the foundations of the war-time 1941 Bailey bridge (described in my previous post) can still be seen (as above...)

The ferry steps at Halling...

The ferry steps at Halling, as they are today...

Looking across the river to Wouldham ferry steps...

Wouldham ferry steps...

The ferry steps on the Wouldham side of the river...

The Wouldham ferry steps can only be seen at low tide.  Once on the Wouldham side, I tried to get down Ferry Lane and out on to the marshes to see if the track down to the steps was still there.  Unfortunately, Southern Water were doing some excavations there and I was very politely advised not to get in the way by the workmen (and fair enough!).  I'll have another go sometime soon...  

The remains of the Bishops Palace, behind Halling Church...

Bishops Palace...

Undoubtedly the oldest building in Halling, the Bishops Palace was built at the behest of Gundulph, Archbishop of Canterbury sometime towards the end of the 11th century.  It has spent much of its 900 year lifespan in a state of neglect, a history I will get around to recounting in a future post...

Some strange modern sculpture with Halling church in the background...

Springtime at the riverside...

The church as seen from further up-river...

View from Peters bridge, looking north

View from Peters bridge, looking south...

Peters Bridge, Halling side...

Peters Bridge, Wouldham side...

Installation at Peters Village roundabout...

All Saints Church, Wouldham...

All Saints Church, Wouldham...

All Saints Church, Wouldham...

Wouldham Court farmhouse...

Wouldham Court Farm House is a 16th century building with a Georgian front. This front was added around 1719 later by Captain Robert Trevor, a naval sea captain. The original farmhouse is at the rear.

Captain Trevor's wife, Mary Sole of Sittingbourne, daughter Sarah and his servant Jeremy Trapp died there in 1731. It is thought that Captain Trevor died in the West Indies in 1743, survived by his second wife Elizabeth and daughter Mary.

In the early 1960s, the Farm House was used as a doctor's surgery.  The Grade II listed building is now a bed and breakfast.

Foundation of 1941 Bailey bridge across the Medway, Wouldham side...

Wouldham High Street...

View of Wouldham from Halling rec.

Vanished Livelihoods: Halling Ferry...

Peters Bridge

Even though it only opened in September 2016, Peters Bridge (which crosses the River Medway between Wouldham and Halling) is already very much taken for granted.

Prior to that, pedestrians or motorists from the Halling or Cuxton area had to cross the Medway over the M2 bridge, or use the bridge at Aylesford. Before that, the old A2 bridge at Rochester would have represented the nearest river crossing to the communities of Halling, Cuxton and Wouldham: communities separated by only fifty yards of river and yet miles away from each other by road!

As far back as the 16^th century, the lack of a bridge between Wouldham and Halling was lamented.  As William Lambarde wrote at the time in his Perambulation of Kent: “And now, for want of a bridge at Halling, we may use the ferry and touch at Wouldham”.

Halling Ferry, c.1920, as seen from the Wouldham side...

Different sets of local government officials met several times over the years (in 1876, 1892 and 1909) to consider a bridge across the river at Halling, but nothing ever came of such discussions.

However, for 800 years, travellers between these villages had the option of crossing the river by boat, using the ferry crossing which ran from the riverside at the Bishops Palace at the bottom of Ferry Road in Halling, across to the bottom of Ferry Lane in Wouldham. 

The Halling ferry almost certainly began with the advent of the Bishop’s Palace and nearby Halling Manor (latterly Manor Farm House, still there on the High Street) which were built in the 12th. century.

"View Of The Medway", painted by Francis Wheatley, 1776, showing the ferry and the ruins of the Bishops Palace.

The ferry was part of the surrounding lands owned by the Bishop of Rochester until 1551, when Bishop Scory leased the Manor and its lands to a Robert Deane, whose daughter Sylvestre married William Dalison. The Dalison family held the lands (and presumably responsibility for the ferry) until the middle of the 19th. century, when the riverside area became the property of the Hilton and Anderson cement company.

Since 1898, the Halling ferry was operated by the Stevens family, whose involvement began as a result of an appalling accident.

Two men - one of them Uriah Stevens - were working in a kiln at Anderson's Cement Factory when it collapsed on them. They were taken to hospital by horse drawn ambulance. Mr Stevens, then aged 46, had one of his legs amputated. His face and an arm had also been badly damaged.

Ferry Cottage, c.1930...

Mr Anderson, the factory owner, personally informed Stevens' wife, Hannah, of the accident, at their home in the Old Parsonage, Wouldham.

Once he learned that they were a family of 10 children, who would be forced into a workhouse (the Strood Union most likely: the local Halling workhouse at the Bishops Palace had closed in 1835...) unless something was done, he gave Mrs Stevens £50 to tide the family through. (I wonder how many of today’s employers would voluntarily take such trouble and care over their employees and their families?).

Against all expectations, Mr Stevens recovered from his injuries but could no longer work at the factory. Mr Anderson therefore gave him the ancient Halling Ferry business in perpetuity, and also set him up with a small chandlery catering for the numerous barges that plied the River Medway at the time.

The ferry was operated by Mr Stevens' sons, assisted by their remarkable young sister Mabel. With the advent of the First World War, the sons signed up for their patriotic duty and Mabel, just 16, was left to run the ferry.

It was a hard life for a young girl. Mabel often had to get up at 4.00 am to row cement workers across to their factories, with the ferry remaining open until 10.00 pm at night.  (More tales of the redoubtable Mabel Stevens here).

The ferry operation was suspended during the Second World War as a result of a temporary military bridge being built across the river, from the bottom of Marsh Road in Halling over to All Saints Church at Wouldham. 

Temporary bridge being built, from Wouldham to Halling, 1941...

Land had been purchased on both the Wouldham and Halling side of the riverside in around 1865 so that the army could hold summer bridging camps, which they did for many years.

Bridge-building exercise at Wouldham, WW1...

During World War II, the armed forces were trained for the building of bridges which would take place during the Normandy landings. Along with our own armed forces, American army soldiers also came over to learn how to build the bridges.

The WW2 military bridge ("Hamilton bridge") across the Medway between Halling and Wouldham...

Local residents tried to get the Hamilton bridge of 1941 left in place, but the district council would not pay for the maintenance. Industrial users of the river also claimed that their barges could not pass underneath during high tide and so, to much local disappointment, the bridge was removed in 1946.

The Stevens family had also operated local ferries at Snodland and at New Hythe, but these both closed in 1948. 

Ron Stevens, c.1960

Operation of the Halling ferry resumed once the Hamilton bridge was taken down, with a census in 1955 showing that around 300 people a day were using it. 

The Halling ferry continued to run until 1964, when its last ferryman, Ron Stevens, finally called it a day and took a job at the nearby Aylesford paper mills. 

Up until then, Mr. Stevens had been running the ferry for 18 hours a day, seven days a week for £8-15s, a poor weekly wage even by 1960’s standards. By then, the M2 motorway bridge had opened (on May 29th, 1963) which had a pedestrian path.  

People were also beginning to be able to afford private motor cars, reducing the need for the ferry.

At the time though, the loss of the ferry still greatly inconvenienced the local community. 

Mr. Stevens at work, October 1962. Price for the crossing was 6d.

It was to be another 52 years before a bridge finally linked Halling to Wouldham. 

The abandoned Ferry Cottage and the Chandlery, 1972 (now both demolished).

The £19 million Peters Bridge opened on 15 September 2016, being constructed by developer Trenport to facilitate the building of a new housing estate of over 1000 dwellings on the site of the old Peters cement works at Wouldham.

Construction of Peters Bridge, 2015 (picture by Clare French)...

Construction of Peters Bridge, 2015 (picture by Clare French).

References:

Across the Low Meadow: A History of Halling in Kent, by Edward Gowers and Derek Church (1979)

The Kent Messenger (1964)

Wouldham Village History – web page (link here)

Thumbs Down...

"How many more awkward bloody peasants have I got to fight...?"

I expect that Vineyard Farms bosses are a bit fed up at the moment.

Despite the extensive and bedazzling layers of gloss and glitter provided by their expensive designers, Foster & Partners….

…despite their employment of hordes of well-paid experts and consultants…

…despite all of the spin and propaganda about the “enhancements” and benefits that the Kentish Wine Vault would bring to Medway, the locality, and the green belt/AONB that it was to be built upon…

…and despite (most importantly of all) having the support and advocacy of Medway Council’s planning officers…

…the elected councillors who sit on Medway’s Planning Committee voted (by 8 votes to 5 - with one abstention) to reject the Vineyard Farms proposals for the building of the Kentish Wine Vault on the green belt land and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that is Bush Valley at Upper Bush, Cuxton.

So now what?

Naturally, I was interested in Vineyard Farms’ reaction to this latest set-back to their plans. True to form, local click-bait “news” site, KentOnLine, only gave us half the story, one that certainly didn’t tell us about the applicant’s views on the decision.

The view of Barrow Hill you NEVER see in the media - they prefer the ones with Lord Foster's Xanadu in it...

Fortunately, the on-line Architect’s Journal had written quite a decent news article, one which included a quote from Vineyard Farms CEO, Gary Smith, who said (in an admittedly anodyne fashion):

“We are of course disappointed that Medway Council has rejected our plans for a new world-class winery. As an agricultural business, we have a clear need for a new winemaking facility. We will now take time to review all planning options available to us as we consider our next steps,” …

One would like to think that those “next steps” would involve perhaps backing off a bit and compromising. 

As Councillor Matt Fearn stated in his address to the committee (and if the Council’s planning portal is anything to go by), Medway’s residents are 3 to 1 against the winery, while Cuxton residents are 15 to 1 against it.  

It’s clear that the vast majority of people, near and far, don’t want your unnecessary, vainglorious Kentish Wine Vault, Vineyard Farms. They’d rather our green belt/ANOB at Upper Bush was left alone, thank you. That must surely have dawned upon you by now.

Nevertheless, I suspect Vineyard Farms will probably want to persist with the fragile assertion that their restaurant, café, wine bar and visitor’s centre with their wine plant in the basement is really only an “agricultural building” and one which just HAS to built on Upper Bush because of the even more fragile assertion that the quality of the wine would suffer if the precious grapes were to be transported, even just a few miles away, to an off-site winery.

Rather than back off, Vineyard Farms will probably appeal against the decision of the planning committee's councillors, which will result in a Public Inquiry. 

It seems somewhat odd that in a so-called democracy, a private company can appeal to central government in order to overturn a majority decision made by democratically-elected local councillors, and seek to impose its unpopular and profit-driven, selfish plans upon local people.  

You'd like to think that Vineyard Farms would ask itself if that is a route it really wants to go down. Appealing against the council's decision would be a public relations disaster, at least locally.  

It would show a sorry lack of corporate self-awareness. It would show that it couldn't care less about the opinions of its neighbours and its elected representatives. 

But I guess Vineyard Farms aren't that bothered. They have a mega-rich owner and their eye on the long game, with national and multi-national aspirations. They're not too worried about a few local peasants and their plebeian representatives. They know everything will be forgotten once the concrete starts pouring anyway. At four times the acreage, it's an ultra-Denbies I suspect they really wish to build, with the 350,000+ visitors a year and the hotels, conference centres and corporate hospitality facilities to go with them.  This is just the first phase, the thin end of a very thick wedge.

Normally a public inquiry would be held in front of a government planning inspector, but given the development in question's £30m price tag, the final decision is likely to go all the way up to the Secretary of State for Housing etc. etc., Michael Gove.

This, of course, would have been the result had the planning committee approved the plans anyway, which is why the protesters are not celebrating the result of Wednesday’s planning meeting as a victory. They know the real decision has yet to be made.

The video of the March 9^th planning committee meeting leading to the rejection of the VF plans is attached below: (Update: this video has since been taken down, presumably by the council).

From my unimportant perspective, I was reasonably impressed with the planning committee’s discussions as compared to last November’s effort. The councillors who spoke were, for the most part, knowledgeable and much better informed. Even Dave Harris, whilst he still came across as all in favour of the application, wasn’t as openly biased as he was last time. He did actually refer to some of the scheme’s critics and their arguments and it was, I felt, a balanced and fair performance from him, given his recommendation to approve.

Even the councillors in favour of the development made some good points, although their supposedly first-hand observations about the traffic in Bush Road were quite laughably false. There was also the argument that, well, we’ve got lots of countryside, so who’s going miss the little bit at Upper Bush?

I won’t even comment on that.

There was an awful lot of discussion about the traffic in Bush Road. It seems that the somewhat contrived nature of the Vineyard Farms-sponsored traffic survey still hasn’t been called out. I have no doubt that the HGV movements to and from the site of the KWV will cause chaos in Cuxton, but to be honest, I think that the additional tourist traffic won’t make a lot of difference if it is out of school hours. There are already too many cars going up and down Bush Road. Will a few more really matter?

If (or more likely, when) Vineyard Farms decide to go down the appeals route, then the following factors need to be considered.

First and foremost, I just can’t see Medway Council's planners working too hard to get a rejection of the plans that they have so vigorously championed. There are some very senior people in Medway Council who want the KWV to happen, even if the populace and their elected representatives don’t.

Secondly, the grounds for rejecting the application need to be absolutely crystal clear. It all seemed a little bit emotional and woolly on Wednesday night. I am not 100% sure that the traffic argument will cut it, mostly because the questionable data from the original traffic survey is too embedded to be discarded. Medway's traffic experts are saying that the data (good or bad) is telling them that the additional physical risk posed by the development-related traffic will not be significant. That opinion will be the one listened to by a planning inspector at a public inquiry.

Another day, another Vineyard Farms delivery.  But enough cause to reject their plans?

Update:

In their formal rejection notice of the Vineyard Farms plans, Medway Council have once more rolled the dice in VF’s favour. Their stated reasons given for rejection were:

“The scale and nature of the proposed development would result in a significant increase in additional activity within the Bush Valley, which would constitute a severe adverse impact and a direct loss of the currently undeveloped tranquillity and wildness of the AONB. It would also lead to the erosion of the rural character and uniqueness of the community of the Upper Bush Conservation Area and the wider Parish of Cuxton, contrary to Policies BNE12, BNE14, and BNE32 of the Medway Local Plan 2003 and paragraphs 177, 197 and 201 of the National Planning Policy Framework 2021…”

No mention whatsoever of the protection of Green Belt land. No mention of the impact of traffic upon Cuxton and Bush Road. Both were heavily debated at the planning meeting, and yet neither argument made it as a formal reason for refusal of planning permission. 

Even now, it appears that Medway Council want to push the Vineyard Farms proposals through the public inquiry. By omitting any reference to the most powerful cases against VF plans, they have strengthened VF’s hand and severely weakened that of the objectors.

To me, the key argument is the “inappropriate” nature of the development. By framing the debate around the AONB and conservation area considerations only, Medway Council have ensured that the much more powerful arguments around NPPF protections for green belt won't get prominence in any Public Inquiry.

I have no doubt that Vineyard Farms, with their virtually infinite financial resources provided by their billionaire tax-exile owner, will be looking to field a team of highly expensive legal advisors at the public inquiry. Given the likely costs, Medway Council can't just roll over, and will have put up a bit of a token fight to avoid a hefty costs award and so will have to do the same. 

Opponents of the scheme simply cannot afford the same scale of legal representation, which would be the only way to ensure that green belt protection arguments could be properly presented at a public inquiry. And given the likely magnitude of costs, could they afford to lose? 

Of course not. They have been effectively silenced by the size of VF's chequebook and Medway Council. 

To reiterate ad-nauseum, Paragraphs 147-149 of the National Planning Policy Framework state that:

147. Inappropriate development is, by definition, harmful to the Green Belt and should not be approved except in very special circumstances.

148. When considering any planning application, local planning authorities should ensure that substantial weight is given to any harm to the Green Belt. ‘Very special circumstances’ will not exist unless the potential harm to the Green Belt by reason of inappropriateness, and any other harm resulting from the proposal, is clearly outweighed by other considerations.

149. A local planning authority should regard the construction of new buildings as inappropriate in the Green Belt.

Vineyard Farms have been pushing the line that their restaurant complex is an “agricultural building” because a stated exception to paragraph 149 is “buildings for agriculture”.

They claim that as 92% of the KWV’s floor area is given over to wine manufacturing, the whole building must be an agricultural one. This is a nonsensical, "the biggest bit defines the whole" piece-of-shite argument. For example, 92% of a human’s DNA is identical to that of a monkey...

Danger! Vineyard Farms/Foster & Partners logic at work...

80% of the building’s staff are needed to support the 8% that they say comprises the restaurant etc. That shows you where the emphasis of the operation is.  As does all of the glossy documentation furnished by the building’s designers, Foster and Partners.

They have put forward dubious “legal precedents” to fog the issue and to try and justify the laughable proposition that adding a restaurant, café, wine bar and visitor’s centre tourist attraction to the roof of their wine factory to create the £30m Foster & Partners Xanadu still somehow equates with a cow shed, farm shop or a barn.  These "precedents" have to be looked at in detail and rebuffed.

They claim that they need the KWV to process their wine, but ask them to take out the “touristy” bits and they then claim that such a thing would not meet their business needs, which surely gives the lie to the “agricultural needs” argument.

They refuse to countenance a remote winery on a nearby business park, despite the complete absence of infrastructure in the green field/green belt site they want to build on, such as ease of access, power, water, drainage etc., and even though it would eliminate the need for the commercial traffic needed to deliver bottles and production consumables etc. to pass along little Bush Road. They use a specious “quality” argument to gain-say this obvious alternative to building on a green-belt AONB. 

No reasonable person could possibly think that the KWV is an “appropriate” development for green belt land, let alone a development that represents “very special circumstances”, Foster-built or not.

It is essential that the planning inspector in charge of any inquiry gets to consider these all of these arguments, but by their wording of the formal refusal notice, Medway Council have side-stepped them. 

Vineyard Farms have, in effect, already won.

All we can do is write to the Planning Inspector as "interested parties" and present our arguments as best we can.  

But I don't think anyone will be reading them...

Decision Day...

At 18.30 hrs on March 9th, Medway Council’s Planning Committee will be meeting to approve or reject the application by Vineyard Farms Ltd to build a colossal restaurant, café, wine bar and visitor’s centre with a 5 million bottles-a-year wine manufacturing plant in the basement (the “Kentish Wine Vault”) on green belt land and a designated Kent Downs area of outstanding natural beauty at Upper Bush, near Cuxton.

The KWV facility will cost an estimated £30m and has been designed by the notorious firm of luxury architects, Foster and Partners. It is being funded by the owner of Vineyard Farms Ltd, a Mr. Mark Dixon, boss of international office rental company IWG, self-made billionaire, UK tax exile and weekend hobby farmer-cum-land investor.

The building is nearly twice the size of a football pitch and much of it will be buried underground, requiring the excavation of over 160,000 cubic metres of chalk spoil.

The combination of its size, nature and intended location breaks every green belt/AONB planning guideline and regulation in the book - guidelines and regulations that were intended to protect the UK’s designated countryside from developments just like the one being proposed for Upper Bush.

This has not stopped Medway Council’s planners from enthusiastically championing both the design itself and the developer’s assertions that the building is an “agricultural” one and is therefore exempt from planning considerations that would otherwise preclude its construction in its intended form and location.

Dubious, weak “legal precedents” and the utterly ridiculous floor-space argument (only 8% of building’s floor space is dedicated to the restaurant/café/visitors’ centre, so it therefore must be an “agricultural building”: this would be like EDF claiming that because only 8% of a nuclear power station reactor consists of enriched uranium, radiation protection regulations don’t apply to them!) have been used to justify the unjustifiable in terms of proceeding with the KMV.   

At the last planning meeting in December, Medway Councilss planners strongly recommended that the planning committee approve the plans, mostly on the basis that the Foster design was really, truly wonderful and that, as it was just an “agricultural building”, it would not have to be referred to the Secretary of State for ratification.

Fortunately, enough councillors were sceptical enough about the whole smoke-screen and it was decided to defer the decision.

Vineyard Farms, much to their chagrin, were told to go away and fill in some of the gaps in their already voluminous and bewildering array of documentation and glossy Foster & Partners-authored propaganda.

As it turned out, Vineyard Farms had some two months to come up with something more substantial to address some of the planning committee member’s concerns.

And they failed to do so.  At a question and answer session, held on 22^nd. February between members of the planning committee and Vineyard Farms’ extensive team of undoubtedly expensive consultants, all the councillors got was another lot of glossy pictures and propaganda, with the same old arguments repeated, reheated and regurgitated again. 

The same discredited traffic survey was held up as evidence that the development would not add to Cuxton’s Bush Road traffic problems. Questions about the energy centre, green belt impact and why the winery just had to be located on green belt land were airily dismissed.

Indeed, a couple of councillors actually questioned the principle of the development and got treated to a wonderful dose of circular and selective reasoning (paraphrased below)…

Q: “This is not an agricultural scheme, so should the application be for a tourist attraction?”

A: “The basement wine manufacturing plant in our KWV is 92% of the building’s volume, so it is therefore an agricultural building…”

Q: “So why not lose the 8% of unnecessary add-ons and avoid the planning and tourist traffic issues?”

A: “Ah, then the facility wouldn’t meet our business plan…”

Q: “So you are saying that this is, in fact, a mixed-use facility rather than a purely agricultural building…?”

A: “No, because the basement wine manufacturing plant in our KWV is 92% of the building’s volume, so it is therefore an agricultural building…”

And now, belatedly, some six months after Vineyard Farms submitted their application, it seems that at some point recently, Medway Council’s planning department stopped copying the applicant’s homework and actually did some of their own. 

In the agenda notes for Wednesday’s planning meeting, right on the last page of the section for the winery discussion (p. 79), comes this little bombshell…

“Following the Planning Committee Meeting on 8 December 2021, further legal advice was provided….due to the provision of the visitor centre and café/restaurant which would measure more than 1,000m². it was considered that the proposed development would constitute inappropriate development in the Green Belt and therefore (in) accordance with The Town and Country Planning (Consultation) (England) Direction 2021, if the Planning Committee is minded to grant planning permission, the authority shall consult the Secretary of State.”

All of the discussions in the agenda notes about various sections of the NPPF are rendered void because the development is simply “inappropriate” for the green belt.  You’d like to think that this absolutely basic piece of “legal advice” – whether the development was “appropriate” for green belt land in the first place – should have been sought at the pre-application stage?  Surely if the application is “inappropriate” then should it have been rejected at the outset?

This is completely the opposite story to what was given to the councillors at the last planning meeting. Had the planning committee members been told that they were being asked to approve an “inappropriate” development, would they have rejected the application outright, rather than just deferred the decision?  Who knows?

Nevertheless, the minor matter of the development being “inappropriate” for the area hasn’t stopped Medway Council’s planners from recommending that the planning committee councillors still approve it at Wednesday’s meeting.

And this is the nub of the matter.

I do not, for one second, doubt or question the integrity of any of the councillors serving on Medway’s planning committee. Their role is to evaluate the benefits that any development may bring and balance them against the possible harm caused. Whatever their decision on Wednesday, it has to be respected. 

But the councillors themselves are not planning experts, nor do they have the time to delve into the detailed documentation associated with each application. And in the case of huge, complex submissions like the KWV, the councillors are dependent upon the advice of their planning department.

A planning department that seems to have largely accepted everything they have been told by the wealthy, well-resourced developer and its prestigious architects... 

A planning department that took six months to realise that, by the terms of national planning guidelines, the development is “inappropriate” for the green belt site on which it is intended for - something they might have learned earlier had they taken the scheme's critics (e.g. The Kent Area AONB unit and Cuxton's Parish Council) seriously, rather than ignoring them...

So, on Wednesday night, Medway Council’s planning committee meets to decide whether or not to approve the “inappropriate” KWV development.

It has to consider whether the benefits of the fantastic expense, cachet and glamour of a potentially award-winning Foster & Partners design (and the commercial ambitions of a private company) take precedent over national protections for green belt /AONB land that state that such a development would be “inappropriate”, a development that would also badly damage the quality of life for the residents of Cuxton and Upper Bush.

Will they reject what is essentially a billionaire tax-exile’s “inappropriate” vanity project? 

Or will they take the Pontius Pilate option and approve it, effectively washing their hands of the final decision and letting the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, make it instead?

It’s a tough call…

What Goes Around...

Upper Bush in summer, before the vineyard...

Events in the Ukraine today seem to mirror those in Czechoslovakia in 1939. After nearly 80 years of peace, we appear once more to stand on the brink of war in Europe. That stark fact puts our own little local kafuffle about the Cuxton winery into sharp perspective. All of a sudden, the annexation of Luddesdown and Bush Valleys by Vineyard Farms Ltd. just seems trivial.

It seems that history is indeed cyclical, be it national or local. I prefer to think about local history. It is so much more comforting.

Fields above Warren Road, summer 2018, ox-eye daisies...

By all appearances, Medway Council have already decided that the Kentish Wine Vault is to be built on green belt land and the area of outstanding natural beauty that is Barrow Hill in Upper Bush. National planning guidelines for the protection of such areas have been waived aside. 

(Update: From Medway Council's Agenda Document for the Planning Committee 9/2/2022, p.79...

“Following the Planning Committee Meeting on 8 December 2021, further legal advice was provided as to whether the proposed development would constitute inappropriate development in the Green Belt. It was considered balanced, however due to the provision of the visitor centre and café/restaurant which would measure more than 1,000m². it was considered that the proposed development would constitute inappropriate development in the Green Belt [my underlining] and therefore accordance with The Town and Country Planning (Consultation) (England) Direction 2021, if the Planning Committee is minded to grant planning permission, the authority shall consult the Secretary of State.”

This is exactly what we have been saying for the last six months! It seems staggering that Medway Council's Planning department have only just found that out. This does not rule out the development from happening, it just takes the final decision out of the council's hands should it be approved on March 9th.)

The Kentish Wine Vault has already been cited as “coming soon” in Medway Council’s bid for "city status", well in advance of the actual planning committee meeting decision on March 9th., so it all still seems a done deal. The independent-minded councillors on the planning committee have been asking some pretty pointed questions of late, however, so maybe all is not lost.  

Whatever the final decision, from a local historical perspective it’s worth reflecting on what we have already lost...

Upper Bush valley seen from Barrow Hill, February 2018 - before the vineyard...

The trashing of Cuxton’s local environment by a municipal council is itself a cyclical phenomenon: it happened in the 1960s across Cuxton, with many historical cottages and buildings being demolished (such as the cottages at Upper Bush, the Old Post Office Row and the Rectory). It happened again in the 1980s, when Dean Valley was given over to Blue Circle as a cement quarry (the latter being another occasion where a rich company used the “jobs” ploy to fool a gullible council into giving it what it wanted).

The Vineyard Farms’ vainglorious £30m concrete bunker for rich tourists would merely be the final nail in the ecological coffin of Bush Valley, however. 

In truth, the main damage to our local countryside has already been done.

Upper Bush, before the vineyard...

Once upon a time in early summer, you could stand at the southern end of Bush Valley, or up on the eastern bank of Luddesdown valley, and look out across scenes of breath-taking beauty. Below you, a great, green ocean of growing wheat or barley undulated in the gentle breeze that always blew there, even on the hottest days. The reds of the poppies, the yellows of the various mustards and hawkweeds and the blues of the chicory and borage punctuated the green fields with splashes of rainbow colour. 

Luddesdown valley, before the vineyard. The white field at top right is down to chamomile, not bare chalk...

A few timorous deer sometimes ventured out from their woodland hideaways to forage among the crops. Innumerable butterflies flew along the pathways. Above, the larks sang and the swifts, swallows and house martins chased each other across the sky. And as evening drew in at Upper Bush, the Noctule bats skittered out from Red Wood and the pale shape of the occasional Barn Owl skimmed over the fields, hunting for shrews and field mice. The peace and serenity of the place was good for the soul.

Luddsdown valley, 2020...

Now just a couple of years or so later, much of this beauty has been lost to the dull, dreary monoculture of the vineyard. The ever-changing arable fields have been deep-ploughed, dragging the underlying chalk to the surface in white, sterile swathes. No more will wildflowers bloom in the profusion they once did. With the wildflowers gone, the insects and butterflies have also largely departed and along with them, the swallows and swifts. The wind-blown waves of wheat and barley have gone, possibly forever. The fields are now covered in ugly posts and steel wires to support the struggling new grape vines, making the valley look like a giant radio aerial and effectively wrapping the land in a wire cage. The larks, unable to fly across the fields because of the wires and the absence of cover, have left. Once alive with lark-song, the valleys felt silent, neglected and dead this summer.

Upper Bush valley, 2022...

How quickly things can change.

It’s not just the aesthetic and ecological aspects of this transformation that bother me now. Given that war in Europe now seems inevitable, and that the UK has to import at least half of its food from overseas, the loss of thousands of acres of prime farmland to vineyards in Kent look to be a somewhat wasteful, pointless and questionable use of resources.

Fields above Warren Road, December 2021: ploughed-up chalk...

Vineyard Farms in particular seem to have destroyed the soil structure on their land. Vines may well be deep-rooted and will probably survive on the bare chalk that has been thrown up by deep-ploughing, but it is highly unlikely that the land could quickly revert to productive mixed arable use in the event of national necessity.

Food for thought maybe (no pun intended)?

Still, the advent of the vineyard is just another cyclical phenomenon.

After all, in the middle of the last millennium, vineyards were once a common feature of the Kent countryside. In the reign of Henry III, it was reckoned that the grapes grown in the Cuxton and Halling area were the richest in England. Like many across the country, our local churchs (St. Michaels in Cuxton) feature the remains of medieval wall paintings bearing a vine leaf motif, although this is probably more reflective of the role of wine in the Christian Eucharist rather than (as Vineyard Farms otherwise likes to boast in Part 3.6 of its Design and Access statement) an indication of local importance of the nearby vineyards...

Medieval mural in St. Michaels church, Cuxton, featuring was is believed to be a vine leaf motif...

Medieval wine (or at least, that which was drunk by ordinary folk) was pretty awful stuff by all accounts, as glass bottles and corks hadn’t been invented back then, with the wine stored open to the air and rapidly spoiling. Flavourings such as honey were often used to disguise the vinegary taste. Locally, a special red wine was produced by fermenting the local grapes with a proportion of blackberries gathered by the local people. This wine was used not only by the Bishop of Rochester (who had his palace at Halling) but was also supplied to the royal household, with small quantities even being exported to France.

Hop field at Upper Bush, 1910...

The mini-Ice Age of the mid-1550s saw the English climate cool and as a result the vineyards gave way to the hardier hop fields. Right up until the 1950s, much of Cuxton’s farmland was given over to hops. The remaining oast houses at Dean Farm and Ranscombe Farm are testament to a local agrarian economy that was not dissimilar to the old vineyards in many respects.

Hop field, Dean Farm, 1938...

It is quite wrong, however, to draw comparisons between the hop fields of yesterday and the all-encompassing monoculture of the Bush and Luddesdown valley vineyards of today. The individual hop fields were far smaller in area, were interspersed by other crops and certainly did not use the deep-ploughed soil sterilisation techniques adopted here to render the ground hostile to anything but the intended product.

Hop-picking, Dean Farm, autumn 1955...

I feel that the Vineyard Farms business model is a vulnerable one. Increasingly extreme weather and the looming UK economic crash (let alone a war) aren’t a good foundation for a fledgling wine business, even one backed by a tax exile’s billions, and especially one that has put such a huge amount of vines so hurriedly into one undiversified basket, so to speak.  

In 2019, Chapel Down put 300 acres of land just down the road at Bluebell Hill under vines. They don’t seem to feel the need to build a massive £30m luxury restaurant complex on Blue Bell Hill, and their modesty extends to a sensible time scale for wine production from their land (2026, unlike the original 2022 boast of Vineyard Farms that is looking increasingly unsupportable in reality).

The Kentish Wine Vault is designed to be a playground for the well-off rather than an actual working vineyard of course, but far fewer people in the UK will be falling into the “well-off” category. That’s another cyclical phenomenon, with even the middle classes becoming less able to afford even the basics as such as food, fuel and housing, and becoming dependent on the whims of their rich overlords for employment and survival, just as they were 150 years ago.

VF won’t be around for long, I’m sure, but for the moment (and if they live up their promises) there will be a hundred or so new local jobs in the offering, which is no bad thing. Not worth trashing our precious green belt farmland for, in my opinion, but that ship has sailed.

In a way, I’m kind of interested to see how Lord Foster’s promised Flying Saucer will turn out. Its spectacular white cow-pat design at least gives it an agricultural feel. 

And maybe VF can aim at the Russian oligarch market instead, giving the impending impoverishment of the vast majority of the UK’s indigenous population.

Grape vodka, anyone? 

References:

pp.5-6, Parish of Cuxton and Halling Church Magazine, March 2022.

p.102, Cuxton – A Kentish Village, by Derek Church, 1976