Friday 14 February 2014

Granville House Ramsgate another lot of plans and a bit of history

One of the most distinctive buildings on Ramsgate’s cliff tops is Granville House this was designed by Edward Welby Pugin the son of Augustus Pugin and was a hotel from 1869 to 1946 after which it was converted into 48 apartments.


Various additions and modifications were made to the building during this period and all of these were done in the same gothic revival style used by Edward Welby Pugin.


During the second world war part of the building was destroyed by a bomb.



Then in 1982 another large chunk was demolished.

I suppose there is a balance here between what is most dangerous and destructive to our historic architecture the world war in the 1940s or the local council in the 1980s where a significant proportion of councillors were estate agents or involved in property development.


So looking at the map and wondering where the responsibility lies for demolishing parts of a significant listed building the green bit was down to Adolf Hitler and while the red bit down to TDC granting consent to demolish part of a listed building.

Anyway between the demolition and 2004 various planning applications to build the usual plastic windowed tacky high density flats on the site, some were passed at planning but as often happens the money couldn’t be found and now all of the planning consents have expired.


Then in 2004 the part demolished by Hitler was rebuilt in the same gothic revival style used by Edward Welby Pugin.

Nothing much happened after this apart from the remaining land changing hands and developers going bust until the site was sold by the Receivers in 2012.


The building site was bought by Jason Hough for £160,000 who submitted an application (L/TH/12/1019) in January 2013, to build 10 one-bedroomed flats and 28 two-bedroomed flats. Although recommended by the TDC case officer, Councillors voted against I guess there aren’t so many councillors who are estate agents these days.

The developers case for getting planning permission granted seems to have been if you can get it for an ugly 80s structure in the 80s why can’t you get it for an ugly 80s structure now.

I think the real point he has missed is that having demolished half a gothic revival building and then rebuilt a quarter of it in gothic revival style, the only thing that makes sense is to rebuild the remaining quarter in gothic revival style.    

Anyway the new planning application ref is F/TH/14/0083 you have to go to the council’s planning website http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet and put it in the application ref search box to view the plans. 

Here are a few pictures taken from these plans, as you see they don't seem to have understood the gothic revival style yet, so I will be objecting to this application on the grounds that gothic revival plus new build gothic revival  is fine but gothic revival plus new build gothic revival plus new build 1990s style isn’t it's just a mess.





 While we are on the subject you may be wondering about the blue bit on the map, this is the derelict bar a dinning room which is back on the market and likely to go back into use, links to photos of this and the inside of the tower view from the top and so on.



















4 comments:

  1. Firstly - shocking about the demolition in 2004. This is an architecturally important building. Secondly, I just dont get how this is not built in the same style as the rest of the building, but clearly to a modern build standard. I know there is a trend to indicate when buildings are constructed in terms of style, but this feels wrong to me. Why cant the developers have a sympathetic eye to development? Is it too much too ask?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Duncan I think the key here is to write to the council planning.services@thanet.gov.uk objecting to the plans on the basis that once additions to the building have been made in gothic revival style subsequent additions should also be made in the style.

      Basically it is down to us residents to object and if enough do this then it wont be built in the modern style and eventually the developer will come up with plans in the gothic revival style.

      Although this would a bit more expensive it would make more expensive apartments.

      Delete
  2. Disgusting, I will be writing to object on grounds that it is not sympathetic. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A perfect example of how to make an eyesore out of an eyesore. I, too, will be objecting.

    ReplyDelete

Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.