Atelier:
An artisan studio and workshop facility in the grounds of Burton Manor due to open April 2008.
In partnership with the University of Chester, Burton Manor has successfully bid for funding to help develop the underused front area of the site to support its educational activities via the establishment of a set of artisan workspaces. The concept is simple: to develop a self-financing resource that can provide input to the future curriculum and therefore to enhance the sustainability of the college.
The result is
Atelier:
An artisan studio and workshop facility in the grounds of Burton Manor due to open April 2008.
This planned development will seek to create a self sustaining centre for the preservation and promotion of rural artisan craft industries and to restore the Edwardian greenhouses and adjacent Kitchen Garden and courtyard area.
The project will provide physical premises, access to educational opportunities and business start up support (including an on-site resource centre) which will support the operation of a minimum of 20 artisan 'incubators' and the creation of new employment opportunities within the areas of rural crafts, horticulture, and creative industry.
There are five integrated elements to this project:
The setting up of a purpose built resource centre in the former Gatehouse building providing the infrastructure to support business sustainability and entrepreneurship. This will be provided for both the onsite 'start up' artisans and other businesses based within the locality which become part of the supply chain to artisan industries.
The centre will provide information technology and support, the access to which will be available for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This centre will also incorporate one additional incubator workspace, an entrepreneurial learning and development resource centre, a visitor information centre (usage of which will be promoted to sub-regional schools with identified links into the National Curriculum) and administrative support.
The project will improve new job prospects and the long term sustainability of those employment opportunities created by offering access to Foundation Degrees via the Cheshire & Warrington Lifelong Learning Network (CWLLN), funded by HEFCE, in business, enterprise and innovation.
The project will offer a full range of short courses at Burton Manor, designed and delivered for adult learners, with content reflecting the industries and skills of the artisans within the development. The artisans will be supported in teaching skills to enable them to act as tutors where appropriate.
The aim is to restore the prestigious walled garden and two large Victorian style greenhouses, built in 1904 in Burton Manor College for Henry Neville Gladstone, son of Prime Minister William to their original state. This area will then serve as an educational resource and visitor attraction. The greenhouses would become a specialist horticultural 'laboratory', with eight workspaces for 'horticultural' related work, a plant nursery and teaching space for learners of all ages. There is an immediate urgency to stop further deterioration and to restore these greenhouses. Subsequent development might be to adapt the long walled garden into demonstration and teaching allotments allowing a separate focus on herbs, vegetables for healthy living and a sensory garden, all providing a venue for community and educationally based initiatives.
A Project Planning Grant for £50,000 has been supported in order to work towards an c £700,000 application from the Rural Heritage Lottery Fund to maximise the heritage potential to conserve and enhance heritage.
Burton Manor College is supporting this application by contributing a c. £300,000 footprint in the form of existing buildings and space for development and non cash match of time for project management and governance. An additional £15,000 is provided in volunteer time from the Friends of Burton Manor for on-going support.
Burton Manor and its attached orangery is a Grade II listed building of special architectural and historic interest as is the former library/reading room (the Arts Centre), former stable block (Squirrel Lodge), front boundary walls and gate piers. This designation signals that the buildings are considered to be of national historic and architectural importance. The Icehouse with its attached food preparation chamber within the grounds of Burton Manor College is both listed and a Scheduled Monument, a designation which also signals national importance. Thus these structures are of exceptional significance.
Burton Manor College and much of its grounds are situated in both a Conservation Area and form part of a Registered Park and Garden within which are found several listed buildings. The statutory/national significance of the site and its surroundings are therefore of exceptional significance. In particular the walled garden and two large Victorian style greenhouses, designed by Foster & Pearson Limited of Beeston, Nottinghamshire and built in 1904 for Henry Neville Gladstone, is of exceptional significance.
Initially the greenhouses were of such outstanding quality that the company was also chosen to provide greenhouses for Queen Victoria at both Windsor Castle and Osborne House, and in other locations such as the botanical gardens in Hong Kong and Sydney, Drayton Manor and Trentham Gardens. Very few examples of these greenhouses have survived. A major design feature is the use of wrought and cast iron components together with hardwood glazing bars, doors etc. Foster and Pearson greenhouses delivered a complete horticultural system which incorporated heating, ventilation and drainage systems unique to them.
The walled garden, within which the greenhouses sit, predates the structures by fifty years and has been listed by English Heritage as Grade II. The garden is currently used as allotments by local residents, whilst the two greenhouses are not used because of an advanced state of decay creating significant health and safety issues. The greenhouses are a part of the site's overall heritage asset as they have been officially protected as both a listed building and as being in a conservation area.
The Manor house dates in its present form from 1904. The Manor was purchased in 1903 from Walter Norris Congreve by Henry Neville Gladstone (a wealthy business man and third son of the Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone) and his wife Maud. The original Hall, built for the Congreve family in the early 1800's, was an L shaped brick building with the main front facing west. Too small for the Gladstones, an architect (Sir Charles Nicholson) was employed to enlarge and almost completely remodel the house. He created a complex of rooms ranged around a central courtyard. The exterior was clad in local sandstone and the walls of the fountain court rendered and painted white. Nicholson also designed the Manor's stable block.
The site has significant heritage value and makes our proposals for the Burton Manor Edwardian Heritage Centre all the more critical. Securing the HLF support for the project will secure the future of these buildings as the current rate of deterioration cannot be allowed to continue and health and safety issues would be likely to result in either the closure of that area of the College and, ultimately, the demolition of both Glasshouses. The restoration of the Glasshouses and walled garden is an integral part of a larger project for the regeneration of the College via the development of the Burton Rural Enterprise Hamlet. This will see the development of between 12 rural craft business incubation units which would operate alongside the proposed HLF supported Edwardian Heritage Centre. The overall project package will total in excess of £1.6m
Stable Project pre-scheme images
Artisan Hamlet pre-scheme images
Burton Manor College and Univeristy of Chester 2007