Business park awarded Grade II listed status
Historic England expands brief from chocolate box cottages and stately homes to ‘pioneering’ urban sites
GLASS-LINED offices, acres of parking and a used car dealership make a suburban business park in west London an unlikely choice for protected status.
But in a British heritage first, Stockley Park has been given the same Grade II status as Virginia Woolf ’s family home, the Crown Estate’s Frogmore Cottage and pleasure grounds designed by Capability Brown.
Historic England has added the 350acre site near Heathrow airport to its register, making it the first business estate to be given protection. It was opened in 1986 by the Prince of Wales, during a trend for such parks. Its Lucozade offices, Travelodge and roadmarking firm sit on the beautified remains of an old gravel works.
The site was added to the heritage list alongside 19 other post-war parks and urban spaces, including housing estates – and a children’s slide.
Those who made the choice said UK heritage was not all about “chocolate box” country homes. Stockley Park was included for being a “pioneering example” of business estate design and reclamation of contaminated land, and it could start a trend for everyday urban sites being given protected status.
For buildings, Grade II listing requires consent for any alteration or demolition. For locations on the Register of Landscapes and Gardens, the status ensures that heritage value must be considered in any planning process.
“People assume listed sites will be a church, or a stately home, or a kind of chocolate-box cottage,” said Sarah Charlesworth, a Historic England listing adviser. “We are looking at things that might not necessarily be pretty, as such, but they will be technologically interesting and there will be something fascinating about their construction.
“It was quite influential for airport business parks. The idea was copied in Munich and Orly. It was pioneering in its own respect and it’s still in active use, still sought-after,” she said.
Stockley Park was earmarked for development in the early Eighties and involved the release of more than 1.5million earthworms to improve the soil quality of the former refuse site.
Historic England said its design showed influence from 17th-century English and French landscapes. The car park courts, enclosed by hedges, were inspired by the “green” compartments of French landscape design. The avenues of lime trees on the pedestrian routes reflect the formal avenues that once ran through the landscape of Dawley Park, a stately home that occupied the site until it was demolished in 1776. Stockley, in Hayes, also has ponds and green open spaces, and is surrounded by a golf course.
Despite its heritage status, the park’s tenants are ordinary fare. It currently hosts loan companies, chauffeur firms, Canon printer offices, Marks & Spencer and a Subway. The park is also home to Premier League football’s Video Assistant Referee (VAR) hub, where contentious on-field decisions are reviewed.
The vast array of cameras used to cover the action at live football matches are held at IMG Studios on the southern edge of the site.
To be eligible for inclusion on the Grade II list, a location must be at least 30 years old. More modern locations are set to be recognised.
“This is the beginning,” said Ms Charlesworth. “Post-war landscapes have been traditionally under-represented on the list. This project is a starting point to set that benchmark for future work.
“There will be all kinds of landscapes that will become eligible. These sites are all around us. We see them every day but might not notice them. This is about giving them recognition.”
Those newly recognised sites include the Golden Lane Estate in the City of London, the still functioning Cummins Engine Factory in Darlington and the Brunel Estate in Westminster where a children’s slide has been earmarked for protected status.
More traditionally bucolic landscapes have also been recognised by Historic England. The Beth Chatto Gardens in Colchester and the private garden at Shute House in Dorset have also been added to the list.
Stockley Park, which has been awarded protected status, is attractive as Eighties business estates go, but then that’s a very low bar. The landscaping is neat; few of the buildings improve upon an out-of-town supermarket. The point, of course, is to show that the built environment evolves and the very idea of heritage must grow with it.
But will we ever acknowledge that some periods were just a mistake, and are best forgotten? Historic England says Stockley’s design shows influence from 17th-century English and French landscapes. Perhaps the best test of this claim is to look very closely at a 17th-century landscape and see if it reminds you of Stockley Park. Can’t you see the glass head office? Or the car park?