Planners refuse proposed alterations to Spalding’s Monk’s House, a 16th century Grade II-listed farmhouse

A ‘rare surviving example’ of a 16th century farmhouse cannot undergo alterations, planners have said.

Proposals to make sweeping changes to the interior of Grade II-listed Monk’s House in Spalding have been refused by South Holland District Council officers, stating: “There are no significant factors in this case that would outweigh the harm of the proposal.”

The applicant wanted to transform a loft into a habitable space, creating of a dormer window and new stairs to facilitate this conversion.

Plans put forward by Mr S. Brown also included the reinstatement of former windows and the re-tiling of the roof.

“This box dormer is required to provide sufficient headroom when accessing the new bedroom four,” the planning officer’s report explained.

“This is one of two bedrooms that are proposed in the attic.

“Each bedroom would have its own access, formed via the creation of new wooden stairs in the landing and first floor living/bedroom respectively, and bathroom.

“To enable this change, two currently bricked up windows are to be reinstated. It should be noted that these windows historically served attic bedrooms, but the attic and windows have been disused since a fire in the 1970s.”

That fire, which occurred in 1974, resulted in the loss of the entire roof structure which was re-instated, albeit with the loss of a staircase and all second floor accommodation within the attic spaces.

Historic England’s entry regarding Monk’s House, situated on Bourne Road, describes it as an early 16th century house, said to have been a grange of the Priory.

During the consultation period, Historic England said it had ‘no objection to the conversion of the roof space to form further accommodation in principle’ but did highlight concerns with the proposed dormer window.

“We acknowledge that the dormer is required to facilitate a staircase in this location. If the staircase cannot be achieved without the dormer, we recommend that the staircase is also omitted,” they added.

A comment from Spalding and District Civic Society read: "Whilst we welcome aspects of this application we do have concerns about the dormer window and support the comments by Historic England about the staircase made in response to the listed building consent application.

“The heritage impact assessment acknowledges that this causes harm to the significance on the building and that it is ‘somewhat alien to a building of this period’.”

The historic impact report prepared by agent Scorer Hawkings Architects said: “Monk’s House is a rare surviving example of a 16th Century farmhouse.

“It is also a particularly rare surviving example of an early stone building in the Lincolnshire Fens.

“The floorplan of the central range still retains the classic hall-house layout of two rooms separated by a central stack.

“Subsequent 19th and 20th Century remodelling have made their impact on the building interior but nevertheless the exterior envelope remains largely unaltered.”