...a call from The White House?

by Charles Hutton
•
22 Aug, 2016
•

Its not every day you get a call from an American lady at The White House asking if I would work for them.

Needless to say, the short road-trip along the A34 to The White House on Cannock Chase was not quite where my imagination had previously taken me. It was obvious my client had an wicked sense of humour & wasn't afraid to use it!

Cannock Chase (North Mercia ) - 1646

The project in question is a Conference Centre built in the 1980's after a fire destroyed the previous property. It is one of those properties that many local people know about as in its former years it was one of the local 'go to' wedding venues. Time has had its way with the surrounding gardens and landscape, much of which has overgrown paths and distorted the originally intended views and uses.

A subsequent background search through the County Archives revealed how the surrounding landscape and environment has developed through the ages. Bronze Age & Roman remains are present in the area but significant development is recorded at Lichfield in the 7th century and Cannock & Rugeley developing as market towns in the 12th century.

The hunting forest was granted to the Bishop of Lichfield in 1290, it was dominated by open woodland interspersed with only ocassional grazing and areas of farmland. Piecemeal clearance and colonisation of the land was associated with industrial activities such as quarrying, mining, edge-tool manufacture and transport.

By the mid-1600s the landscape had become more open, with more extensive heathland, due to timber extraction to produce charcoal for the local iron furnaces. The local ‘Grey- faced’ sheep started grazing the open heathland. Woodland, however, remained within the medieval deer parks and on higher ground.

During the 17th century the Black Country and south Staffordshire rapidly developed into one of the country’s largest centres for mining and quarrying of coal and iron for manufacturing. The arrival of the canals in the late 18th and early 19th centuries sparked a further rise in activity. Individual towns came to specialise in the manufacture of particular goods; examples are locks in Willenhall and leather goods in Walsall.

Staffordshire - 1793

But what makes this project unique is that the property sits in the centre of one of the two huge World War One training camps that were set up in the area. At the camp's peak in 1914, 40,000 men were stationed at the camps, which saw over half a million soldiers visit this area

To facilitate these 'cities' a purpose built railway known as the ‘Tackeroo Railway’, constructed in 1915 and joined the main line near Cannock. The railway (marked yellow on the plan below) passed through the rear garden of the White House and supplied the Rugeley, Brocton & PoW camps. The Commanding Officer’s mess and quarters were located in the eastern corner of the site, with the parade ground and barracks to the south.

Stories have it, that the matron of the Military Hospital located half a mile away, used a field telescope to keep an eye on her nurses who visited the camp and played tennis on the court in garden of the White House. The nearby War Cemetery contains the graves of nearly 400 war dead, some of whom were treated at the nearby military hospital.

After WW1 there was an extensive program of commercial coniferous planting which possibly is the single biggest visual impact on the area. The image below taken by RAF reconnaissance in 1948 shows how the tree planting has taken place and has started to irradicate the scars left by the camps on the Cannock Chase.

In the 19th century, mining extended to Cannock and Hednesford where large-scale mining of the concealed measures beneath led to the rapid growth of these towns before demise in the 1980s.

The site we're working on is outside any SSSI but within the SSSI Impact Risk Zones of SSSI areas 4, 5, 10 and 11 which shows the local authorities commitment to preserving the 'Dwarf Shrub Heath - Lowland' habitat, much of which is in a 'recovery' state.

Needles to say, all this information demonstrates the importance of researching the environmental, historical and social context of an area. As a result we have blended the more formal garden areas within the scheme, much of which is planted with indigenous planting, with that of the surrounding landscape and environment including the local SSSI.

So next time an American calls from the White House - be prepared!

For professional landscape services visit https://www.eagleeyedesign.co.uk/landscape-services

...a call from The White House?

...mud, moss & missiles

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