'Lowood House should be retained' - 2021 council report

by DOUGLAS SHEPHERD

The surprise disclosure that Scottish Borders Council may decide to bulldoze a £1 million mansion house as part of a major development project means the local authority will need to ditch its own Design Guide for the scheme, produced as recently as June 2021.

Last week we reported that Borders councillors were to be updated on proposals - estimated to cost £108 million - to extend Tweedbank village by building hundreds of houses on Lowood Estate, near Melrose, acquired in 2018 by SBC at a cost of £11 million.

A report drawn up by council officers for discussion this Thursday includes a section on the future of Lowood House, currently costing taxpayers £20,000 a year in upkeep while it stands empty. Critics of the controversial Tweedbank expansion were shocked to learn that demolition of the house was now considered to be the best option after a number of other possibilities were examined and discarded as unviable.

These included converting the house into a hotel, turning it into residential apartments, or marketing it with a price tag of £1 million.

An individual who contacted Not Just Sheep & Rugby after our coverage of the report commented: "There is no mention in the document of the fact that selling or developing the big house was to be one of the financial contributions to investment payback. Now it is to become a cost and not a benefit."

Thursday's meeting will be told that total demolition of Lowood House, long-time home of the Hamilton family, would cost the council more than £400,000.

The Design Guide referred to earlier was published by SBC just 21 months ago with the lengthy title of Tweedbank - Vision for Growth & Sustainability. A Community for the Future. Delivering Development Quality.

There are numerous references to Lowood House and its environs in the document which was to be used as a guide by developers.

For example: "Planning applications should demonstrate that account has be taken of landscape, visual and heritage matters which address the importance of the surviving buildings, structures, boundaries, landscape and estate character, and their contribution to the site’s character and setting. 

"Notwithstanding this, the following prominent features of the site are considered to be important to the estate and parkland character of the site and must be protected and enhanced: • Lowood House • Cluster of predominantly stone with some harled cottages and outbuildings • High stone boundary walls, giving a strong sense of enclosure, and the hierarchy of other historic boundaries on site. Historic driveway giving a carefully curated sense of arrival to Lowood House". 

The guide makes it clear that development must seek to protect and enhance those features that contribute to the historic estate and parkland character of the site and seek to secure positive enhancements for biodiversity. 

"The relationship between the key natural and built assets on the site should be retained, and views preserved where possible within, to and from the designed landscape. The estate’s existing buildings are attractive and valuable historic structures which should, wherever possible, be retained within their existing uses or re-purposed appropriately. Developers should identify innovative uses and ways of conserving these structures as faithfully as possible."

But that is not all the Design Guide had to say about Lowood House.

The Tweedbank report included in its 'vision statement' the following: "The historic heart of the site provides a strong neighbourhood centre and acts as an anchor point for new placemaking. Together the historic estate character and high-quality designed landscape offer an existing unique sense of place which provides a creative springboard for placemaking."

And under a section headed Conservation of Existing Heritage: "The historic buildings and spaces in the area contribute greatly to the character and identity of Lowood. The key buildings and spaces should be conserved and enhanced as part of the development, including contributions made by their settings. Proposals for the area should be based on a proportionate understanding of their special interest and character. 

"The hierarchy of buildings and associated spaces in the area should be retained, with Lowood House retaining primacy, and the service buildings and cottages retaining their relative subservience. Historic service buildings should be sensitively repaired and converted in a manner that retains the character of their original use. This relates to their overall form and materials, but also their relationship to the road and other buildings, surviving features, and any surviving evidence of use that contributes to their overall character and/or patina."