Holder of the KCC Award for Volunteering Excellence

Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund

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­­­­­MEMBERS’ NEWSLETTER  No 98                                                               _                   April 2009
 

Walking back to happiness

CONGRATULATIONS to the Loose Valley Conservation Area Partnership (LVCAP) for their excellent Walk the Valley event.

Around 65 people joined one of the three tours around different sections of the Valley on what turned put to be a beautiful first day of Spring. Our especial thanks go to Ann King, Roger Thornburgh and Bob Jesshope who led the tours. All agreed it was a lovely day out and the only question heard at the end was “When can we do it again?”

Because it was such a success, another walk will be held – probably in September, but in the meantime you can always pick up one of the informative LVCAP walk leaflets from Loose Post Office or Ali Barbers in Cripple Street and take your own tour.

*For more walk pictures, visit on our website: www.valleyconservation.org.uk

Riddle of the Sands – March 17

IT IS almost impossible to convey to members who weren’t there how excellent this show was.

There were just two actors, who managed to play at least a half dozen parts between them, all with completely convincing different characters.

Despite having almost no props or scenery, the company also effectively portrayed life aboard a small yacht, the perils of sailing through the sand banks, travelling on a train and the feeling of being lost in the fog. Full marks to the Chalkfoot Theatre Company!

We did well on the raffle and the snack bar thanks to the efforts of our volunteers and the generosity of our patrons, and so ended the evening with a profit of £129.

However, despite a relatively good turnout – we had 96 admissions altogether – the ticket income alone would have been insufficient to cover the costs of presenting the show and this is something that your committee will have to be mindful of in future.

Disappointingly we have also subsequently heard from Applause Rural Touring Theatre, the scheme from which we usually book our shows, that they too are increasing fees next autumn.

A rough calculation suggests that the average show with about 90 in the audience will cost us an extra £248 to hire.

For that reason, if for no other, may we urge members to make the most of our next show? It may be the last you get – at this price at least!

The talented comedian and pianist James Sherwood will present SONGS OF MUSIC for us at Boughton Monchelsea Village Hall on Saturday, May 16.

Tickets are on sale now. The price remains at £8 per person with children under 16 at £4.

Send cheques made out to Valley Conservation Society and an SAE please to

Bockingford House, Cripple Street, Maidstone, ME15 6DN, or leave a message on 751926.

James Sherwood

“He has a particular obsession with grammatical accuracy. He can demonstrate examples of errors in the use of the subjunctive tense and split infinitives. Sounds pedantic, but he reveals the faults and their remedy in a very witty manner.”  One4Review

“One number right at the start, an entertaining commentary on feeling happy despite bad weather, had the whole audience singing along.” Guru

"His entire set, from humorous songs to witty repartee, is beautifully, painstakingly sculpted. There's no flab and no filler.”  The Scotsman

Get a taste of the show by watching the clip on www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk6uZDh5dxw

Songs of Music

With

James Sherwood

 AT Boughton Monchelsea Village Hall.

Jim leaves

IT IS with great regret that we announce that Jim Williams has resigned from the executive committee. Jim was a founding member of the Society back in 2000 and indeed he hosted at Mount Ararat the very first meeting for residents of the Valley (on traffic calming) at which the idea of forming the Society was born.

His expertise on green issues has been invaluable to us over the years and he has always encouraged us to see the wider picture and inspired us with his speeches on the need for biodiversity and inclusivity.

Sadly Jim finds that his many other commitments have left him with no time to spare at present though we hope he may be able to come back to us at some future date.

His departure leaves us one short on the executive committee, which the remaining committee members may fill by co-option. Any member who feels they may like to play a more active role in the Society is welcome to come along to one or two meetings to get a feel for what is involved.

Next meeting: The next meeting of the executive committee will be on Wednesday, May 6, starting at 7.30pm at Bockingford House, Cripple Street, Maidstone. Members are always welcome to attend. Call 751926 for directions.

Grant Czar

WE ARE delighted to announce that Paul Amner has agreed to take on the role of Grants Champion for the Society. Paul will scour the various grant and funding offers available looking for a match with the Society’s needs.

If you become aware of any funding opportunities that you think it might be worth the Society investigating, please contact Paul directly with the details on 691560 or email him

on paul.amner@upgprinters.com

Traffic calming

TOVIL Parish Council has authorized KCC to begin work on a project of “road enhancement” for the Lower Loose Valley. 

The measures proposed are less than we had hoped, but are certainly better than nothing. They included “gateway” features at the bottom of Cripple Street and the entry into Cave Hill, buff-coloured surfacing there and at the junction with Bockingford Lane, small build-outs around the lamp-posts in Hayle Mill Road, kerbing and possible bell features around the base of the sack hoist at Upper Crisbrook Mill, wooden bollards at some points in Cave Hill and additional kerbing at various points where there is erosion to the edge of the lanes.

None of the measures will be sufficiently intrusive to force drivers to drop their speeds but they should reinforce an impression of narrowness at some points, hopefully encouraging cars to stop and give way rather than racing through. Signage will also let motorists know they are entering a special place – the Loose Valley Conservation Area.

We are grateful to Tovil for securing the funding for this project and for persisting with it despite the considerable inertia they encountered from Kent Highways. Work is scheduled to start on June 22 and will last three weeks.

Air rifles

AFTER a period of relative peace in the Valley for the last few months, the recent Spring weather has brought the return of the yobs like weeds popping up in the garden.

We are particularly concerned about those with air rifles, who like nothing better than to take a shot at the ducks on the ponds.

Carrying an uncovered air-rifle in a public place is itself an offence, even without its being used, and contrary to what you might expect the police do take the matter seriously.

They responded quickly after a resident reported youths with an air rifle in the valley last week.

WE URGE ALL MEMBERS TO REPORT ANY SIGHTINGS OF YOUTHS WITH AIR RIFLES TO THE POLICE AT ONCE – GIVE OFFICERS THE CHANCE TO CATCH THEM IN THE ACT.

Work Party

THE Tuesday work party can be seen every week, either on our ponds in Cave Hill or in nearby Treacle Wood. They usually remember to put up a sign telling us they are about.

If you are passing, do stop and have a chat – the lads could always do with a break.

There is always room for more to join the work party. They meet every week at 11am. Call Bryn on 746514 for details.

Good news for Old Brock

The Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said:  “Developing an effective vaccine for bovine TB

is only half the challenge. The other is to deploy it effectively. This project will help us do that. As such it marks real progress in our fight against this terrible disease."
 
The project will focus on getting the co-operation of the farming industry - which had been calling for a cull of badgers. Defra will begin to sign up participants and train personnel during 2009, with vaccination starting in summer 2010.
 

There are several badger setts in the Loose Valley, although these reclusive animals are usually only seen at night.

Digging deep in the past

THOSE members with a more scholarly interest in local history may like to hear of an opportunity to take part in a real research project while learning some valuable palaeographic skills.

The Kent Archaelogical Society is holding a workshop at its library within Maidstone Museum where, under the guidance of Dr Jacqueline Bower, pupils will learn how to transcribe 16^th century handwriting in a project to interpret a land survey of property owned by the Wootton family of Boughton Malherbe. The Wootton holdings extended across more than 30 Kent parishes. The survey, made in 1560 and held by the British Library, includes such important details as field names, acreages and land usage.

The class’s transcript and associated commentaries and articles will ultimately be published on the KAS website www.kentarchaeology.org.uk .

The workshop sessions will begin on Wednesday, April 22, and continue for the following four Wednesdays, from 2 to 4 pm. The course fee is £25. To apply for a place contact Joy Sage, KAS Library, Maidstone Museum, St Faith Street, Maidstone, phone 01622 762924, email joysage@btinternet.com

Dr Bower is also presenting a series of lectures on “Conflicts That Shaped Europe” at the KAS Library from Monday, April 20, and for the following five Mondays, from 10.15am to 12.15 pm. Course fee: £30.

Housing crisis? – not here

FOR well over 18 months now we have been hearing that house-builders were in crisis because of the credit crunch. Not so in Maidstone it seems. Figures just published by the Audit Commission reveal that “Maidstone had made good progress in the provision of new homes” with 992 homes completed in the year 2007/2008 compared with the previous year’s total of 714. That’s a 39 per cent increase!

48 Lancet Lane

MAIDSTONE council has approved an application (MA/07/2624) to demolish the existing house and to build six four-bedroom homes in its place – despite a similar earlier application being rejected on appeal. Officers said that alterations such as reducing the number of parking spaces, narrowing the width of the access and providing less hard-standing had made it acceptable.

South Ward Cllr Bruce Pollington called in the application to committee, describing the proposal as cramped and contrary to planning guidance. There were also 24 letters of objection including one from your Society. Joan Simkins, chairman of the North Loose Residents Association, addressed the meeting to try to persuade councillors to reject the scheme, but the majority voted with the officers’ recommendations. The voting was eight for, two against, and two abstentions.

 South Ward member Cllr Ian Chittenden pointed out that the scheme was contrary to the provision of the newly adopted Loose Road Character Area Assessment that had specifically identified the substantial size of the plots in Lancet Lane and their landscaped gardens as a significant characteristic of the area. Cllr Chittenden said: “This was the first trial of the character assessments and it has failed.”

Unanimous approval for Roy

ROY Hood gained permission (TA/0002/09) to fell 20 trees between Kirkdale and Great Ivy Mill in the Loose Valley – part of the Loose Amenities Association’s bid to install an improved public footpath. The landscape officer advised that the trees Roy wanted to fell were not of sufficient merit to justify protection by a Tree Preservation Order. Loose Parish Council had objected to the removal of four of the trees, but the planning committee gave its unanimous approval.

How to deal with Reynard

The other Conservation Areas

CLLR Malcolm Greer, the council’s cabinet member for regeneration, has signed off the Conservation Area Appraisals for Boughton Monchelsea Cock Street, for Boughton Monchelsea The Quarries, for Maidstone Centre and for Otham Conservation Area. These areas should now get some increased level of protection against unwelcome or inappropriate development. Cllr Greer has also ordered that management plans be prepared for each area – a slightly more pro-active step to see how each can be enhanced in the future.  We wish our neighbours well, while still wishing the council would also get on with a management plan for the Loose Valley CA.

AN extract from MBC’s Boughton Monchelsea Quarries appraisal:

HISTORY

“There is no evidence of pre-Iron Age settlement, although a Bronze Age brooch was

found near Brishing Court quite a way from Boughton Green in 1841.

To the South-West of the Conservation Area lies the Scheduled Ancient Monument of

Boughton Quarry Camp – this has been identified as an oppidum (a kind of prototown)

dating from the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age, when it would have been an

important settlement and administrative centre. In common with other such sites in

Britain, e.g. Camulodunum near Colchester, the central oppidum with its impressive

earthwork defences encircling it was also protected by outlying linear earthworks

which have been identified running for considerable distances to the north, south and

east of nearby Boughton Green. The area now forming the Conservation Area is close

to the central focus of the oppidum and within the outer defences, so the

archaeological potential for the Iron Age and Roman period is high. There is evidence

that in the wider area, Boughton as a whole was part of a major Romano-British

estate with the ragstone quarries being first worked at this time. Ragstone was used

in Roman times, as later, not only locally but also in London where the Roman city

walls were built of it. Apart from studies of Boughton Quarry Camp no further

systematic archaeological exploration has taken place in the immediate vicinity of the

Quarries Conservation Area.

Historically the thickly wooded area on the edge of the Weald would have been left

unaffected until the invading Jutes took over such Romano-British estates in the 6th

Century AD. It was then the transformation of the natural landscape began.

The Loose Stream, which rises to the east at Langley, has cut a deep valley on its way

to its confluence with the Medway at Tovil. This valley is cut down through the

ragstone, and the quarries evolved by digging out the sides of the valley to extract

the exposed stone, resulting in the cliffs which characterise the sides of the valley in

many places.

As far back as those early Roman times the exploration of ragstone as a primary

building material and the opportunity to exploit the discovery of this within the area

south of Maidstone and particularly the Boughton Monchelsea area led to a significant

use of Kentish ragstone from Boughton much of which was exported to Medway and

London in the building of Westminster Palace and Westminster Abbey. In the Medway

the stone was used in the construction of the ramparts of Rochester castle and in the

16th Century the rebuilding of Boughton Monchelsea Place.

In 1418 an order was placed with the Quarries well established at that time for 7000

stone cannon balls for Henry V’s army fighting in France. The stone was carried by

cart to Maidstone for onward conveyance by water to its eventual destination.

This exploitation of ragstone for such important building and other uses continued

right up to the 1930’s but by the 1720’s the fast development of farming in the area

began to become more dominant and as the Boughton farmers expanded their

activities to develop their principle products of hops, fruit and corn for the Maidstone

and London markets by the 1800’s the importance of quarrying began to decline,

hastened by the opening of larger quarries elsewhere.

Boughton derives its name from the Jutish times when a place name “boctun” could

mean either “a farmstead situated in a clearing in a beech wood” or, “a farmstead

granted by charter”. Little is known of the settlement or its occupants until

immediately prior to the Norman Conquest when “Boltone”, as it had become, was

held by a Saxon landowner named Alcuin from Godwin, Earl of Wessex and father of

Harold, who was defeated and killed at Hastings in 1066.”

Complaints

CONCESSIONARY fares have overtaken planning issues as a subject of complaint to Maidstone council, figures given to the council’s standards committee indicated. There were 30 complaints about the way the council handled planning issues in the year 2007/08, but 38 about concessionary fares. Waste collection remained the hottest topic with 53 complaints. Altogether there was a 25 per cent increase in complaints to the council that year and the number of complaints about Maidstone to the Local Government Ombudsman also rose to 36.

Hayle Mill

PJ LIVESEY has inexplicably withdrawn their application (MA/08/2387) and corresponding listed building application (MA/08/2388) to provide an additional 11 parking spaces at Hayle Mill. We await developments.

Website: You can visit the Society’s website on www.valleyconservation.org.uk

You can email the chairman on bryncornwell@yahoo.co.uk or phone him on 01622 746514.

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