SAVE LEADEN HALL

Grade I listed Leaden Hall was built for the C13th architect for Salisbury cathedral, Elias Dereham, to serve as a model for other canonries in the Close.  Although largely rebuilt in the early C18th, it includes elements from that original building.  It was probably the first residential building on Salisbury Cathedral Close and forms an essential part of that precious, protected setting.

In the early C19th the artist John Constable regularly stayed at the Hall and painted many fine pictures of the house, its gardens and landscape, as well as his famous views of the cathedral, some of which include the house.  Extraordinarily, much of that garden - a rare example of a designed landscape for a smaller Georgian house - remains.

Salisbury Dean & Chapter, having neglected the house for many years and allowing it to fall into a state of severe disrepair, have now applied to convert the building into a modern office block for themselves.  To get the insulation and floor loading levels required for a modern office, as well as some reconfigurations, substantial interventions would be necessary that would destroy or obscure historic fabric and alter the appearance of the building.  They would raise the ridgeline of the roof that faces the cathedral close and remove a chimney that forms part of its historic façade.  This will irreversibly change the appearance of the Hall, its setting and the other important historic buildings on Salisbury Cathedral Close.

The application also includes a proposal to build a large-scale, new archive building immediately next to the house, in its kitchen garden.  

This will destroy the Georgian kitchen garden - a very rare surviving example of one in an urban setting - which renowned artist John Constable painted.  The proposed new building will stand forward of the façade of the Hall, interrupting the established building line and impacting the protected setting of the Hall and other Grade I listed buildings on the Close.  The lofty single-storey building will abut, and in the next two decades be within the flood plain.  This means that the irreplaceable medieval manuscripts it is intended to house will be put at unacceptable levels of risk.

If this application is approved it sets a extremely dangerous precedent for heritage protection in England.  The applicant has delayed urgent repairs to the important Grade I building seemingly in order to use the building's poor condition as an excuse to push through a scheme that causes harm to the historic building, but delivers no public benefit.  

If the application succeeds, other owners of Grade I buildings might do the same.

Please act now, by signing this petition to alert the Planning Committee to these serious concerns and urge them to do the right thing and reject this harmful proposal.

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