HIGHGATE NEW TOWN PHASE 1, CAMDEN Community-led Conservation Guidance for inclusion in the Dartmouth Park Conservation Area and Application for Grade II* Listing

4.10.3 Views from neighbouring streets provide glimpses through the alleyways between Raydon Street
and Stoneleigh Terrace. There was previously a degree of inter-visibility between HNT and Highgate
Cemetery, which is today screened by mature planting. However, inter-visibility between HNT
and the cemetery remain in the expansive views of the cemetery afforded from the south of the
former bridle path and the elevated walkways above the inclined approach from Raydon Street
along Stoneleigh Terrace. The incline along Stoneleigh Terrace provides a key view into HNT from
the cemetery gates at Raydon Street, contrasting with both the stepped accesses from Raydon
Street along Stoneleigh Terrace and the gateway entrances from Dartmouth Park Hill. The gateway
entrances where their stairs, access and ramps and gantries meet, command views over the
Girdlestone Estate and Whittington Hospital and with their clear affinity with the gates of the hilltowns,
are a practical means of accommodating the underground parking required by the MHLG.
4.10.4 The views, setting and patterns of use at HNT are intertwined in a sense of intimacy and community
across the outdoor space. Key examples being the paired-entrances to dwellings and the bridges at
the upper level and the walkway views over Highgate Cemetery from Stoneleigh Terrace. A broader
sense of shared amenity is present in the public-spaces and greens, which are all small enough to
have some intimacy. Residents discussed a sense of ownership or proprietorship over the spaces
near their own residences and a general sense of liberty of use in which they feel comfortable to use
the different spaces. Within this they are in some ways local to the different terraces. Practically, the
choice of routes from residences, along the street, down to Raydon Street or Dartmouth Park Hill,
via steps or to other areas of HNT via squares and cut-through routes provides immediate access
and avoids lengthy circulation. At the same time the logical axial layout is easily readable.
5 Heritage Values
5.1 Introduction
5.1.1 Heritage significance is defined in NPPF Annex 2 as: ‘the value of a heritage asset to this and future
generations because of its heritage interest. That interest may be archaeological, architectural,
artistic or historic. Significance derives not only from a heritage asset’s physical presence, but also
from its setting.’ Current national guidance for the assessment of the significance of heritage assets
is provided in Conservation Principles, Policies and Guidance for the Sustainable Management
of the Historic Environment (Historic England 2008). This guidance establishes significance is
weighing consideration of the potential for the asset to demonstrate the following value criteria:
Evidential value. Deriving from the potential of a place to yield evidence about past human activity.
Historical value. Deriving from the ways in which past people, events and aspects of life can be
connected through a place to the present. It tends to be illustrative or associative.
Aesthetic value. Deriving from the ways in which people draw sensory and intellectual stimulation
from a place.
Communal value. Deriving from the meanings of a place for the people who relate to it, or for whom
it figures in their collective experience or memory. Communal values are closely bound up with
historical (particularly associative) and aesthetic values, but tend to have additional and specific
aspects.
5.1.2 This section draws together baseline data (set out above) to present HNT in terms of these four
value categories.
5.2 Evidential Value
Evidential value derives from the potential of a place to yield evidence about past human activity.
5.2.1 The Evidential value of HNT is in its achievement as community-focused design which successfully
produces an open space/route strategy by reconciling the qualities of the Italian hill-town with
continuity with Victorian Highgate. This is achieved with a tangible sense of informality and
intimacy, through careful arrangement of discrete public and semi-public areas and a clear sense
of proprietorship over ‘street’ which sets it apart from the other Camden housing schemes built
under Sydney Cook. Its design realises ‘eyes on the street’ and other ideas concerning community
safety and surveillance from Jacobs in the democratic spirit of the open-society sought by Team 10,
the Smithsons, Jaap Bakema and others. This is achieved in part by interpreting Chermayeff and
Alexander’s practical application to design which moves from intention to realisation of a scheme
which places the anonymous client of the resident community centre stage. Considered together
with the diverse influences of Richard and Su Rogers, Goldfinger, Lasdun, Brown and others HNT
with its eclectic mix of Victorian Highgate and Italian hill-town, makes a highly significant contribution
to the housing of the period.
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