EXCLUSIVE Revealed: Pippa Middleton plans to build a swimming pool and tennis court belly flop over Stone Age relics: Council officials cite ‘number of concerns’ about paving over ancient walls
- Pippa and husband James Matthews are building a pool and tennis court at home
- Conservation officers have ‘concerns’ about paving over ancient Stone Age walls
- Experts fear building a pool could ‘impact surviving archaeological deposits’
They have already rustled up £15million to buy a sumptuous country house, and have found time, as I disclosed, to issue eviction notices to various tenants occupying lesser properties on their newly acquired Berkshire estate.
But Pippa Middleton and her financier husband, James Matthews, don’t have things all their own way.
I can reveal that the couple’s plans to insert a mammoth 82 ft x 19 ft swimming pool in what, until now, has been a magnificent kitchen garden, and to create a brand new tennis court topped with AstroTurf, have been called into question by specialists employed by the local council.
‘I have a number of concerns,’ reports the conservation officer, citing the cessation of ‘horticultural use’ in favour of ‘recreational/leisure use’, and the potential loss of ‘historic fabric’ in one of the ancient walls which the Princess of Wales’s 39-year-old sister and James, 47, intend to perforate. The conservation officer is requesting more detailed plans of the tennis court and a proposed pergola.
Pippa Middleton and her financier husband James Matthews (pictured in 2017) plan to insert a mammoth 82 ft x 19 ft swimming pool at their sumptuous country house and create a brand new tennis court topped with AstroTurf
They have already rustled up £15million to buy a sumptuous country house, and have found time, as I disclosed, to issue eviction notices to various tenants occupying lesser properties on their newly acquired Berkshire estate
Significant though those concerns are, they are eclipsed by those of the council’s senior archaeologist, who highlights apparent deficiencies in a heritage report which Pippa and James commissioned.
‘I am not aware that [its] authors consulted the Historic Environment Record,’ the archaeologist says, noting that this is required by the National Planning Policy Framework.
That’s not all. The Matthews’ mansion, they add, is close to ‘many Middle Stone Age sites’ — several little more than a quarter of a mile away. If a new pool is dug, it could ‘have an impact on surviving archaeological deposits’.
The council recommends ‘the digging of trenches or test pits’ where work is proposed.
Would it be simpler, perhaps, to upgrade the existing pool and retain the kitchen garden — where, in time, there may be a blue plaque erected to commemorate a previous incumbent whose ownership, the official says, ‘adds to the historical significance of the house and grounds’?
Source: Read Full Article
