Conservation Areas in Harborough district - Lubenham Conservation Area

Lubenham village is large for the area and lies in the Welland valley just west of Market Harborough. The main A4304 Market Harborough to Lutterworth Road cuts across the northern edge of the village, creating two  istinct parts: that around the large green adjacent to and north of the main road, and the loop roads leading south from the main road to the church and River Welland. The Conservation Area includes both the area to the north of the A4304 incorporating the village green and an area to the south extending to the church and adjacent old cottages. Other late developments to the south and west are excluded as is Lubenham Hall, a 16th century stone house whose moated grounds are a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The Hall is physically detached from the village area.

The entrance to the Conservation Area from the (A4304) at the east is marked by a large red brick Victorian house with red brick boundary wall down Hall Lane and an elaborate cast iron balustrade to the main road. Opposite are some red brick 19th century buildings. The minor cross roads at the east end of the Green is a significant node with a vista stop from the east at The House That Jack Built. This is an elaborate 1870s hunting box with decorative hung tiles grafted onto an older house with enclosed stableyard. Opposite is the pantiled former forge. The attached red brick cottage is thatched and forms a vista stop from the west. The northern area consists of the Main Street (A4304) and the large green with fringing buildings to the north. The main road itself between School Lane and Rushes Lane is closely developed on the south with continuous buildings starting with the yard wall of The House That Jack Built and including a public house and shop.

The large green some 300m long is bounded by roads and bisected south to north by a granite kerbed road with green triangle. It is an important open space within the village, fringed on its northern side by a variety of older and infill dwellings. The green itself is in two sections; the largest section to the west being bounded by hedges with a picket fence to the south. It is grass with some recent tree planting. The eastern section is in three parts: to the west, is a grass area recently planted with trees; in the centre is a narrow area of infill development of a 19th century red brick house and shop facing the Main Street having a late 20th century dwelling behind it facing the back road; to the east is a secluded area of the War Memorial and gardens with a mature sycamore backed by a garden copse area of mature trees. The War Memorial and gardens occupy the space which was previously a pond to which the large squat 19th century red brick piers with pyramid stone caps around these gardens relate. The lane alongside the eastern end of the Green has older cottages and at the north east corner the fine red brick 18th century Manor Farm House and the 19th century red brick farmyard buildings. Both here, in the central cross road and at the western end of the Green the verges are wide and give a feeling of space adjacent to the enclosed green.

The second distinct area of Lubenham is in the south around the Church, where the Church, the Tower House and Church Walk form a peripheral group jutting out into open countryside and meadows. The raised churchyard with retaining stone wall, around which the road loops, reinforces the openness. To the west, where Westgate joins Rushes Lane is a road junction island with an important group of scots pine. The roads here have granite kerbs. Close by is an area of grass enclosed by iron park railings at the entrance to Westgate. The scots pine together with the trees of the Tower House garden and the churchyard (coniferous and deciduous) are important visually especially as a group with the Tower House and Church seen from Westgate and from the A4304. The Tower House is an early 18th century house overlooking the churchyard which was elaborately extended in 1865 to include romantic gables and a tower with corbelled out stair turret having conical roof and windvane. The complex includes lodge, stables and high red brick boundary wall. The tower and windvane with the churchyard Wellingtonia close the view down Rushes Lane. The churchyard entrance with cast iron gateway close to the boundary wall of The Tower House faces up Rushes Lane. On the other side of the churchyard is Church Walk with older cottages including early 18th century timber framed cottages and some with Swithland slate roofs. An extension of this group near the church is the pretty Victorian village school with integral clock.

Rushes Lane linking the church to Main Street has a slight curve, is closely developed with a variety of red brick dwellings of various ages, heights and styles on either side. The road has. The space between Main Street and The Tower House, including plots along Rushes Lane have mainly been infilled with late 20th century red brick dwellings which add to the variety of styles and rooflines already formed in Rushes Lane. A particular feature of Lubenham throughout the Conservation Area is the abundance of holly and yew trees, in gardens and in the churchyard.

Lubenham Conservation Area map