Clackmannan, Cherryton Drive, General

The following text has been prepared as part of the HES Urban Survey of Clackmannan, 2021-2.

OVERVIEW OF CLACKMANNAN C20/C21 COMMUTER EXPANSION AREA OF TOWNSCAPE CHARACTER

The Clackmannan C20/C21 Commuter Expansion Area of Townscape Character filled in spaces around previous expansion of the town, mainly to the north, south and east of the burgh core where private and speculative housing development has occurred from the late 1960s onwards. In the 1980s, the A907 was re-routed as a bypass road around the north side of the village and much of the later commuter town development has occurred in the land sitting between Alloa Road (formerly the A907) and this bypass.

Several societal changes are at play in influencing Clackmannan’s continued expansion from the late 1960s up till the present day. From the 1970s in particular, there was a shift towards home ownership rather than renting or local authority-supplied housing. Over the course of the late 1960s, local authorities began to withdraw from building council housing, but there was still a demand and a need for houses. Alongside this, tighter restrictions started to be imposed on eligibility for council housing. As a result, private housebuilders commenced building homes for owner occupation, and banks and building societies began offering mortgages more widely which enabled people to purchase their own home.

In tandem with home ownership, car ownership at this time was also increasing, and this influenced people’s decisions about where to live and work. Owning a car provided more options on where to live as people were not then restricted to places close to their workplace and/or with good public transport connections. Suburbs and smaller towns on the outskirts of larger settlements became ‘commuter towns’. Clackmannan saw itself becoming such a town even as early as the late 1960s.

The vast majority of development within the Clackmannan C20/C21 Commuter Expansion Area of Townscape Character has been residential, with the provision of a new larger school and health centre to support the growing population in the town being the only other additions to the townscape in this time. This Area displays many different features from the Clackmannan Historic Core (NS99SW 164) and the Clackmannan C20 Industrial Expansion (NS99SW 165) Areas of Townscape Character.

Common features across the Clackmannan C20/C21 Commuter Expansion Area of Townscape Character, from the earliest to most recent, include materials used: red brick to provide detailing; cream/beige/white harling; sections of artificial stone facing; and timber cladding/weatherboarding. A variety of properties are spread throughout the Area, but they are mostly two-storeyed or bungalows, with semi-detached or terraced more prevalent in the earlier developments, then detached larger properties more recently, though with a return to inclusion of terraced and flatted social housing.

The late 20th/early 21st century has seen the rise in private housebuilders dominating development and housing provision. As a result, most of the housing from this period are examples of styles and designs seen across the country. Property firms simply take a mix of their designs and arrange them to best fit the land available to them, rather than considering local styles and materials. Street layouts during this period, as seen here, are less structured than during earlier periods, with cul-de-sacs and meandering streets adding interest to the townscape. There has however been very little non-domestic development in Clackmannan during this period. The only examples of late 20th-/early 21st-century additions are the new primary school on Lochies Road (NS99SW 134), and the health centre at the junction of Main Street/North Street/Cattlemarket. The town centre/burgh core still retains some civic facilities such as the church and town hall/library (NS99SW 103), along with a few commercial units.

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION OF CLACKMANNAN C20/C21 COMMUTER EXPANSION AREA OF TOWNSCAPE CHARACTER

LATE 1960s/1970s

The Devonway (NS99SW 132) and Mary Place developments appear to have been built in the mid- to late 1960s in the north of the town between Tower Place and the cemetery and is the earliest development in the Clackmannan C20/C21 Commuter Expansion Area of Townscape Character. These schemes consist of terraced and semi-detached two-storeyed houses, with flat-roofed blocks of garages set apart from the houses, arranged around a series of cul-de-sacs, with some properties at right angles to the main streets, and accessed via footpaths flanking shared open green space. Devonway also contains a group of semi-detached bungalows on the northern and eastern edge of the scheme. All have brown or red corrugated tiled roofs, are white-harled with red brick detailing to base courses, where gable-end walls face the main street, and also within paired entrances to the bungalows. These bungalows are of the same style as the small group of bungalows designed by William Higgins Henry (1905-84) at Backwood Court (NS99SW 137) within the Clackmannan C20 Industrial Expansion Area of Townscape Character (NS99SW 165). Most have had the original windows and doors replaced, and a handful have had small extensions or canopied porches added. However, the original structure and layout of the area can still be recognised. In the midst of Devonway, is a single-storeyed pitched-roof commercial unit, which has operated recently (2000s) as a carpet shop and hair salon, though this would have originally been built as a small neighbourhood shop. Many late 20th-century developments built outwith original burgh boundaries or town centres, had convenience stores included in the schemes to provide residents with the basic necessities, meaning they didn’t have to travel far for occasional groceries over and above their main weekly shop, as well as helping to foster a sense of community within the schemes.

The 1970s saw development start to occupy land to the south-east of the town, filling the space between Alloa Road and the railway line. The first development here took place in Brucefield Crescent (NS99SW 130), which had two phases: Nos 1-9 and 2-16 on the south-west half of the crescent being built in the early 1970s; the remaining portion to the north being a continuation begun in the early 1980s. The first phase consists of six pairs of semi-detached and one detached house. All are composed of yellow brick at ground floor and to side elevations, with white or grey harled upper storeys, weatherboard panels below first-floor windows and brown corrugated tile roofs. No 1 is detached and appears of a slightly later design with its front elevation entirely composed of yellow brick, and varied roof levels. The early 1980s phase introduces more variety in design with a mix of bungalows and two-storeyed properties, using red and yellow brick, harling, and some rusticated artificial stonework.

Mannan Drive (NS99SW 136), St Serf’s Grove, Mercat Place and Ladywood continued to expand the town to the south-east during the mid- to late 1970s. These streets comprise a variety of styles with a mix of one-and-a-half- and two-storeyed, semi-detached, and detached homes, interspersed with semi-detached bungalows, all set in fairly large plots. While the development is composed of fairly regular blocks, there are cul-de-sacs leading off, and at the end of, St Serf’s Grove on the edge of town, and boundaries are marked by hedges of varying heights, low boundary walls, or fences, though many are open to the pavement and road. A variety of materials has also been used throughout the scheme, mostly red brick (though some yellow brick and rusticated artificial stone) with white/grey/beige harling, and some painted timber weatherboarded panels. Roofs are mostly red pantiles and grey or brown corrugated tiles.

Dating from 1974, Burnside Crescent (NS99SW 135) consists of a small group of seven semi-detached, two-storeyed houses and two semi-detached bungalows, with red brick to ground floor, cream/beige harled upper storeys, and grey corrugated tile roofs. Bungalows have red brick sections defining where they join. A third pair of semi-detached bungalows (Nos 5 and 6), nearest the slope down to Goudnie Burn, were demolished due to subsidence in 2009 (CC130809 Item 08 Demolition of 5 & 6 Burnside Crescent, Clackmannan (clacks.gov.uk) Clackmannanshire Council Head of Housing, Property & Benefit Advice Service Report to meeting, 13/8/2009 (accessed 21st November 2022)). These started to fill a gap between the town and the main road bypassing the town. The land beyond the crescent has only been developed very recently (from c.2018).

As a result of the growing population during the course of the 20th century, a new primary school (NS99SW 134) was built for the town in 1971-2. Set at an angle on a corner plot at the junction of Lochies Road and Port Street, the school was designed by the then County Architect for Clackmannanshire County Council, Alexander John McLaren (1922-2017). It demonstrates many features common to school buildings of this period, being flat-roofed and partly clad in a mixture of concrete aggregate panels and red brick, with large areas of glazing allowing as much light as possible into classrooms. The lower primary occupies a single-storeyed block to the south-east, while the upper primary is in a three-storeyed block to the north-west. These are linked by a reception and administration block with nursery projecting to the north.

1980s/90s

Clackmannan continued to grow during the 1980s. Forming a crescent with short cul-de-sacs leading off it, Cherryton Drive (NS99SW 127) in the north-east of the town is a medium-sized development from this time. This group of detached and semi-detached houses bear the hallmark rusticated artificial yellow stone to main elevations and cream/beige harling from this period, with tall corrugated brown tiled roofs with gables to front elevations.

Leading northwards off Alloa Road, Millbank Crescent (NS99SW 126) stands out from other developments from the 1980s by displaying a very English character to its design, being mostly faced in red brick with mock timber-framing and cream render to parts of the first floor on most of the houses. It comprises a mixture of terraced, semi-detached, and detached houses surrounding a small car park flanked with semi-circular grass verges at either end, which gives the street an open feel.

Elsewhere in the town are examples of individual houses from the 1980s/90s period, such as in Craigrie Road leading west out of town. These are individually designed, rather than uniform styles, but composed mostly of yellow brick or rusticated artificial stone, brown corrugated tile roofs and some sections of painted timber weatherboarding.

Pennyschool Place (NS99SW 125), off North Street, was built on the site of what was latterly the drill hall (NS99SW 107) and part of the local TA Centre (1940-c.1973), previously the masonic lodge (1923-39), and originally a school also known as the Penny School, which is where the street gets its name. This group of thirteen detached, semi-detached, and terraced bungalows are arranged around a courtyard, built in red brick with brown tiled roofs and brown paintwork to windows and doors, typical of the materials used in construction during the 1990s.

Duke Street (NS99SW 131) and Marquis Drive are also stereotypical of the red brick bungalow-style of housing that was being erected across Scotland during the late 1980s/early 1990s. Arranged along an H-shaped set of roads and cul-de-sacs to the south-west of Alloa Road, the bungalows are all the same design, though sometimes mirrored, and with some slight variations towards the north-western end of Marquis Drive. All are set back from the road, with no boundary walls to their large front gardens, giving a very open feel to this part of town, which extends into the 21st-century Laird’s Drive to the south-west.

Northfield Gardens (NS99SW 159) to the north, adjacent to the railway line, displays similar red brick bungalows to Duke Street and Marquis Drive. Although slightly larger and following a different layout and design, almost all houses in the street are of the same design, apart from one pair of semi-detached houses in the northern corner of the cul-de-sac.

LATE 1990s/EARLY 2000s

Moving into the turn of the 20th/21st century, growth slowed slightly in Clackmannan. Development over the late 1990s and early 2000s was on a much smaller scale in terms of area, though the scale of individual units was larger, with more detached properties being built. Livingstone Way (NS99SW 121) is a small cul-de-sac, off the earlier Millbank Crescent, consisting of four detached and eight semi-detached, two-storeyed houses dating from the early 2000s. Displaying typical styling of housebuilding at this time, they comprise rusticated yellow/blonde artificial stone at ground-floor level, white harling above, and red or grey tiled roofs. No boundary walls mean front gardens are open to the street, which is a mixture of red monoblock paving and tarmac, again characteristic of this period.

Just further south-east from Livingstone Way, Hetherington Drive is a cul-de-sac off the north-east side of Alloa Road, consisting of three four-in-a-block style blocks of flats and four detached houses. Apart from No 1, which is red harled with rusticated red artificial stonework and brown corrugated tile roof, all are a similar style to Livingstone Way, and may have been built at the same time by the same developer. Likewise, three detached houses tucked into the eastern end of North Street (Nos 29-33) (see NS99SW 124 for North Street General) may also have been by the same developer. Sections of stone wall form boundaries to the front gardens here, either reinstating an original wall, or reusing stones from the site to keep the historic flavour of the original back lane to Main Street.

Continuing south-west from Marquis Drive, and dating from c.2009, Laird’s Drive (NS99SW 123) forms the southern edge of the town and consists of a series of detached bungalows roofed with pantiles or grey tiles with red ridges. All are cream harled with rusticated artificial stone cladding to base courses, and ashlar quoins and dressings. Some detail has been added with a white mock timber framing feature in some bays. The street itself is a long meandering T-shaped cul-de-sac, paved with a mixture of tarmac, red monoblocks and grey cobbles. Front gardens are open to the street but separated by a tarmacked pavement on either side.

The most recent expansion in Clackmannan, starting c.2018 to present (2022), is Millburn Gardens (NS99SW 122) which fills the ground in the east of the town, between the A907 and Goudnie Burn. This comprises a range of detached and semi-detached houses along with terraced and flatted blocks of ‘affordable homes’. Two-storeyed, with a mix of red or yellow brick and white or cream harling, and grey tiled roofs, they are typical examples of early 21st-century family homes built across Scotland, and the UK, to standard housebuilder designs. The development has a through road, giving access from both the main road, the A907, and the B910 Riccarton which leads into Clackmannan from the north-east, but within the development are a series of short twisting cul-de-sacs, also characteristic of housing estates of this period (c.2020). The inclusion of ‘affordable homes’ is a common feature of housing schemes built during the 2000s, as the availability of older council, or social, housing was reduced as a result of the ‘Right to Buy’ scheme from the 1980s. Most, if not all, modern housing developments must include an element of affordable housing as part of planning permissions. These tend to be smaller properties within terraced or flatted blocks in the estates.

More in-depth discussion on the character of two further Areas of Townscape Character identified in the town can be found under:

-Clackmannan, Historic Core Area of Townscape Character (NS99SW 164)

-Clackmannan, C20 Industrial Expansion Area of Townscape Character (NS99SW 165)

Information from HES (LCK), 23rd November 2022