Heritage Statement and design advice for the conversion of a 19th century pub in Tring Conservation Area.

A pub that had stopped paying.

The pub had been losing money and had been through a run of operators. The owner wanted to convert it to a single house. The first design, taken to the council for pre-application advice, added a first-floor extension at the rear, demolished the outbuildings and took down a length of the yard wall for parking. The council’s officers resisted all three.

The decision would turn on s.72(1) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which requires special attention to the desirability of preserving or enhancing the character or appearance of the conservation area. Because of the corner site, the back of the building and the yard are in full view from Langdon Street. The outbuildings and the wall were part of what the council was protecting.

Advice before assessment.

We visited in autumn 2024 and reviewed the pre-application response against the drawings. Our advice was that the first design would be difficult to justify for the reasons the officer had given, and that the scheme should work with the existing rear buildings and avoid a first-floor extension. When a later set of drawings still showed the single-storey outbuilding demolished, we advised that its loss would not preserve the character or appearance of the conservation area and would fail the statutory test.

We also researched the building. The conservation area appraisal describes it only as probably late Georgian. We traced it to John Brown, the owner of Tring Brewery, who came to the town in 1826 and built a number of pubs in the 1830s, and followed its ownership through the breweries that succeeded his.

Ordnance Survey maps from 1877 to 1972 showed how the yard had developed: the single-storey range early, the two-storey stable in the late 19th century, and the flat-roofed links in the late 20th.

The Heritage Statement.

Our Heritage Statement set out that history, assessed the contribution the pub and its yard make to the conservation area, and distinguished the historic outbuildings from the modern additions around them. The scheme it supported kept both historic outbuildings and the yard wall, removed the modern additions, and added only a single-storey extension at the rear.

The first application was withdrawn in January 2025 for reasons unconnected with heritage. A revised application followed in June 2025, with our statement updated to suit. It kept the pub’s signage on the front.

Endorsed by the conservation officer.

The council’s Conservation and Design officer wrote of the first application: “The heritage statement by Heritage Unlimited is really helpful in understanding the history and significance of the building and the impact of the proposal on that significance.” She welcomed the retention of the outbuildings and the wall, and said the team was “broadly in agreement” with our assessment.

The officer’s report on the second application repeats that the Conservation and Design Team were “broadly in agreement with the heritage statement by Heritage Unlimited”. The officer asked for one further change, a smaller opening in the rear ground floor wall, and it was made.

Dacorum Borough Council granted planning permission in November 2025.