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4th July, 2026
It’s excellent news that the workshop will be brought back into use. But once again, the Port of Berwick has demonstrated its inability to respond sensitively to the heritage in its back yard by submitting an application to put modern-style, horizontal, bland windows into two sides of the Victorian workshop.
See application 26/01768/FUL: “Install three fixed light windows and building cladding for painting either grey or navy.”
Proposed windows for the stonemason’s workshop
The Victorian Society has politely suggested that glazing bars are used, while NCC’s conservation officer has objected on the grounds that the horizontal window orientation is not in keeping with the Victorian building.
It would be simple enough to rectify the error, so I hope they modify the design. Windows are incredibly important for the look of a building: they can make or break its appeal. The windows could perhaps be broken into three smaller, vertical windows.
Please do object if you feel that the stonemason’s workshop deserves better.
Although the application doesn’t mention it in anywhere else, the application form includes the creation of two parking spaces. And curiously, the name of the site is given as “A And J Robertson Granite Ltd”, the long-gone previous tenant.
NCC have apologised for accidentally processing another of the Port’s applications (26/01353/DEMGDO) wrongly. The Port has applied to demolish the garage in the stonemason’s yard; NCC didn’t realise it was in a conservation area, and decided it was a permitted development and waved it through. All the documents have now been deleted from the portal, and it seems that the Port will have to file the application again.