When King Charles III first embarked on plans to build an urban extension to the ancient market town of Poundbury, he was determined to ‘break the mould of conventional housing development’ and ‘create an attractive place for people to live, work and play’.

‘Many people said that it could never succeed, but I am happy to say that the sceptics were wrong and it is now a thriving urban settlement alongside Dorchester,’ he added.

Charles was speaking as the 24th Duke of Cornwall about the town which was designed in accordance with the principles of architecture he advocated in his book A Vision of Britain.

However, there is one ‘sceptic’ who disagrees with his assessment: Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud has compared the interiors of the houses on the Poundbury estate to a ‘modern developer home’ and believes they are ‘intolerable as an environment to put people in’.

McCloud, 66, who graduated in the history of art and architecture from Cambridge University, and has since earned his living as a designer, author, and TV host was presenting a keynote lecture at the V&A Museum last week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SAVE Britain’s Heritage.

In his speech, entitled Reinventing Buildings: A Manifesto For The Imagination, he said: ‘My general view is, and it’s a personal one I’m exercising my taste here, that I can’t bear the idea of reproducing an idea without it carrying the spirit of the age. 

'I’ll give you a very simple example of this.

‘I’ve been to Poundbury quite a lot, and there are some very fine built Georgian houses with lime mortar joints, very correct, rubbed detailing and proper section glazing bars, lamb’s tongue, whatever. And it’s all great. But you go inside these buildings, and they’re dead because they’re built of breeze block.

‘I went inside a beautiful thatched cottage in Poundbury to visit a couple, and they weren’t allowed to stick a conservatory on the back or a sunroom or anything because there were all kinds of design conditions around the scheme. 

'The interesting thing about a 17th-century thatched cottage is that it usually has the concomitant range you think of charming interior details, flagstone floor, a little bit of damp rising up the wall, big hearth, open fireplace, crooked beams and wonky ceilings.

‘And it was just horrible because it was like walking into a modern developer home, only the ceilings you banged your head on.

'It was intolerable as an environment to put people in, I thought from the experience of the architecture internally. 

'Of course, there are buildings there which are very high-status, and they’re the ones that you get shown around but I think there are other less comfortable aspects to it.

‘I have every respect for his Majesty’s tastes and views being the King. 

'Obviously, his taste arrogates itself about mine or anybody else’s, right? So that we understand. I think, as a social experiment, as an architectural experiment, great interesting. But no, not for me.’

In his lecture, McCloud, who hosts the podcast Tim & Kev's Big Design Adventure with Tim Ross, also called for a moratorium on demolishing buildings within the first 100 years of their life. 

‘The listing was granted on St Pancras, I think five days before the bulldozers were due to come in,’ he said, ‘so it was an absolutely last-minute thing.’

https://www.savebritainsheritage.org/news