King Charles' Poundbury estate branded 'intolerable' by Grand Designs star Kevin McCloud
Tough crowd!Grand Designs star, Kevin McCloud, has criticised King Charles’ Poundbury estate, describing it as “intolerable as an environment to put people in”.
Poundbury is an experimental urban extension to the Dorset town of Dorchester. The development was led by the Duchy of Cornwall, and keenly endorsed by Charles when he was Duke of Cornwall.
King Charles on Poundbury
The project began work in 1993 and is due for completion next year. Poundbury is currently home to just over 4,000 people, and is expected to eventually house around 6,000.
It has been built in line with King Charles’ vision for sustainable living.
According to Poundbury’s official website, King Charles said of the project: “When I set out on this venture, I was determined that Poundbury would break the mould of conventional housing development in this country.”
He added proudly: “Many people said that it could never succeed, but I am happy to say that the sceptics were wrong.”
However, it seems not quite everyone’s been converted. The monarch seems to have found himself a committed sceptic in Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud.
‘It was just horrible’
In a keynote lecture at the V&A Museum last week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SAVE Britain’s Heritage, the designer, who graduated with a degree in History of Art and Architecture from the University of Cambridge, shared his feelings on Poundbury.
It was like walking into a modern developer home.
Speaking on the topic of Reinventing Buildings: A Manifesto For The Imagination, Kevin said, as per the Daily Mail: “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. But you go inside these buildings, and they’re dead because they’re built of breeze block.”
He recalled one particular thatched cottage that had left him disappointed.
“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,” he explained, adding: “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 have every respect for his Majesty’s tastes and views being the king,” Kevin emphasised, but ultimately concluded: “I think, as a social experiment, as an architectural experiment, great, interesting. But no, not for me.”
Read more: Inside royal family’s ‘military operation’ of Christmas dinner as King Charles hosts at Sandringham
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