City & Country’s development in north Essex was designed and built with its green history in mind, creating a high quality development that respects the landscape and history of its location. Roseanne Field reports.
Situated on the boundary of Essex villages Lawford and Mistley and the town of Manningtree, Manningtree Park was built with the site’s history and surrounding countryside at the forefront of developer City & Country’s mind.
The site, located in north Essex near the Suffolk border, was identified by the developer as an ideal spot for new homes thanks to its potential to offer future residents the best of both worlds. The location benefits from good transport links not only to the nearby Colchester and Ipswich, but also London in under an hour. It’s also an area surrounded by countryside and natural beauty, with
the River Stour only minutes away and the wider local area known as ‘Constable Country,’ having provided inspiration to and been the subject of many paintings by renowned landscape painter John Constable.
City & Country purchased the site as strategic land on the edge of a settlement, and set about seeking planning permission for a significant development. However, despite its potential offering for buyers, gaining planning approval proved a tricky process due to its location beyond current development limits. “It was not a straightforward process,” says Simon Vernon-Harcourt, design & planning director at City & Country.
Despite the complications, consent was granted in December 2019 following an appeal, for a total of 485 new homes. These comprise a mixture of sizes and tenures to suit a variety of buyers, ranging from one bedroom flats to five bedroom houses, with 15% of the homes allocated as affordable housing. “Having a range of homes ensures a wide range of potential purchasers,” says Vernon-Harcourt. The plans also allowed for the development to include retail space.
Responsible & respectful
City & Country – winner of the Housebuilder of the Year award at the 2024 WhatHouse? Awards – was determined to ensure the development would respect its locality and historical use, an ethos it implements on every development. “There is a real responsibility in creating developments that look attractive in the landscape and naturally develop a community spirit,” explains Vernon-Harcourt. “We looked at the local villages, and also at the best examples of villages in east Anglia for inspiration in both the layout of the development and the design of the homes.”
As well as sourcing inspiration locally, the developer looked at the history of the site. “The first edition Ordnance Survey maps show the site as a green field, and from historical records we know it was used for grazing sheep,” Vernon-Harcourt says.
It was important to the team that this was reflected in the design, so the entrance to the development was designed to immediately reference both uses. “You pass through a paddock with rare breed sheep on one side and a species-rich lawn on the other,” explains Vernon-Harcourt. “No over-mown amenity grass, but a rich landscape that reflects the heritage of the site,” he continues. “The purchasers who have moved in love to see the sheep in the paddock and it helps connect them to the countryside.” The presence of the sheep is also a strong part of the site’s biodiversity.
Before work could begin onsite, extensive archaeological trenching had to be undertaken, but thankfully nothing major was discovered. There were also high voltage cables that needed to be relocated, but because the site was an empty, arable field “it was relatively straightforward to do this,” Vernon-Harcourt says.
The developer thought carefully about every detail, including the layout of the development. The project team drew inspiration from the Manningtree and Mistley villages which, says Vernon-Harcourt, “have some great examples of street patterns and vernacular architecture.” The development’s longevity was also considered, with the team wanting to create a community that would stand the test of time. They looked at all kinds of nearby settlements from villages to cities, including Orford, Finchingfield, Saffron Walden and New Square in Cambridge, with all “providing clues as to how we can develop a community of homes that will improve with age.”
A luxury feel
The time and care taken by City & Country to get Manningtree Park right is not an alien process to the developer. “Good design is at the heart of how City & Country operates,” Vernon-Harcourt says. In particular the team drew inspiration from the historic layout of Saffron Walden, which follows a simple street pattern. The main high street runs from north to south, with the other roads branching off it east to west to market squares and greens.
“We mapped this onto our design for Manningtree Park,” he says. This resulted in a similar main ‘high street’ running north to south that leads to a central village green, with an east to west road leading to a second green, explains Vernon-Harcourt. “Off this main street spur there are mews and lanes,” he adds.
The team wanted to avoid the maze-like feels of many new housing developments, which makes orientation confusing and difficult for both residents and visitors alike. “By looking at historic precedent you can create something that is easy to navigate and creates a great sense of place,” Vernon-Harcourt says.
The design for the main central green includes on its north side an area of retail, located beneath some of the development’s apartments. Inspired by traditional Victorian shop fronts, it has been designed with traditional joinery detailing and will include indoor seating and terraces on the south side providing a sunny outdoor seating area overlooking the green.
The idea behind the ‘Village Square’ is to not only provide an easy-access shop for everyday essentials – thereby reducing the need for residents to travel further afield – but to also create a social hub and meeting space, adding to the community feel. “We envisage that people will be able to drink a coffee while sitting in the sun and watching their kids play on the green,” Vernon-Harcourt explains. “This will help people meet and create a community spirit. The central green will provide a location for community events in the future.”
Inside each home, luxury has been added through the upgraded finishes that come as standard. Kitchens feature fully integrated appliances – including a wine cooler in four- and five-bedroom homes – and are finished with Silestone worktops and oak flooring. Bathrooms include porcelain wall and floor tiles and high quality Laufen Pro sanitaryware and Vado brassware. Elsewhere the homes include 100% texture wool carpets and built-in wardrobes in the master bedrooms. All homes also include Google Nest video doorbells, with the four- and five-beds also including Google Nest outdoor security cameras. Smart thermostats in all properties control the ground floor underfloor heating and upper floor radiators.
Much like the development’s layout, the exterior and construction of the homes was inspired by the local area’s history. “We spent a lot of time looking at historic details, particularly the eaves, barge boards and entrance canopies – so the homes have the right timber details that are a genuine reflection of the craftsmanship of this part of Essex,” Vernon-Harcourt says. They also played close attention to window sizes so the proportions would be right, with the final designs including larger windows downstairs and smaller ones upstairs: “Tall Georgian proportioned windows maximise light,” he adds.
High quality natural materials were used for the homes’ roofs, finished with handmade clay roof tiles and matching ridge tiles. These more traditional materials were balanced with the appropriate modern materials elsewhere: “We have traditional sliding sash PVCu windows and Hardiplank weatherboarding to reduce maintenance but retain the traditional appearance of the homes,” explains Vernon-Harcourt. Other homes have been finished with traditional clay brickwork in red and orange tones, with deep brick reveals to the openings.
The homes were built using timber frame – a method City & Country prefer to use wherever possible. “If you go back a few centuries, timber was the traditional way to build in Essex,” says Vernon-Harcourt. It’s his belief that building using blockwork is “very 1960s” and that developers should take inspiration from Scotland and Scandinavia where more than 90% of homes are built using timber frame. “Timber frame locks in carbon as the trees go, so has a lower carbon footprint, and also gives more room for insulation,” he explains.
City & Country’s homes, says Vernon-Harcourt, are built to bring a “fantastic level of thermal performance compared to anything built in earlier decades, ensuring a big reduction in heating bills for anyone moving from an older home.” EV charging and superfast broadband for residents are included as standard.
Much of the development’s sustainability credentials come from the green areas and amenities included – a factor Vernon-Harcourt says many developers “often overlook. Building a community where people want to walk with their kids or take the dog out – without jumping in a car – is important,” he explains. As well as the existing central retail space, City & Country are in talks with a supermarket to bring something to the site to further reduce the need for residents to travel.
Elsewhere on the site, a natural playground and dedicated off-lead dog area provide further spaces for locals to come together. There are also footpaths and cycleways integrated throughout the development’s parkland leading into the surrounding area.
The right ethos
Although the homes include luxury finishes, for Vernon-Harcourt, the premium feeling comes from elsewhere: “For me, luxury is about creating beautiful homes that fit into the local landscape and improve with time,” he says. “Creating a new development that takes the best aspects of traditional towns and villages is a challenging thing to do, but worth it for the result it brings.”
After planning consent was granted in December 2019, City & Country had the option to sell parcels of the land to other developers, but chose not to. The team wanted to ensure they maintained their own design ethos and not, in Vernon-Harcourt’s words, “water it down. We believe we are unique in the extent of work we put into creating special places and looking carefully at the local architecture to
create something unique,” he says. “We’ll be building for a number of years to come, ensuring we continue to build things we can be proud of and the new owners will love and care for, for generations to come.”
The build has been relatively straightforward thanks to the use of timber frame, which has enabled the build team to get the roof on quickly and start internal fit-out while the walls go up. Gaining highways approval however was a slow process due to the busyness of the local authority, who “have been very positive since the outline planning approval,” says Vernon-Harcourt. “It has been good to work with them as the scheme has developed.”
Phase 2 of the development launched at the end of September 2025, with Phase 1 having already received significant recognition. Within the UK award region of the International Property Awards it was awarded the ‘Best Residential Development 20+ Units Essex’ award for two consecutive years, in both 2023 and 2024.
It also has the seal of approval from residents already living on the development – Vernon-Harcourt asserts that they “love it.” He concludes: “They can see we have gone above and beyond to create a very special place that mixes history and detail with modern convenience and performance to give the best of both worlds.”