The Town Wall on Hartlepool’s Headland is an early 14th century defensive wall which surrounded the Headland to protect the harbour and town. The Town Wall is both a Scheduled Ancient Monument under the Ancient Monuments Act 1979 and a Grade I listed structure.
The original wall was identified as having overtopping rates for a 1:1 year event that posed a threat to public safety, with the ongoing risk that an event greater than 1:20 years would cause significant flood damage. A total of 230 properties including Grade II listed buildings were identified as being at risk of flooding from overtopping.
Fundamentally in its present condition, when measured against today’s defence standards, the Town Wall no longer provided a robust standard of protection against flooding. The Town Wall itself lies within the Headland Conservation Area and therefore the Town Wall is a designated Heritage Asset. As the Town Wall is covered by multiple designations, it is a highly significant asset and therefore upgrading the standard of protection involved sensitive design and challenging discussions with key stakeholders.
In order to provide a significant flood defence improvement, works delivered through this scheme required a robust design to provide protection to 230 properties while at the same time not compromising the Scheduled Monument designation and adversely impacting upon this sensitive Conservation Area. This scheme successfully balanced these constraints and put forward a suitable solution to address these complex circumstances.