Disappointment as Allbrook Farmhouse left to developers

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 19th Dec 2007

Chris Huhne earlier this year at the threatened site

Local MP Chris Huhne has expressed his disappointment at the failure of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to protect a local landmark.

The DCMSs decision not to upgrade the listing of Allbrook Farmhouse, home to Mary Beale, Britain's pioneering female artist, effectively means the destruction of the historic site and leaves the house's future in the hands of a developer.

Commenting on the failure to upgrade the listing, Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne, in whose constituency the farmhouse is, said:

"This is a very disappointing and short-sighted decision which fails to take account of the importance of Mary Beale in British painting. Given the protection offered to other buildings associated with artists, it seems quite contradictory and muddled. It is clearly better to be a Beatle than a Beale.

"I will continue to press for Allbrook farmhouse to be preserved and opened to the public as a place where Mary Beale's work as a portraitist can be seen, particularly since there are now a number of her pictures in public collections that are not being hung due to regional museum and gallery closures."

Robin Stummer from the Mary Beale Trust added "There are few buildings of such importance to the nation¹s artistic and cultural heritage as Allbrook Farmhouse. To decide to leave it with the same lower level of protection that applies to lesser buildings that have no link to the nation¹s artistic past is astoundingly short-sighted and a betrayal of the notion of statutory cultural protection for the common good.

The miraculous survival of one of the locations at which Beale worked and lived should be celebrated, and the building and its land be vigorously protected. Yet English Heritage and the DCMS have chosen to ignore her importance in the history of women, and of Western art.