CONTROVERSIAL plans to knock down an historic Oxford building are back on the agenda despite previously being scrapped.

The owners of Grove House in Iffley Turn want to build a two-storey home next to the main house.

But the building would replace a structure known as the Rotunda, which once housed an extensive dolls' house collection owned by Vivien Greene, the estranged wife of author Graham Greene.

The plans were first put forward at the end of last year before being abandoned and replaced with proposals for a garage, car port and new driveway elsewhere on the site.

But now the plans for a two-storey, two-bedroom home replacing the Rotunda have been revived with a new planning application submitted to the city council.

Lucien Senna, an author and poet who lives in the street, said she was very concerned by the latest developments.

She said: "There is just so much history attached to that house that this has got to be stopped.

"There have been no signs up about the latest plans and no letters put through the doors.

"It is very strange nothing has been said.

"I am going to contact the residents’ association because it is not something we can raise singular objections against.

"It is an exceptional piece of architecture that is unusual in Britain and we have to fight it together."

BGS Architects, which has designed the Rotunda’s replacement, said in its application the new building would be sympathetic to its surroundings.

Its planning statement: "The proposed design provides the same impact of the unexpected round appearance as its predecessor.

"The total height is, however, less than the original Rotunda.

"As we find Grove House to be the most important asset of the curtilage, having a taller element on site detracts from the grandeur appearance the villa is intended to have."

The firm added a cast iron staircase in the existing Rotunda, believed to be from the demolished St James’s Theatre in London, would be retained in the new building, as would a set of historic brackets.

The main Grove House was built between 1780 and 1823 and the Rotunda was added in the 1960s.

Vivien Greene – whose husband wrote Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory and The Third Man – opened her dolls’ house collection in the structure in 1962, 20 years after she began collecting them.

By the mid 1990s the Rotunda housed 41 of the houses and they were later sold at auction in London in 1998 as Mrs Greene wanted other people to appreciate them.

Grove House’s current owner, Rosie Penna, bought it in 2014.

People have a chance to comment on the plans until August 22 and a decision will be made by Oxford City Council by September 12 on whether they can go ahead.

BGS Architects did not respond to requests for a comment on the plans.