The project, for a children’s day nursery, involved the conversion and extension of a Grade II listed farmhouse whilst retaining the original building’s historic fabric.
The farmhouse, part seventeenth and part nineteenth century, had been derelict for more than 10 years and had been extensively vandalised with few period fittings remaining. The surrounding land, previously the farm land associated with the house, had been redeveloped as a housing estate whilst the building at the heart remained empty and uncared for, clad in a temporary scaffold with a metal sheet roof and concrete buttresses to prevent the building collapsing.
The first task was to stabilise the existing building, underpin the walls, infill the basement and replace damaged structure. The majority of the seventeenth century external walls were rebuilt brick by brick using the original masonry where feasible. The nineteenth century elements were in better condition, but also required extensive remedial works.
Once the wall linings and ceilings were removed, the original seventeenth century timber frame was revealed for the first time in hundreds of years. The timbers were repaired, cleaned, treated for various infestations and exposed so their beauty can be appreciated.
New contemporary looking extensions, clad in black zinc and containing toilets and an office, replaced poor quality nineteenth and twentieth century additions and complement the existing brickwork.
The different ages of building results in a Nursery with variety in its’ spaces, from the cosy and vernacular seventeenth century, through grand and spacious nineteenth century to the more precise and angular modern extensions.