Project Template

Client	Charles & Denzil Verey
Address	Westwell,
Address	Burford
Time scale	2005-6
Budget	£170
Conversion of stone house in conservation area
Cottage converted to good sized house using traditional materials in innovative ways

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The clients for many years lived in Barnsley House with the famous garden designed by Rosemary Verey. After her death, this was sold to make a country hotel and the clients had to downsize considerably. They chose a spot at the edge of a conservation area in the beautiful Cotswold village of Westwell. The existing house was small with a strange mixture of traditional (stone tiles) and modern (steel Crittall windows) - but the garden offered wonderful possibilities		The solution was to take down the existing outhouses attached to the northern end of the existing cottage and replace them with a 2 storey building in Cotswold stone reusing as many of the old materials as possible - though the stone tiles had to be matched in with good reproduction ones. The conservatory merged with the kitchen dining to create a single space of 6m x9m - planning permission for this alteration only arrived once the build was well underway.

The planners were looking for a modest increase in size and had turned down previous applications from others. Denzil Verey wanted a large open plan kitchen/dining room with a conservatory, a larder and utility room. Charles wanted a special study where he could further his researches. The house had also to accommodate the many heirlooms that had been handed down - inevitably many had to be sold on.		The house was remodelled on the ground floor with the old dining room becoming an inner hall linked through a large opening to the kitchen/dining room - creating an even larger space. Charles as a furniture designer designed the window profiles and these were mirrored in the central cast stone mullion. Externally all the steel windows were replaced with painted softwood casements - the resulting building looking well matched to its surroundings. Denzil is delighted with her country kitchen with views all round, and Charles with his vaulted study - though so full of books and papers to be impossible to photograph!