This detached house was built in the 1890s but had been largely untouched since the 1940s. It retained its original layout including the servants’ room, scullery and butler’s pantry. The layout and services required modernising but we did not want to take away from the special character of the house. We relocated the kitchen from the Northside to the South-West corner so that it overlooks the gardens and benefits from direct sunlight.
This involved altering the service rooms of the house to make a new kitchen, family room and terrace with an outdoor fireplace. We took cues from the original building, matching the new rooms’ scale and proportion with the existing ones and replicating important details. The special detailed bricks were made to match the existing originals. The original mosaic tiles on the terraces inspired new finishes such as the floors in the bathrooms.
The clients also asked us to design a garden room, built separately from the house. It is intended to be a multi-purpose building, used most often as guest accommodation. The appearance of this room is of a Victorian orangery with large expanses of south-facing glass in a brick structure with a slated roof.
