An Arts & Crafts Home with a Modern Annexe

In some ways we were very naive when we decided to buy the quarry,” admits Corrie Jeffery. “We had never applied for planning permission before, and really had no idea just how difficult it would be to build a house in such a sensitive setting, but we were so determined that even if we had realised what we were taking on, we would still have gone ahead and done it anyway.”

Corrie and her husband, John, had recently renovated a Victorian manor house in Blandford, Dorset, and were looking for a new challenge when they happened to spot an advertisement in the local paper offering a quarry for sale. Intrigued, the couple went to visit the site and immediately realised that it would make the most amazing location for a new house. "When we reached the sheer cliffs it was like walking into a giant sculpture," Corrie recalls.

Situated in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and encompassing a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), the land was being sold as a failing chalk quarry complete with machinery and dangerously derelict outbuildings. A two-acre plateau had been carved into the hillside during the course of 50 years of quarrying, positioned two thirds of the way up Dorset's Shillingstone Hill and commanding 30-mile views across the river Stour to the ancient Stone Age sites of Hod and Hambleton Hills.

This slice of land offered a dramatic location for a new house - backed by the 70-metre cliff rising above it and surrounded on the upper levels by the beech, ash and oak trees of Blandford Forest. Despite the daunting nature of the project, the Jefferys were eager to purchase the entire 35-acre site, which was swiftly dubbed ‘Corrie's Quarry'.

The couple invited Salisbury architect Gerald Steer to design a suitably impressive house for their incredible site, and applied for planning permission under the extremely strict PPG7 provision - known as ‘Gummer's Law' - which enables large houses to be built in the open countryside only if they are of outstanding architectural merit. Lime Kiln House is one of just a handful of such houses ever built in this way, and the first to be constructed within a SSSI.

"Not only did the planners need to approve the house itself, but we also had to establish that we would be making a significant contribution to the environment," explains John. "This involved drawing up a land management scheme, with the help of English Nature, which would increase the diversity of wildlife and protect the geological heritage of the site. We planned to complete a great deal of work, which included restoring the old lime kilns as nesting places for bats and creating the lake and a wetland area."

John and Corrie had firm ideas about the kind of house they wanted to build, favouring an Arts & Crafts design influenced by the architecture of Edwin Lutyens and Phillip Webb, using high-quality traditional materials such as oak windows, clay roof tiles and thick walls clad in a combination of brickwork, render and tile hanging. "We thought that the planners would say, ‘What a lovely house - away you go,'" says Corrie, "so it was a bit of a shock when our first planning application was deferred and recommended for refusal." 

Local people were extremely supportive of the Jefferys' plans to build within the quarry, although there were initial concerns that the red bricks and clay tiles might stand out harshly against the chalk cliff. These fears were allayed when an artist produced realistic colour pictures illustrating exactly how the house would appear in its setting from various viewpoints, and planning permission was ultimately granted for the original design.

The Jeffery family then sold their previous house in order to finance the build project and moved into a rented cottage in a nearby village close to the quarry. "There was a great deal of work needed on site before the house could be built," John explains. "Access was a real nightmare, and we built a road and laid over 25,000 tons of chalk spoil on the track so that vehicles could climb up here safely. We installed a sewage treatment plant and drilled an 80-metre borehole for water as well as clearing the land, which was like a vehicle graveyard. Our children mucked in and spent their weekends digging up pieces of Blue Lias stone from the old 1921 quarry floor, which we have used to build steps and retaining walls for a sunken garden."

A second architectural practice, Western Design, was employed to undertake the detailed design work, which included finalising the interior layout of the house. The butterfly-shaped floorplan is based around the spine of the vast main entrance hallway, which boasts an elaborate twin staircase, hand-carved in English oak, featuring plump decorative panels of leaves and berries copied from Corrie's own sketches.

This hallway doubles as a formal dining room when required, with wings of living space radiating off to both sides which enable views throughout the entire ground floor of the property. Instead of a separate dining room, John and Corrie chose to include a second sitting room for their children, Ben, now 23, and Stephanie, 13, which stands next to the large dining kitchen.

A rendered three storey tower provides a private office for John on the second floor, whilst a pretty projecting oak-framed oriel window in the first floor master bedroom creates a sitting room area for Corrie with wonderful views down the valley. "We love the quirkiness of Arts & Crafts houses, and visited a number of properties for inspiration," she explains. "It was important that the rooms should vary in shape and size as well as being extremely well-lit."

Tucked beneath the brow of a hill, the north-facing house receives no direct light for six weeks of the year, so the size and position of windows was vitally important to the success of the overall design and every room has at least two aspects to ensure natural light throughout the day.

All of the metal oak-framed windows are inset into the incredibly thick cavity blockwork walls, with chamfered cills or embrasures, which create an interesting profile. Folding sliding doors have been introduced in the main entrance hallway, the living room and within the oak bay in the dining kitchen, and these may be pushed back to connect the house with the newly landscaped gardens which now surround it.

A linked flat-roofed swimming pool building was built to one side of the main house, complete with a hot tub and sauna - and was designed to melt into the white chalk cliff which looms behind it. When the glass doors of the building are folded back, the entire white structure merges into the landscape and is virtually invisible from the village below. Internally, there are no supports to obstruct the incredible views and the walls have been elaborately decorated with a trompe l'oeil mural, depicting a ruined building set in a teeming jungle, where every leaf and petal is different.

"We were overwhelmed by the talented local people we met during this project," says John. "Everyone exceeded our expectations, from the joiners who made the staircase to the artist who painted our swimming pool mural, which meant that the quality of the finishes was even better than we could ever have imagined. At first people thought we were mad to want to live in a disused quarry. But when they see the views, and realise just how warm and welcoming the house is, they understand what drove us so hard to succeed." 

Further Reading:

• A Guide to Arts & Crafts Style House Design
• An Award Winning Arts & Crafts Style Home
• An Arts & Crafts Style Self-build in Cambridgeshire