An Eco Friendly Award Winner

"Building this house has been a liberating experience," Sally Beevor explains. "Our previous home, Hargham Hall, was a beautiful Queen Anne property. We loved living there, but it offered no opportunity to experiment with modern colours or to introduce energy saving ideas because the house dictated the style of decor. Here, we have been able to let our imaginations run wild!"

Hargham Hall in Norfolk has been home to the Beevor family since it was built in 1690, and is now occupied by their son, Hugh, his wife and three children. The couple had often thought that a derelict woodyard halfway up the drive to Hargham Hall would make a wonderful site for a new house, and decided to try to obtain planning permission for a dwelling. This was granted as a replacement for a dilapidated cottage on the estate, situated on the edge of a new motorway development. The cottage was demolished and the local authority agreed to allow its replacement to be sited in the more appropriate setting.

"Normally, we would only have been allowed to build within 500 metres of the existing building," says Tom, "but it was in such a poor location that the planners agreed to the idea. Without the cottage its doubtful whether we would have been given permission to build at all, so we consider ourselves extremely lucky."

The Beevors knew that they wanted to build a wooden house which would fit in well with the surrounding landscape. Sally is a retired osteopath, and Norfolk-based architect Neil Winder was a patient who had purchased timber from the Beevors woodyard. "Neil specialises in eco-friendly architecture, and we visited his house and fell in love with it," says Sally. "We just said, 'Please can we have one too?' Once we had seen his work we decided not to approach any other architects on our list. It was such a simple, comfortable timber house filled with colour and light."

Tom and Sally sat down with Neil and designed The Old Woodyard, which is strongly based on Neil's own home. They requested a light, airy building which would relate well to its parkland setting and give easy visual access to the surrounding garden. "I have always been interested in the natural world, and Tom loved the idea of using locally grown resources to build something which would enhance his beloved Hargham," Sally explains. "The eco features were a natural progression. Once we had seen that Neil's house could be beautiful and ecologically friendly at the same time, it seemed an obvious choice. Apart from the solar panels on the roof nobody would ever know that this is an eco house as everything is extremely unobtrusive."

Environmentally friendly features include high levels of insulation made from recycled newspaper, non-toxic paints and stains, a solar hot water system linked to the central heating and a small, sophisticated, weather-linked oil-fired boiler. A reed bed sewage and compost system has been installed coupled with low-flush toilets, and all waste from the house passes through an Aquatron separator, which enables the flow of water to be diverted to the reed bed and the solids to be composted.

"There is nothing very radical about timber framed houses," Neil Winder explains. "Eco-friendly buildings often involve copying traditional methods of construction. I believe in using good quality local resources and simple techniques just as they did two or three hundred years ago. The Old Woodyard was put together by three men armed with hammers and a stack of nails, and most of the timber used in its construction was grown and processed here on the estate."

Two tumble-down timber barns on the site were demolished and the new house designed with single storey wings flanking a two storey central core. Clay pantiles were reclaimed from old farm buildings on the estate and the breathing wall structure clad in larch weatherboarding from the Beevors woodyard and painted with a grey eco-friendly stain.

"Neil and I came up with the team of tradesmen between us," says Sally, who worked full-time project managing the build. "It was very convenient living at the Hall and being so close to our site, and it meant that we could take our time and ensure that everything was just as we wanted without feeling stressed by deadlines."

Instead of standard concrete foundations the larch timber frame is raised up on steelwork. Twelve posts sit on concrete pads and act like stilts, which improves the view out of the windows and reduces the impact of building on the site. Neil specialises in designing houses capable of withstanding the effects of climate change, such as extreme temperature fluctuation and in addition to accommodating a large abutting ditch and a range of trees growing close by the stilts ensure that the house will never be affected by flooding.

The house has been designed as a low-key affair, with no formal entrance hallway. A door opens directly into a lobby, which is used as a utility area, and ramps progressively lead up into the open plan main body of the house. "One of the key features is the use of independent partitions," says Tom. "None of the internal plasterboard partitions reach the ceiling or touch the external walls, which gives a sense of space whilst maintaining a degree of privacy." Its cosy, and yet open and light - which is a very clever combination. Tiny spyholes have been cut into these partitions to further increase the connection between spaces, and each partition is painted a different colour in contrast to the white of the remaining walls.

The finished house is bright and airy, providing a study for Tom and an office for Sally. Large windows connect it to the natural garden and wild flower lawns outside, which feature a large swimming pond which they use on a regular basis. "Swimming in the pond is nothing like a swimming pool, which can be boring and rather ugly," Tom explains. From the house you walk out over a ramp to the pool, which was designed by a specialist company to look like a beautiful, planted pond and is full of wildlife. One section is divided under the water and is kept clean by a pump filtering through gravel.

"We were slightly appalled at how little we regretted leaving our old home," says Tom. "Because this house is such a joy to live in and so easy to heat and maintain."

To view more short films about Readers' Projects visit the Homebuilding Home Movies page

Further reading:

• A DIY Eco Self-build
• A Guide to Eco House Design
• Find out more about the Homebuilding & Renovating Awards