An Arts & Crafts House Built Using Reclaimed Materials

"Our house has nearly caused a few car accidents as people slow down on the road to take a better look,” says Richard Ashley. “We soon realised that we had to keep our heads down if we were working outside to avoid eye contact, because we would never have finished build­ing if we were stopping to chat every few minutes.”

Richard and his wife, Kim, had never built their own home before, although they are experienced renovators and have undertaken some challenging projects in the past. The couple met at school and, from the age of 18, have been buying run-down houses to renovate, including a three storey Tudor merchant’s hall suffering from dry rot, which took six years to renovate while the family lived in a caravan in the garden. Attention to detail was vital for such a historic building, and the Ashleys devel­oped a flair for interior design which has proved invaluable.

With the social needs of daughters Sophie, Amie and Lily to think about, the couple eventually decided to move closer to Newmarket, and considered building from scratch. "We wanted a house with all the appeal and character of a listed building but with the benefits and low running costs of modern building materials," says Kim of the family's stunning five bedroom house, which overlooks a stud farm on the edge of a Cambridgeshire village.

Previously, the plot was occupied by an asbestos-clad bungalow, which Richard and Kim hoped to replace with a more substantial property. They worked with a draughtsman to develop their ideas and produce drawings to submit for planning permission.

"It's a narrow 0.22-acre plot on the boundary of the village, and we toyed with the idea of building a regular rectangular house, but decided that a T-shaped property, positioned sideways, would make better use of the available space and the views," says Richard. "We explained to the planning officer that we wanted to use high-quality, natural materials including reclaimed bricks and roof tiles, and he loved our scheme from day one. The only compromise involved changing the position of the house on the plot in order to remain within the village building line."

Digging into the hillside required a retaining wall, which has been built in Flemish bond using reclaimed bricks and Victorian copings. Hand-cut York stone flags were laid to form the courtyard patio while the oversite was completed, as access onto the site would have proved impossible for machinery once the house had been built. Kim was then responsible for designing and landscaping the garden - choosing traditional cottage garden plants.

The 300m² property has a spacious sitting room, a separate dining room and a kitchen on the ground floor. There is also a study, utility room and WC on this level, with three bathrooms and five bedrooms upstairs - one of which is built directly over the integral garage. A height restriction dictated dormer windows, with sloping, vaulted ceilings to the upper rooms beneath the multi-gabled, 50-degree-pitch roof. This is covered in reclaimed peg tiles and has two tall chimneys with diagonally opposed chimney breasts. Rendered walls stand on a plinth of reclaimed Cambridgeshire handmade bricks laid in Flemish bond but, under its skin, the house bristles with the latest technology.

Solid Aircrete walls of Celcon 300mm blocks were bonded with Celfix Thin-Joint quick-setting mortar and finished externally with a flexible lime-based putty render - bettering the U-value of 0.35W/m2K required by Part L of the Building Regulations. Originating in Scandinavia and used in many other parts of northern Europe, solid Aircrete with thin-layer mortar is well known for its insulation properties and solidity of construction.

"The house has cathedral-style vaulted ceilings on the first floor, so high insulation values were critical," says Richard, a civil engineer by trade, who first heard about the Celcon system through a friend. "It was difficult finding anyone with experience of building in this way - most builders in this country are only happy working with standard cavity wall construction. I eventually found a bricklayer who had just come back from Germany and, together with a labourer, we laid the blocks straight onto the brick plinth. Construction was fast and extremely accurate, with the walls going up to tight tolerances in a month. Recessed areas created a number of returns, making it quite a fiddly job, so it was very satisfying to see the progress." 

Building the roof was also an exceptionally fast process, taking just two days to complete. Prefabricated structural insulated panels (SIPs) were craned into position, complete with rafters, insulation and internal finishes. A further day was spent cutting the dormer windows, after which the entire building was weather tight.

"The SIPs system is great, but the company didn't send enough men which meant that we had to lend a hand," says Richard. "Unfortunately, we were forced by building control to install supporting RSJs, which protrude into the rooms, but we have made a feature of these by setting spotlights at either end to create angles and cast shadows." The Ashleys stayed in rented accommodation during much of the 12-month build, with Kim and Richard on site daily and undertaking almost every aspect of the work - from demolishing the bungalow and digging the foundations to laying the underfloor heating.

A beam and block floor would have required unattractive airbricks, unsuitable in a period-style property, so Richard specified a suspended concrete slab, fixing his own steelwork. Celcon's 300mm-thick Jämerä flooring was chosen for the first floor and the 52 reinforced Aircrete floor elements were installed by Richard and his tradesmen in a single day under Celcon's supervision.

"We felt that the heating would work better with masonry floors, and wanted to avoid creaking wooden floor joists," Kim says. The underfloor heating pipes were laid over insulation and an advanced self-placing screed was pumped through a first floor window - completing the entire floor in a couple of hours. This could be worked off within 48 hours, and presented a solid base for the 100mm standard block--work partition walls.

The Ashleys have paid great attention to detail and, although their bespoke timber windows are double glazed to meet current building regulations, the glazing bars are exceptionally thin - with additional internal glazing bars sandwiched between the sheets of 4mm plate glass to create a truly authentic effect. These softwood windows, the external doors and the French windows in the sitting and dining rooms were all made by Rolfe Joinery and have been painted in colours matched to the Ashleys' requirements. Many of the reclaimed materials were purchased from Solopark in Cambridgeshire, one of the country's leading suppliers of traditional period building materials. Nineteen thousand reclaimed clay peg tiles cost 64p each, and came graded and on palettes with very little wastage. "We actually returned 2,000 tiles and got a credit note, which paid for the Georgian fire surround in our sitting room," says Kim. "In the dining room we made our own timber surround, which has also been painted."

Not all rooms in the house are finished in a period style, however. The Ashleys wanted to introduce some contemporary touches, and the bathroom and en suite on the first floor have modern shower cubicles which Richard and Kim made themselves, buying barrier hinges and having the glass cut, polished and tough-ened. Travertine limestone has been used for the floors and walls, bordered with green tumbled marble.

"Building this house has allowed us to design something which suits us perfectly," Richard states. "Using reclaimed materials externally means that the building fits in with its surroundings, but we have been able to avoid all the problems usually associated with older properties. We could never live in a house designed by someone else after this - it would feel like taking a backward step."

Further reading:

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