A Brand New Barn-Style Home

When you’ve got the only plot to gain planning permission in your charming North Norfolk seaside village for eight years and, as it turns out, the last to get planning for the foreseeable future, you’d better make a good job of it. That was the responsibility that fell on Mark Hickling’s shoulders on the day, some two years after initially applying, that planning permission was finally granted for a new house in the third of an acre front garden of his sublime Georgian home.

Mark runs local developing firm Venturemark, and had been itching to build his own home for a long time after the process of restoring his house was finally complete. But this is an area that is strictly protective of its charming street scenes, full of cottagey charm, lots of flint and distinct local building materials such as Norfolk redbricks and pantiles. “The plot was in a Conservation Area, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and in a Flood Risk Zone — it really couldn’t have been more difficult,” explains Mark. “I wanted to build something that would add to the village — the plot was in a very prominent position and there was a part of me that wanted to show that new builds can look just as good as old ones.”

In addition to being a talented builder, Mark also has an eye for good design and ranks it as high priority in his projects. To that end he decided to take his “pretty comprehensive” brief to Tim Crump at the oak frame package supplier Oakwrights, who he had met on a couple of occasions and was very impressed by. “Tim’s really enthusiastic about his buildings and it’s very easy to buy into that energy,” Mark explains. “I saw some of their buildings and was really impressed by the high quality of the design and the perfect detailing of the oak itself.” Thing is, Mark didn’t really like the heavily nuanced oak frame exteriors, with an exposed skeleton and infills that are the classic feature of oak frame homes. Instead, he really liked the interiors that oak frames create, with open pitched ceilings and plenty of oak exposed on the interiors.

“We agreed to go ahead with a mix of oak frame and conventional blockwork walls,” says Mark. “This made it very difficult from a building viewpoint, because we had to ensure that the floor structure and the blockwork walls that we’d already started were in position to no more than 5mm tolerance to enable the oak frame to fit in place. It was certainly the trickiest part of the build.”

From the outside, the division is noticeable but also far from jarring. One oak frame section is covered with glass infill panels to enable light to drop into the centre of the house, while the other oak frame section to the front – forming the single storey part of the L-shaped design – has in part been given another blockwork exterior skin covered in flint, the ubiquitous local cladding of choice. The rest of the house is a more conventional construction, either brickwork or blockwork covered in flint. Somehow this unusual mix works perfectly and gives the house a barn-style appearance.

The day that the oak frame arrived on site was a real highlight. “To see it being erected so quickly, and so carefully, by the Oakwrights team was a real pleasure,” says Mark. “I’m fascinated by all the old traditional mortice and tenon joints, and it gives the centre of the house a real heart. Now the house has been up almost a year, I’m enjoying seeing it move around with the seasons and it has all the appeal I had hoped for inside.”

It’s not just the broad strokes of the exterior design that make this traditional-style home so well executed — Mark managed to extract every last bit of detailed finesse out of his team to ensure that, on close inspection, this is a home that feels like it’s been around for centuries. He came up with his own unique blend of multi-stock bricks to produce a softer, less deliberate exterior finish; all of the brickwork is flash-pointed (it must have been painstaking to do) to introduce more shadows and interest. In addition, the beautiful red pantiles were reclaimed from a nearby Dutch barn.

The hardwood windows were all bespoke, made to Mark’s specification by a local joiner. Here again, the beauty is in the detail. Rather than standard cills, Mark opted to set local pamment tiles to act as cills both inside and out, creating a charming rustic feel.

Most interesting of all to Mark is the changing colour of the exposed oak. At the time of H&R’s visit the oak has developed a distinct burnt hue. Mark explains that when it first arrived it was buttery brown in colour, and will eventually change into a much more weathered grey. “The black appearance is a natural part of the weathering up here,” he explains. “It’s got a real character.”

It was about this time that Mark, who all the while was working on the renovation of his own house to the rear of the new build, began to have second thoughts. “We’d always enjoyed living in our Georgian home as a family and the renovation of it made it absolutely perfect for us. The original plan was to move into the new house we were building in its front garden, but the more I thought about it, the more difficult I found it to contemplate leaving.”

Mark’s decision to stay where he was proved to be a good one for his sister, Wendy, however. Wendy’s family had been looking or a home in a North Norfolk coastal village – and this is one of the most sought-after of them all – and when she and husband, Mel, learned of Mark’s intentions, they asked him to complete the house, with a few modifications to the interior scheme, for their family to live in.

“It worked out really well. Mel and Wendy were very happy to leave me to continue to make the key decisions on the house — they wanted a few tweaks to the internal layout, naturally,” says Mark, “but the project carried on pretty much as it would have done anyway.” Mel and Wendy moved in in late 2007.

Internally, the pitched roofs continue the barn-like feel. There’s no shortage of living spaces — there’s a cosy living space complete with pool table on the ground floor and another one, more suited to adults, upstairs – both of them with pitched roofs – and spacious bedrooms. The front entrance takes you into the kitchen, American style, which is very much the focal point of the design. But the distinct highlights are the spectacular roofs. The oak is characterful and not the nasty yellowy colour you might occasionally come across — this is much more natural and rustic. Even better, the pitched roofs have the rafters infilled with tongue-and-grooved boarding which creates a coastal feel.

“I’m delighted with the response to the house locally,” concludes Mark. “More importantly, we’ve shown that building new can be a welcome addition to a sensitive area, rather than something that really has to stand out.”

Why it Won

Couple a perfectly specified home – from the windows to the individually chosen blend for the facing brick, from the oak framed interiors to the tongue-and-grooved ceilings – with an incredibly attractive design and you have that rarest of things — a new individual home on an incredibly sensitive site that is universally acclaimed as adding to its locale. The judges were particularly impressed by the quality of the design specific to a site — this is a tricky plot, with the rear of the house enjoying road frontage and views, but rather than present the village with a secondary elevation, the L-shaped scheme has created a wonderfully soft look. Despite the perfectly proportioned traditional exteriors, conjuring up all sorts of Norfolk tranquility, the interiors are much more ‘modern relaxed’ in tone — with lots of light and space and a layout designed for the very best of 21st century living.

Further reading:

• An Oak Framed Self-build in Oxfordshire
• A Budget Self-build
• Construction Systems: Package Building

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