The Life, almost death and re-birth of an institution as a family home.
The original historic house was built in 1872 as a boarding house for a well known public school in Rutland, and was built privately by a local builder for one of the school’s masters in the “gothic revival” style of architecture. It was said to be of the “school of Charles Barry” and was probably based on the architectural designs of his son, also called Charles. The house was one of four built to accommodate the school’s masters and their families, their servants and the schoolboys who boarded. The original house was designed to have the re-imagined look of a small priory or grange, an appearance deemed suitable for an adjunct to a reformed Victorian public school. It’s heyday was the time of the Reverend George Christian in the 1880s and 1890s who was the first resident. In WW2, from 1939 to 1946, the house was occupied by the upper years of Kingswood School who were evacuated from Bath, and in the 1950s and early 1960s it was used as an over-spill for a local Rutland primary school.
After 90 years of boarding school life, no doubt with a fair bit of tedium, trauma, joy and achievement, the old house was in a poor state of repair and drastic retrenchment of the building took place. In 1962 the dormitory and a third of the main house were demolished, and the whole of the original roof and the second floor were taken off the top. The house was left with a flat roof behind a parapet with an ugly blank rear elevation. It must have looked a little like a Jacobean hunting lodge, which often had flat roofs behind parapets; locally the phrase “dis-masted” was used. The sadly decimated building became the school bursar’s house with accommodation for single school teachers until the late 1980s, when it became surplus to the school’s requirements. An incongruous hipped roof in second hand concrete tiles was then added, which made the house look like an oversized pair of 1930s semi detached houses bizarrely constructed of stone with a single gothic arched door.
The tragically reduced and despoiled historic house was eventually sold to an older couple who were looking for a challenge in their retirement, and they made it into a home again in the early 1990s.
KM Architects’ clients were the son and daughter-in-law of this couple, and they purchased the house from his mother. They wished to restore the historic house to it’s earlier glory and make a comfortable home to suit modern day living for themselves and their children, also provide a contemporary extension to be an “annex for independent living” at the rear of the main house for his mother.
KM Architects carried out a measured survey before completing scaled drawings of the existing and sketch designs for the clients based on historical architectural research. This restored the missing storey and parts of the house as it was when first constructed. More recent inappropriate additions and materials were removed and a contemporary extension designed for the client’s mother which took account of her brief and Swedish heritage. When the clients were happy with the sketch design it was then worked up into planning drawings, and KM Architects submitted a planning application and successfully obtained planning approval. Building regulations drawings were produced and approval obtained before further working drawings and a specification were produced and submitted to reliable contractors local to Rutland, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire for tender. KM Architects advised the clients on the selection of contractor after receipt of the tenders, and drew up a contract for the successful contractor before project managing the construction work on site.
As part of phase one traditional ashlar ironstone was used for the main walls, and limestone quoins and decorative features were added. The alterations were partly a restoration and partly an adaptation using traditional forms and materials to harmonise with the existing, except for the contemporary rendered projection housing part of the annex kitchen/dining room on the ground floor and annex study on the first floor.
In phase two the most unfortunate concrete tiled hipped roof was removed and an authentically steep plain tile roof was added, complete with stone gables and chimneys, in keeping with the gothic revival design of the original. This was not a full restoration, but instead was more of a sympathetic reworking.
In phase three parts of the interior of the historic house were renovated and remodelled.
The project was part adaptation and part restoration, to create a home which is useable, true to the spirit of the original and beautiful. For KM Architects as architectural designers it was a most rewarding opportunity to work on the restoration, renovation and re-modelling of a fine, rather quirky building, working with enlightened clients and quality builders for the next stage in the life of the building following it’s 140 year journey from Victorian institution to 21st century family home.
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