Castle Corner | Beckington
The adaptation of a grade II listed house and conversion of an outbuilding for rural enterprise.
The Mendip village of Beckington rose to prominence in the 16th Century as an important centre for the wool and cloth trade.
Occupying a central location at the historic core of the village, 15 Castle Corner comprises a collection of Grade II listed buildings enclosed by boundary walls and closely associated with its immediate neighbours: Wool Hall and Beckington Castle. Following a period of neglect in the early 21st Century, Hiraeth were appointed to design 2 key projects for the site.
The first focused on the main house and saw the removal of modern internal and external alterations, the reinstatement of original fenestration, repair works, and the provision of a single storey extension to the rear, with associated landscaping works.
Following the success of this application, we were then challenged with the repair and creative reuse of the existing prominent outbuildings. A scheme was subsequently developed to convert the largest of the outbuildings to provide a flexible space to support rural enterprise.
Although an unassuming, and perhaps quite awkwardly placed, farmhouse, Castle Corner formerly known as Ivy House Farm, has a fairly wild history. Likely originating from the 17th Century, the principal stone dwelling fronted the village centre but provided access to a collection of barns and outbuildings and open countryside to the south. Now encompassed by the village, the site has a very different context, and the conversion of associated barns further disguises its original agricultural purpose.
In the latter part of the 20th Century, the property became closely associated with the use and function of the neighbouring Wool Hall. In the 1980s the Wool Hall was purchased and converted by the pop group Tears for Fears into a recording studio, being used initially as a private studio. In 1994, Van Morrison purchased the Wool Hall and it served as one of his main recording studios, developing a national reputation with artists including The Smiths, Annie Lennox, Stereophonics and The Pretenders all using the studios over the next 20 years.
During this time Castle Corner was substantially converted and altered to provide residential accommodation for the studios, in conjunction with the buildings adjacent to the Wool Hall, now known as No.1 & 2 Wool Hall. The collection of buildings became a backdrop to the popular studio providing sleeping accommodation for artists and break out spaces including a snooker room and practice spaces. With the decline of the studio, Wool Hall and Castle Corner became redundant and we were subsequently approached to help bring the somewhat neglected farmhouse back into meaningful reuse as a private family home. The associated Wool Hall has also undergone its own major renovation and alteration led by Tuckey Design Studio.
The proposal for the main house removed the most harmful of the previous extensions and internal alterations and sought to address a linearly arranged collection of small cellular spaces with improvements to circulation and the provision of a single storey extension. Reinstatement of the original front door and creation of an entrance hall reorientates the house to the village centre whilst the new family room, hidden from public view to the north, opens the dwelling to its generous plot providing much needed distinction between areas for access and parking, and a private garden.
Although previously converted into adhoc support studios and accommodation, the collection of adjacent outbuildings has fallen into disrepair in recent years. The largest and most prominent of the outbuildings sits behind a nearly two-storey boundary wall to the public realm. A series of engagements with the Local Authority Heritage Team explored potential sustainable future uses for the building, the benefits of securing its long-term future being both to the public realm and the homeowner. Research demonstrated that the existing monopitch structure was most likely of a substantially difference scale and form, providing justification for our proposal to remove the existing roof and insert a two storey pitched roof container within the existing fabric, maintaining ancillary accommodation at ground floor whilst creating a flexible arrangement of accommodation at first floor to accommodate rural enterprise. Arranged in a linear manner with all primary rooms facing into the entrance courtyard, flexible compact rooms are capable of operating as offices, or as additional bedroom spaces ancillary to the primary farmhouse.
When viewed from the south, the low crisp lines of the house extension were designed to be in contrast to the rough, rubble stonework of the existing house. Large areas of glazing will accentuate this, contrasting the smaller existing openings of the house and transforming the connection to its external environment. The flat roof arrangement ensures that the original openings and form of the main house remain fully legible with a green roof helping to root the proposal as an element of landscape. The simple proposal is enclosed by a thick random rubble dry stone wall providing enclosure and subdividing the former farmyard – now a sea of tarmac – into a defined area for entry and parking with south facing expanse of private garden.
Strategically, conversion of the outbuilding followed a simple and familiar principle – insert a self-supporting lightweight timber structure within the bounds of the existing external walls of the outbuilding, replacing the roof and providing an internal floor deck at first floor. Maintaining a clear distinction between new and old, the strategy allows for reversibility and structural independence and follows an intent to make use of low carbon offsite construction opportunities.
Planning permission and Listed Building Consent were granted for both projects which, when taken together, represent a sustainable long-term future for this somewhat neglected, and forgotten, piece of local history.
