Ashcombe
House

The house had been extended four times since 1840, each addition closing off a little more daylight. Our first move was subtraction: we removed two of the later additions entirely and returned the plan to a simple L.

What remained became a single twenty-metre room running the length of the north elevation — kitchen at one end, hearth at the other, and nothing in between but a limestone floor and a run of full-height glazing onto the paddock.

Materials were chosen for how they'd look in thirty years of use rather than on handover day: lime plaster on the walls, unlacquered brass ironmongery, oiled oak joinery cut from three trees felled on the estate.

Heating is a ground-source system under the limestone, which let us delete every radiator and keep the walls clean. Fabric-first insulation brought the house from EPC F to B without touching the external stonework.