With its pared-back design, this extension to a Victorian cottage is a stylistic and literal link between old and new
WORDS EMILY BROOKS PHOTOGRAPHY WILL SCOTT
Wanting a smaller house with a bigger garden, Kirsten Linning and her husband Mat Newman bought a four-bedroom Victorian cottage in 2017. ‘It wasn’t quite the right house, but we knew we could change it,’ says Kirsten.
Taking their time to work out exactly what to do, professional poker player Mat, 56, and Kirsten, 54, who is semi-retired, turned their attention to a detached garage running parallel with an adjacent bridleway, and sought the expertise of architect Fred Guttfield. ‘My brief was to turn the garage into a two-storey extension that would make an architectural contribution to the village,’ says Fred.
On the spot where the garage stood, new strip footing foundations include a reinforced concrete upstand along the bridleway where the extension’s floor level is lower – the area is also tanked to protect it from ground water. The gable roof structure is mainly on-site construction timber frame with polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation board in between the timber studs. A small amount of steelwork enables the open-plan span of the living area. The exterior, including the roof, is entirely clad in Siberian larch boards.
The extension’s outline has the simplicity of a traditional architectural building, but the detailing is crisp and contemporary. All the guttering is hidden and a brick boundary wall running along the bridleway has been rebuilt to wrap around the gable end, creating a visual link to the brick cottage.
Despite getting off to a positive start, the planning process hit a setback. ‘There was some positive feedback during the pre-application stage,’ says Fred. ‘But after a change of case officer, the new person pushed for design alterations – such as having traditional gutters – rather than considering whether there was conflict with planning policy.’ Taking their case to committee eventually won the project permission towards the end of 2018.
Addressing an outstanding concern that passers-by on the bridleway might look into the bedroom window, Fred’s solution was to have larch shutters that slide across to provide varying degrees of privacy.
Kirsten and Mat set themselves up in a caravan in the garden for the start of the build, staying at a frie
