Private residence, Gidleigh

A number of prefabricated timber houses were built in the mid 1920’s manufactured by Boulton & Paul. Several were built on the beautiful Dartmoor fringes. This cottage is a good example – minimal structural timber sizes, optimum room dimensions for basic functions. A good example of a sustainable, flexible building system.

The heart of the cottage has been opened up, retaining the basic cellular areas at either end. A new kitchen and elegant bathroom have been fitted, and an open stair installed to provide both access to a roof study and bedroom and sunlight from the roof. The area of the house has been doubled by the provision of a garden room, tucked into the rising ground and facing South.

A new main entrance, cloakroom and car accommodation provide essential facilities which by their discreet scale and location allow the original building to prevail. Based upon this simple and neatly detailed shell and by creative, discreet and careful opening up to a new garden room, the house has assumed a new life, full of sun and light, integrally related to its garden and landscape.

The detailing is minimalist and unadorned: the lighting, surfaces and finishes throughout reinforcing an almost Miesian simplicity. The public face is largely unaltered, Boulton & Paul modesty, now repaired and rejuvenated.