Roger Mears Architects

This cottage is located in the Wiltshire countryside overlooking the Kennett and Avon Canal, on the edge of the Vale of Pewsey. Our clients, one of whom is a bibliophile author and publisher, developed a fruitful relationship with RMA throughout three stages of work over a period of 25 years. The key to all the work was to keep the feeling of a cottage rather than turning it into a grand house and to make the final, underground, extension as light and open as possible.

The first extension housed a library and bedroom in a separate pavilion linked at ground floor. The second extension provided a new kitchen, dining room and two guest bedrooms, together with lots of bookcases, as well as upgrading the original cottage. When it came to a third extension the planners decreed that the limit had been reached for above-ground extensions, although they allowed a double garage with a utility room.  The new book-store/ games room was therefore built underground, but is filled with natural light through a large roof light and glass doors cut into the hillside.

• Category
  Extension, House, Vernacular Building