Tower Cottage

Tower Cottage is a wonderfully petite and eccentric piece of Victorian architecture. Formerly a parsonage, the building was not originally designed as a practical house. Our scheme doesn't extend the house at all (there is nowhere to go), but it does radically re-organise the spaces and transforms the property into a workable and elegant home.

The old single glazed conservatory has been replaced with a new doubled glazed structure, which has additional structural and solar shading from Douglas Fir timber fins. The entire wall to the garden is glazed and removable. This is made possible by a sliding system that allows you to move the panels one at a time and stack discretely off to one side. The garden is an integral part of the design and the planting now comes right up to the window cill - so when the panels and doors are open you very much feel like you are sitting outside.

Internally the upper floor was re-organised to create a great master suite. A new second bedroom has been created off the main stairs, with the careful additional of a new sash window in the side of the tower. Separating this room from the stairs is a large sliding door of timber boards. This can be left open to make the house feel open plan when the room is used as a study, or closed to create that second bedroom when guests are staying. A glass panel has been inserted in the floor to let daylight filter down through the house from the new rooflights above.