Snowshill House

This scheme is a significant extension to a large country house near Burford, Oxfordshire, together with internal alterations and refurbishment of the existing house.
The purpose of the extension was to improve the house as a family home and for entertaining guests, by the creation a large family room with accommodation for guests at first floor and children’s rooms in the loft space.
The existing house is constructed of Cotswold stone with stone roof and windows of leaded lights in metal frames. The extension sought to preserve the design integrity of the existing house by using elements from the existing house in the design of the extension with matching materials.

On the entrance side a large stone mirrored the existing gable over the front door; on the garden side projecting gables were introduced to match the gables on other elevations to give reasonable sized rooms at attic level. The family room was conceived as an orangery with fully glazed metal doors leading onto the terrace.

The construction of the extension incorporated levels of insulation well in excess of Building Regulations and the most thermally efficient thermally broken metal windows and doors were specified. The scheme involved moving the boiler room from the house to an outbuilding, and despite the insulation levels of the extension, the existing house is extraordinarily thermally inefficient and very difficult to improve without damaging the integrity of its design internally or externally. The only measures which could be introduced were loft insulation, double glazed windows and some insulation to walls behind new oak panelling.

The scheme included a new family kitchen, a separate catering kitchen and new en-suite facilities both within the extension and existing house.