Pre-application study / Wappenham

A field barn, tested before the application.

A stone barn alone in a field at the edge of a Northamptonshire village, on land where housing was refused in 1975. Before the owner paid for a full planning application, we designed a home around it and asked the council what it would support.

A visualisation of the scheme as it went to the council. Materials are illustrative. Not a planning consent, and not built.

The facts

Barn conversion pre-application, Northamptonshire.

A planning question before a design one. Would the council accept a home here at all, and how far could the barn grow? The owner needed both answers before committing to surveys, reports and a full application.

The project

What the barn gives.

75.9sqm

Location: A field on the western edge of Wappenham, Northamptonshire
Client: A private landowner
Our scope: RIBA Stage 0 to 2: the brief, a site appraisal, a concept design and the pre-application enquiry
Status: Pre-application advice only. No planning application has been made

Rickett Architects pre-application document, Revision B, July 2025. 75.9 sqm is the footprint of the existing barn, 5.2 m by 14.6 m. West Northamptonshire Council pre-application response 2025/3040/PRMI, 10 September 2025. The owner and the farm are not named.

The brief

Could it become a home?

The barn is the last building left of a farmstead that once stood here. The owner wanted a home on one floor, wheelchair accessible, with shelter between the car and the door.

The barn could not hold that on its own, so the brief was a conversion and an extension, in a place where new homes are tightly controlled.

The question: Will the council accept a home here, and how big?
The home: Single storey, two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom
Access: A disabled parking bay under cover, beside a door that opens onto wheelchair storage
The catch: Outside the village boundary, so open countryside in planning terms

The site

Open countryside, at the village edge.

Policy: Outside the village boundary, where new homes are strictly controlled
History: Outline housing refused on the land in 1975
Slope: The field falls to the west and the barn sits low in it
Heritage: Two listed buildings nearby, across the road. Not a conservation area
Footpath: A public footpath passes close by
Trees: Protected trees on the north east edge, left clear

From our site analysis and the council's own description of the site.

The timeline

From first design to the council's answer.

6 June 2025: First design issued to the owner
27 June 2025: Revision A
25 July 2025: Revision B, the two bedroom scheme, sent to the council
August 2025: Site meeting with the planning officer
10 Sept 2025: The council's written advice

Dates from our issue record and the council's response. Advice at this stage is the officer's professional view and does not bind the council.

The study

Set out on what stood there before.

A map of about 1899 showed the barn was once part of a larger farmstead. We set the new wing out on the footprints of the buildings that have gone, and kept it lower than the old barn.

1899

A farmstead, not a lone barn.

After our first meeting on site the owner sent scans of old maps of the village. The Ordnance Survey sheet of about 1899 shows a group of buildings around a yard where one barn stands today.

Ordnance Survey map of the village from about 1899, with a dashed ring marking the site on its western edge, where an L-shaped range and two smaller buildings are drawn around a yard

Ordnance Survey map, about 1899, from the owner's scan, with our site marking. Not to scale.

Then and now

One building left of three.

Building A is the barn, 75.9 sqm. B and C are the lost buildings, measured from the old map at about 350 and 61 sqm. More than 400 sqm of farm buildings once stood here.

Existing and historical footprints from our pre-application document. Areas approximate. Zoom to read it.

The concept

Six steps from the old footprints to a home.

Six concept diagrams in two rows. Top row: the barn with the outlines of the lost buildings; part of the old footprint massed up and linked to the barn; the new wing given a pitched roof and set lower than the barn. Bottom row: an open carport added; slatted screens on two sides of the carport; a view from the rear showing the glazing

Top row: the lost footprints set out, part of one massed up and linked to the barn, then set down the slope under a pitched roof. Bottom row: an open carport, its slatted screens, and the glazing turned to the rear. Diagrammatic.

The layout

A new wing west of the barn.

The extension follows the line of the lost buildings and uses the fall of the field to sit below the barn. The existing track stays as the way in.

Site layout as submitted. 01 carport, 02 entrance court, 03 planting, 04 the existing barn, 05 terraces. Not to scale.

The plan

Everything on one floor.

Two ways in. The main door sits in the new wing, to spare the character of the old barn. The second opens from the disabled parking bay onto wheelchair storage.

Floor plan as submitted. 01 carport, 02 wheelchair storage, 04 kitchen, 05 living and dining, 06 sitting room, 08 and 11 bedrooms. Not to scale.

The design tested

Old barn first, new wing second.

The barn keeps the highest ridge and shows few new openings to the road. The living rooms and the glass face the fields behind.

The barn today

One stone barn in a field.

The barn as it stands, from our pre-application document. One side is open and the roof would be replaced. The field falls away behind it.

Black and white photograph of a long, low stone barn standing alone in a grass field, seen over a brick wall, with trees to the left and open fields running to a distant tree line

As drawn for the council

The two views the officer saw.

The appearance views from the pre-application document. Above, the approach: carport, the gable of the new wing, a glazed link and the barn. Below, the garden side, where the glazing is.

Two line drawings from the pre-application document. Above, the approach view: a slatted carport, a small stone gable, a flat roofed glazed link and the long stone barn. Below, the garden side: the barn, a timber clad link with glazed doors and the stone gable of the new wing with a glazed corner

The garden side, visualised

Glass to the fields, not the road.

A visualisation of the lower view, not a photograph. Stone, timber, roofing, planting and the garden wall are illustrative. It shows the scheme as submitted, before the council asked for a smaller extension.

A Rickett Architects visualisation of the garden side in warm low sunlight: the long stone barn on the left, a timber clad link with tall glazed doors, the stone gable of the new wing with a glazed opening and a slatted carport beyond, a stone terrace with a table, a mown lawn and a low drystone garden wall

What the council said

Yes to a home. Not yet to the design.

The principle looked likely. The extension has to shrink.

The council advised that converting the barn to a home would likely be acceptable. It did not accept the design as drawn. The extension should be smaller, more traditional and kept inside the existing field boundary.

Own a barn? Ask us early

A closer view of the Rickett Architects visualisation: the open carport with slatted screens, the small stone gable of the new wing and the glazed link, the parts of the scheme the council asked to be reduced

The owner had that in writing before paying for a structural survey, an ecology survey or a full application. Pre-application advice is the officer's professional view. It does not bind the council, and it is not a planning permission.

The full story

The principle turned on one local policy. The South Northamptonshire Local Plan allows a redundant building in open countryside to be re-used as a single home if it does not need rebuilding, is not still needed for its old use and its setting is improved. The officer judged the barn likely to meet all three, with a structural report to confirm the first and details of the barn's current use to confirm the second.

The design advice was harder, and we report it as given. The officer found the pitched roof part of the new wing in keeping, if built in matching materials, but found the flat roofed link and the carport too contemporary beside the old barn, and the extension too large to read as secondary to it. The plot we drew reached further into open countryside than the existing field, and the officer did not accept the footprint of the lost farmstead as a reason for that.

We had met the officer on site in August 2025 and told the owner what to expect, with a warning that written advice does not always follow the conversation on site. The written advice matched our notes, and the scheme had been drawn with room to reduce.

The advice also set out what a full application would need: a structural survey, a heritage statement, an ecology survey, a land contamination report, drainage details, visibility splays for the access and biodiversity net gain information. The existing access and the parking were both judged likely to be acceptable.

What we did

From an old map to a written answer.

We read the site and its history, designed a home the barn could carry, and put it to the council as a pre-application enquiry before anything was spent on a full application.

The research

The site, read first.

History: The map of about 1899, and the footprints of the lost buildings measured from it
Levels: A section through the field, to keep new roofs below the barn's ridge
Heritage: Two listed buildings nearby and their setting
Flood: Surface water flood maps for the field

Site analysis before a plan was drawn.

The design

A home the barn could carry.

The barn: Open side closed in, with few new openings to the south and east
The wing: A pitched roof like the barn's, set down the slope
The carport: Open sided and slatted, with a disabled parking bay
Glazing: To the rear, away from the road and the footpath

Reduced to two bedrooms before it went in.

The outcome

An answer before the expense.

The principle: A home here would likely be acceptable
The design: Smaller, more traditional, inside the field boundary
The list: The surveys and reports a full application needs
What happened: No application has been made. The next step is the owner's

Own a barn or a farmyard? This is the stage to ask.