Case study / Earlswood

High Chimneys Farm, made a home.

A redundant agricultural barn, consented as a four-bedroom house around a daylit courtyard.

The consented conversion in dark vertical timber, its glazed gable opening to the internal courtyard. Visualisation of the consented scheme; the barn holds prior approval and has not been built.

The facts

Class Q barn conversion in Warwickshire.

A redundant precast-concrete portal-framed barn on a working smallholding, granted prior approval as a single four-bedroom home within its own shell.

The project

One home inside the shell.

47days to the decision

Location: Tinkers Lane, Earlswood, Warwickshire
Setting: A working smallholding, Flood Zone 1, no heritage designation
Building: Four precast concrete portals at about 7.3m span, under timber boarding
Client: A private client
Authority: Stratford-on-Avon District Council
Our scope: RIBA Stages 0 to 3, as architect and as agent
Status: Consented, not built

Submitted 13 May 2022. Prior approval 22/01524/COUQ granted 29 June 2022 under Class Q, GPDO 2015 Schedule 2 Part 3, with ten conditions.

The brief

A real house from a barn.

A private client came to us with a redundant barn on their smallholding at High Chimneys Farm, on the rural edge of Earlswood. It had housed livestock and machinery, and had stood unused since before 2013.

They wanted a substantial home out of it, working inside the existing building and without the delay of a full planning application. The barn had the volume and the character; the question was whether a route existed.

Accommodation: One four-bedroom home, all en-suite, of about 320 sqm, some 3,442 sq ft
Route: Class Q prior approval, the permitted-development route, rather than a full application
Our role: Architect and agent, concept design through to the decision

Consented in 2022 under the Class Q rules then in force. The size limits changed in May 2024, so a barn today is judged against the current caps; the tests it must pass are the same.

The planning journey

Consented in under a year.

Planning journey for High Chimneys Farm: Rickett Architects appointed in 2021 to a barn vacant since before 2013; concept design in September 2021; a first prior approval notification, ref 22/00261/COUQ, in January 2022; a resubmission on 13 May 2022; prior approval granted on 29 June 2022 under ref 22/01524/COUQ with ten conditions; the scheme consented, with Rickett Architects acting as architect and agent across RIBA Stages 0 to 3

From appointment to prior approval in under a year, all of it held by one practice. Stratford-on-Avon District Council.

The scheme

A barn outside, a courtyard within.

The full footprint and profile kept, the openings restrained, and the daylight problem of a very deep plan solved from the inside.

The elevation

Still a barn from the lane.

The plain gable and simple form are kept, clad in vertical timber, the openings deliberately restrained. Only the large glazed bay marking the entrance says anything has changed.

The consented front elevation, drawing 200B. Vertical timber cladding to the solid elevations is secured by planning condition.

The courtyard

Daylight into a deep plan.

The plan is far deeper than a conventional house, which made getting light to the middle of it the problem the whole design had to solve. A top-lit courtyard at the heart of it is the answer.

Interior visualisation of the consented barn conversion at High Chimneys Farm: the double-height internal courtyard at the heart of the home, top-lit by roof skylights, with lush planting and a full-height glazed gable framing a view out to the fields, seen from the open-plan living and dining space in dark timber, black-framed glazing and warm oak

Visualisation of the consented scheme. Rooflights over the courtyard and a large glazed gable draw daylight to the centre of the plan.

Ground floor

Rooms around a top-lit void.

The courtyard sits at the centre, the living space and kitchen take the east, and the bedrooms are zoned to the south, away from the motorway to the north.

Consented ground floor, drawing 100B. A kitchen and dining space of nearly 50 sqm, a formal lounge of about 37 sqm, study, snug and utility.

The site

Inside the existing footprint.

Class Q keeps the domestic curtilage within the building's own floorspace. Parking and access were set off the existing driveway, so the change to the landscape is close to nothing.

The consented site plan, drawing 300E. The existing driveway off Tinkers Lane is reused rather than replaced.

The outcome

A plain shed, opened up.

From the garden the same building reads completely differently: the living space opens to a covered terrace and the meadow, while the face to the lane stays exactly what it was.

Visualisation of the consented barn conversion at High Chimneys Farm seen from the garden: the dark timber-clad barn with its sculpted roof and rooflights, a large glazed living space opening onto a covered terrace, set in a wild meadow with mature trees behind

Visualisation of the consented scheme from the garden. Habitable rooms are zoned to the south and east, away from the motorway.

The challenge

A permitted route, rarely an easy one.

A checklist, not a shortcut.

Class Q promises a faster, more certain decision, but only inside tight limits and only against a demanding list of tests. Any one of them, left unanswered, stops the decision.

Discuss your building

The barn at High Chimneys Farm as found in 2021: a redundant agricultural building of corrugated sheet over a blockwork base, its full-height bay standing open and dark, an ash tree overhanging the roof, with a post-and-rail fence and gate running in from the left across a mown field

Four things had to be answered at once: whether the building was genuinely in agricultural use, whether it was structurally capable of conversion without rebuilding, how a very deep plan could be daylit, and how to design out the noise of a motorway close to the north.

The full story

The opportunity and the difficulty were the same building. This was an agricultural barn, not a house, and the route to converting it came with exacting terms. Rather than a full planning application we pursued the permitted-development route for agricultural buildings: Class Q, under Schedule 2, Part 3 of the General Permitted Development Order.

Prior approval turns on the building's structural capability, its access and highways, flood risk, contamination, noise, protected species, and whether the conversion still reads as the agricultural building it was. The route runs on evidence, not assertion: Class Q depends on proving the barn was genuinely in agricultural use and structurally capable of conversion, and on keeping the new domestic curtilage within the building's own floorspace. Each of those had to be documented and drawn precisely.

Two constraints shaped the design from the first sketch. The barn sits close to the M42, so the noise of the motorway to the north had to be designed out, keeping bedrooms and living space away from that face. And the plan is deep, far deeper than a conventional house, which made getting natural light into the middle of it the problem the whole design had to solve. The internal courtyard answers both at once: it lights the centre of the plan and it lets the habitable rooms face south and east, away from the road.

What we did

Route, evidence, decision.

The practice that judged the planning route is the same one that assembled the evidence for it and carried the application through to the decision.

The route

The strategy came first.

Judgement: Class Q prior notification assessed as the surest path to consent, ahead of a full application
Use: Confirmation of the barn's genuine agricultural use, which the right turns on
Structure: An independent structural assessment of the precast concrete portal frame
Supporting: Flood risk assessment, contamination desk study and ecological survey
Curtilage: The domestic curtilage kept within the building's own floorspace, as Class Q requires

A Class Q case is an evidence job about the building that already stands, not a design job.

The design

Working with the barn.

Kept: The full footprint and profile, with only the openings needed to form a dwelling
Daylight: A top-lit internal courtyard and a large glazed gable, lighting the centre of a deep plan
Noise: Habitable rooms zoned south and east, away from the motorway to the north
Materials: Vertical timber cladding to the solid elevations, secured by condition
Access: Parking and access off the existing driveway, so the landscape barely changes

From the lane it still reads as the barn it was. That is the test Class Q actually sets.

The decision

Every matter answered.

Process: Each prior approval matter worked through with the council in turn
Outcome: Prior approval granted 29 June 2022, ref 22/01524/COUQ
Conditions: Ten, covering materials, landscaping, contamination, ecology, vehicle charging and highways
Accountability: A director accountable from the first conversation to the decision
Status: Consented. The scheme has not been built

Our appointment ran to RIBA Stage 3 and both applications. We were not engaged for construction.