A field behind a 1960s close in Moreton Morrell, with a pond to the west, inside the Moreton Morrell Conservation Area. A new home on one floor, built for the long term. Permission was granted in May 2022 and the house is built.
A visualisation of the house, seen across the pond. Not a photograph.
The village is a mix of cottages and outbuildings with roofs at different heights. The house is built the same way: a cluster of small volumes, each a group of rooms, set low on the falling ground so the neighbours above keep their view.
The house sits at the west end of the plot, outside the oak's root protection area, with the pond beyond. The existing access from the close is kept and the parking hides behind the old shed.
Approved site plan, 2022. Not to scale. Zoom to read it.
One way in, with the living rooms straight ahead and the bedrooms down a short hall. The kitchen and dining room open to a terrace on the pond side; the bedrooms look north and keep cool.
Approved plan, 2022. Not to scale. Zoom to read it.
Front and rear as submitted: modest windows to the approach, the glazing on the pond side. The chimney drawn here was taken out by an amendment in 2024, and the external materials were changed at the same time.
Approved elevations, as submitted. Chimney since removed. Not to scale.
The drive in from Oaktree Close, past the retained shed, with the low wall, the hedge and the small windows of the street side. Our 2021 view, re-rendered. A visualisation, not a photograph.
Our photograph of the site in 2021: rough grass, the hedges and conifers that screen the neighbours, and the trees along the pond. The house went in the far corner.
Permission, 13 May 2022.
Stratford-on-Avon District Council granted a new single-storey house on a greenfield plot inside the Moreton Morrell Conservation Area, with conditions on trees, archaeology, newts, materials and the access.
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The application was supported by an arboricultural assessment, an archaeological assessment, an ecological appraisal, a landscape scheme and a highways note, and the conditions followed them. A non-material amendment in September 2024 removed the chimney and changed the external materials during the build.
The plot sat inside the village boundary, so the principle of a house was arguable. Everything else counted against it: a greenfield site in a conservation area, a listed house to the south, three gardens above it to the east, a pond and a protected oak to the west. Our site appraisal turned each of those into a rule for the design. Keep out of the oak's root zone. Keep the glazing away from the neighbours. Keep the roof below their sightline. Keep the field open.
The house that came out of it is a cluster of small volumes rather than one block, each roof over a group of rooms, with the ridges at different heights the way the village's cottages and outbuildings are. The living rooms face the pond and the evening sun; the bedrooms sit on the north side. On the approach the windows are small, and a window beside the front door looks straight through the house to the field behind.
It was designed to be lived in for a long time: one floor, a wet room en suite, doors wide enough for a wheelchair, a ramp to the garden. A ground source heat pump, insulation above the regulations, soakaways and rainwater collection were in the submission, and an electric vehicle charging point became a condition.
The application was submitted in October 2021 with the tree, archaeology, ecology and landscape reports; a highways note followed in January 2022. It was validated in March 2022 and granted on 13 May 2022. We took the design through to technical drawings and tender packs. During construction a non-material amendment removed the chimney and changed the external materials, and the council recorded the house as complete by March 2025.
We read the site and the village first, designed the house to their rules, ran the application with its specialist reports, and carried the drawings on to technical design and tender.
Constraints became the brief.
About 143 sqm on one floor.
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