Case study / South Warwickshire

The barn stayed. The grain store moved.

A redundant stone barn, consented as a four-bedroom home. Nobody moves in until the grain store next door comes down.

The south front, from the south east. Visualisation of the consented scheme; the barn is not yet converted.

The facts

Barn conversion architects, Warwickshire.

One barn on a private Warwickshire estate, taken from a whole-farm appraisal to a consent that locks together with a second one across the yard.

The project

One four-bedroom home, no extension.

2consents, locked together

Location: A farmstead in South Warwickshire, in open countryside
Client: A private Warwickshire estate
Consent: Full planning, granted at the first application, January 2024
Enabling consent: Demolition and re-provision of the working grain store, granted November 2023
Our scope: RIBA Stages 0 to 3, planning agent, then the post-consent condition strategy
Status: Consented; conditions being discharged

Both consents sit on the district council's public register. First application, no appeal.

The brief

The best building on the farm.

Rickett Architects was appointed across the estate with one instruction: assess every redundant building and find its best residential value, so the estate could be sold progressively as consented lots.

This barn was among the strongest candidates: a tall single-cell structure in the pale local limestone that gives it its name, out of farming since at least 2008, structurally sound, and genuinely redundant.

Accommodation: One dwelling, four bedrooms, 202.4 sqm, wholly inside the existing envelope
Route: Full planning application. This barn did not fit the Class Q checklist.
Setting: Not Green Belt, no heritage designations: the case stood on the building itself

The planning journey

Two applications. Two consents.

Planning timeline for the barn: appointed March 2022, grain store granted November 2023, barn granted January 2024

The grain store consent came through first, in November 2023. The barn followed in January 2024, conditioned so the home cannot be occupied until the old store has come down.

As we found it

Fifteen years past its last harvest.

Excluded from the farming tenancy since 2008 and used only for storage. Survey photography, October 2022.

The stone

White lias, weathered but sound.

Coursed rubble in the pale local limestone, with squared quoins at the corners. A structural inspection found it satisfactory for conversion.

Black and white photograph of the barn's stone gable as found, its window openings boarded over

The roof

Trusses that never needed saving.

Traditional timber trusses, purlins and rafters under a tiled roof, all in good condition. The conversion leaves the volume they carry open.

Black and white photograph inside the barn as found, looking up at the timber roof trusses

The doors

The opening that became the entrance.

The big northern barn doors, still hanging. The new front door sits inside this opening, so the house needed no new hole for a way in.

Black and white photograph from inside the barn as found, looking out through its open doors to the farmyard

The scheme

Every square metre was already there.

No extension, no demolition, the mass unaltered. The plan works with the building: bedrooms east to the existing windows, living west to the views, a mezzanine keeping the full-height volume.

South elevation, as found

Blocked up in its working life.

The southern barn opening, a twin of the north one, had been walled in. One inserted door was the only way through.

Redrawn from the submitted survey at the architect's own pen weights.

South elevation, as consented

Blocked up, then reopened.

The biggest window in the house is an opening the barn already had: reinstated, glazed in dark steel, behind sliding timber doors that match the north.

Both elevations sit on one canvas at one scale, so the wall reads before and after.

The site plan

The grain store, drawn dashed.

The plot at the top; below the track, the working grain store outlined for demolition. One drawing carries the whole argument.

Three parking spaces sit behind a new hedgerow; the dashed circle is a tree root protection area, not demolition.

Ground floor

Bedrooms east, kitchen west.

Ground-floor bedrooms are part of the case: a home that works for ageing in place.

First floor

A mezzanine keeps the volume.

The living room overlooks the void, so the full-height space that makes a barn a barn survives the conversion.

North elevation

The entrance the barn already had.

The front door sits inside the old opening, so the view out of the south front stays uninterrupted.

The challenge

No home beside a working grain store.

The neighbour problem belonged to the client.

The barn's open south side faces the farm's own grain store. No authority grants a new home hard against working agricultural plant, and the council's stated concern was noise. So we moved the grain store.

Discuss your site

The working farmyard as found, in colour: the stone barn beside the metal-clad grain plant and silo tower

A separate application demolished the store and re-provided it further east. That consent came through first; the barn's followed, and the two lock together in both directions.

The full story

Relocating the grain store was on the table from the first concept work in late 2022, and the two applications went in together in the summer of 2023. The store's consent was granted in November 2023; the barn's followed in January 2024. The barn's permission is conditioned so the dwelling cannot be occupied until the existing grain store has been demolished, and the council's stated reason is the noise a working store would put on the doorstep of a new home. The grain store's own consent binds the other way: the old building must come down within two months of the new one coming into use, with the land restored.

The rest of the case was principle. This is open countryside, where new dwellings are tightly restricted, and there was no heritage designation to lean on either way. The argument stood on the building itself: out of agricultural use since at least 2008, no commercial appetite for its return, a structural inspection confirming it sound, and a full package of ecology, arboriculture and ground evidence behind it. A nocturnal bat survey came in mid-determination and moved the drawings through four revisions in three weeks; the mitigation it set became a condition. Two public bridleways share the farm access, so the access was widened and a separate route demarcated for walkers and riders.

The consent runs to nineteen conditions, and the last of them removes all permitted development rights: no extensions, no outbuildings, no roof alterations, ever, without a fresh permission. The council locked the barn's form down permanently, which is exactly what a building like this deserves.

What we did

Two consents, locked in both directions.

Across this one farmstead, seven new homes were consented in under seven months: five through Class Q prior approval, then this barn and the neighbouring cart house.

The strategy

Designed out, not argued around.

Problem: The farm's working grain store hard against the barn's best elevation
Move: A second application: demolish the store and re-provide it further east
Result: The store consented first; the barn conditioned on its demolition
Outcome: A likely refusal reason became a condition the estate simply complies with

Both consents granted at the first attempt, with no appeal on either.

The design

The barn sets the rules.

Volume: The living room on a mezzanine, open to the ground floor, keeping the full height
Openings: The blocked south opening reinstated; new openings follow the blocked slots' proportions
Plan: Bedrooms east to the existing windows, living west to the open country views
Materials: As existing: the white lias fabric retained, controlled by a condition schedule

202.4 square metres, every one of them inside the original walls.

The delivery

Bats moved the drawings.

Ecology: A nocturnal bat survey mid-determination: four drawing revisions in three weeks
Mitigation: A maternity roost box, bat access tiles, and lighting controlled by condition
Access: The farm access widened, with a separate demarcated route for two bridleways
Conditions: Nineteen in all, with the pre-commencement programme in discharge

All permitted development rights removed: the barn's form is locked for good.