Bacton holiday let

Eden Hall Cottage was an interesting project which presented unique challenges. Believed to be up to 300 years old, it was formerly part of a school and had some beautiful original features, including brick and flint external walls, as well as very low ceilings.

The owners bought it with the aim of renovating it and creating a high quality holiday home where they could stay themselves and which they could let to paying guests.

The challenge for me as an architect was less about external design and much more about internal alteration. We needed to improve the flow, make the space work more effectively and align the cottage to modern needs.

This meant adding bathrooms, some of which would be en suites, raising ceiling heights and creating more open-plan living space, which expressed the original building features.

One option was to move the staircase to enable better planning of bedrooms at first floor level. We also looked at removing existing structural and non-structural walls to create more practical open-plan spaces.

I always look to provide a range of solutions to make sure the client and I can work together to explore all possibilities. In this instance, I also worked very closely with the local planning case officer.

Some changes were made: we re-considered the location of rooflights and the design of the exposed roof structure, but the project went very well, was delivered within budget and is now available for letting.