St Andrews Church & School House form a group with adjacent buildings which had little changed from their construction in the Victorian era.
They are very evocative of rural life in Cheshire, but not listed or in a conservation area. When they came up for sale following the closure of the Church, my clients didn’t want to see them lost and took the ambitious decision to buy the site and develop proposals for their sensitive re-use.
Challenging Site
Although the buildings didn’t have formal protection, finding a solution that allowed them to provide modern living accommodation was still quite a challenge.
The School House had a tiny footprint and therefore needed a sizable extension to provide sufficient living accommodation. For the Church, keeping the quality of open space was also a key aim.
To this end, designs were developed to extend to the rear of both with a contemporary architectural language that is complementary but clearly a new addition.
Client Testimonial
“A big part of what BB Heritage Studio brought was the ability to come up with designs which both created liveable buildings and – crucially – enabled an economically viable scheme which the planners could support.
“And all this despite being a significant change to historic built form in a rural location where planning is highly constrained. Most importantly for us, you’ve given our two rather special, vulnerable buildings a long-term future.”
