FLINT HOUSE

Fuschia Cottage is a detached cottage within the village of South Creake, 6 miles from the north Norfolk coast. The flint walled cottage, built in 1820, sits within a Conservation Area where the buildings span a period of close to a thousand years. While not listed, the cottage is noted by the local conservation statement as an ‘important unlisted building’ that, clearly adds to the character of the village.

The owners purchased the property with a vision to modernize and extend it sensitively. While the existing structure was habitable, it had very significant structural issues, but beyond addressing these, the project sought to extend the living space via a single storey extension to the side and a new bedroom on top of the existing kitchen space. It was recognized that the single storey extension would be the more controversial element so the principal was laid down from the start that it would need to touch the existing cottage very lightly.

The solution was a glazed link that would set the new structure apart from the traditional cottage and position the new extension as clearly deferential. The extension also sought to use local flint and red brick as the primary materials in order to complement the local vernacular, with a flint wall facing the driveway to soften the extension’s impact on the front elevation which continues on one of the internal walls of the dining room where the glazed link casts a beautiful natural light across the stones.