project focus


A modern holiday home built inside the walls of a 13th century manor house is this year’s RIBA Stirling prize winner demonstrating creativity, preservation and conservation.


ASTLEY Castle was saved from dereliction by the Landmark Trust, a building preservation charity that rescues and restores historic buildings at risk and lets them for holidays. The site at Astley Castle near Nuneaton


in Warwickshire has been in continuous occupation since the Saxon period. It was once home to the first Yorkist queen, Elizabeth Woodville, as well as to Lady Jane Grey, the nine day Queen who was executed by Queen Mary I in 1554. Requisitioned during World War II for


convalescing service men, the dilapidated castle was restored in the 1950s as a hotel. The hotel was gutted by fire in 1978 and the building subsequently suffered vandalism, unauthorised stripping out and collapse. For many years, no solution could be found to give it a future and Astley Castle became a ruin. By 2007 English Heritage had listed it as one of the 16 most endangered sites in Britain and a solution was urgently needed. The Landmark Trust leased the building


from the Arbury Estate and in 2007 held an architectural competition. The brief sought to create good modern accommodation within the ancient ruins, while accepting that some parts of the castle were beyond restoration. The winning scheme, by architects Witherford Watson Mann (WMM), maintains the sense of life and living within the castle, while making the most of the views both into and out of the site. The £1.3m scheme, which blends old


and new, marks a new approach to ruined historic buildings, says Anna Keay, director of the Landmark Trust: “We are tremendously proud of a scheme which represents an original way of reviving a


40 leisuredab.co.uk


Astley Castle


ruined building. Neither a traditional restoration, nor a brutal modernist juxtaposition, WWM’s approach is utterly contemporary and yet in real harmony with the medieval castle. As a result, a historic building that seemed completely unsaveable and close to collapse has been given a whole new life.” Contemporary brick, concrete and timber


construction sits directly on the medieval rubble walls, re-occupying the ancient manor house, while Tudor and Jacobean wings are retained as outdoor rooms. The large gashes in the ruined walls have been retained, making it an unusually light castle. The house is animated by slashes of sunlight on stone walls and views over the ancient landscape. “Astley shows that working with historic buildings doesn't just have to be about repair or reinstatement. It can be a reinvention or reimagining, making something richer and more engaging than


what was there before,” says Stephen Witherford of Witherford Watson Mann. “The house is a modernist house in an ancient shell: an upside down, inside out patio house, filled with light. Its ancient shell brings warmth and softness in place of coolness, crispness and hardness. The architecture of the new work is historically literate. It doesn't detach or exempt the present from history. This isn't an intellectual exercise; it's an emotional and social one. People respond emotionally to this house,” he says. Building and restoration contractors William Anelay worked closely with the architects on the complex scheme. “There were so many different facets to


this project that made it unique,” says technical director Tim Donlon. “The whole of the new build is enclosed within the existing ruins. In order for the new walls to meet the ruins at the correct roof level, all of the setting out has been established from the top rather than from ground level using just two precisely defined points on the existing structure as a starting point. “There’s also the brickwork bond or


pattern devised by the architect specifically for this project which has never been used before and involved almost 50,000 40mm bricks imported from Denmark.” From a structural point of view over 270


Cintec anchors were inserted into the existing remains to make safe the aspects


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