GILL’S ADVICE
“Be on site every single day. Communication with your contractors is key. There will inevitably be things that go wrong and if you’re not there then you can’t sort them out.”
Scottish word for a meadow beside a river, was, in Gill’s own words, a ‘wreck’.
“Has she told you about the dilapidation of the place?” asks Adam. “The whole thing was stuffed full of old agricultural machinery, old tyres, every bit of it was rotten to the core. But as we clambered over the debris, I thought there is a double courtyard here – an idea which offered great potential – and so many buildings it was too much to convert. So my idea was to hollow out some of these buildings and leave their walls as a defining space.” Out of this initial idea, the ‘new’ Manuel Haugh was forged; Adam undertook careful consideration of which walls to retain and which areas to extend with a combination of timber frame and steelwork, taking care to re-use materials from the original buildings whenever possible. For example, stone blocks were repurposed to help create walls. “They look like they have been there hundreds of years now,” says Gill.
He based the design around two courtyards; the first acts as the parking area, defined by the original ‘steading’ walls, outbuildings and a carport, the second is the ‘garden court’, which allows direct entry to the house. “It was one of those projects that you smile at in the end,” says Adam. “I wanted other people to walk in and smile too. I know that sounds simple, but I wanted someone to enjoy living in
january 2020
what that ruin could become.” But what a journey it was; the replacement dwelling, glistening in sharp white render and designed for easy and comfortable modern living – with a balcony on the first floor and over- sized doors to the garden – could not be more different from the crumbling pile Gill and her husband took on. “We love the way the building gradually unfolds as you walk through the property from outside to inside,” adds Gill. “Adam was happy to incorporate all my ideas about the internal layout: I wanted to add a study, move and add windows and make sure we had all the bedrooms ensuite. We have no glass doors in the showers – they are all open stalls – so less to clean!”
The original farmhouse had a kitchen, laundry/scullery, two living rooms, a downstairs bathroom on the ground floor and two bedrooms and a box room upstairs. By embracing the footprint of some of the farm buildings, Gill and David now have a 320 m2 new home which has five bedrooms, four ensuites, a study, cloakroom, sitting room and a light and spacious open-plan kitchen/living/dining area.
The dining element is the magnificent heart of it all, and brings a real sense of grandeur to the living space; the roof rises upwards and there’s a first-floor galleried hall which looks down on the
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