SelfBuild & Design - June issue 2004 - page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Getting started

The property was surrounded by undeveloped land land, and plans were in place for a small housing estate to be built in the area. But it was a year before a proper road was in place, although bulldozers and JCBs could access the land without difficulty, so Matt got on with clearing the land.

Connecting to gas, electricity, water and sewage was the next step. There were some existing houses nearby, and Matt toyed with the idea of connecting to their supplies. But he decided to wait until the developers had built the neighbouring estate, and then connected to the newly installed services, saving over £5,000 in the process.

Before he could go any further, structural engineers needed to examine the roots of a tree that was growing out of the side of the main house. These were checked to see that they were not growing under the walls. This could have been very bad news, but it was given the all clear and work on the main house began.

The land was cleared, the tree removed from the house, and the roof replaced.

"I wanted a room in the roof but there wouldn't have been space, so I had to strip the ceiling joists out and replace them with floor joists, lowering the top ceiling by 2ft, to provide space for a room up there. Because I'd lowered the floor in the third storey, I had to lower the floor in the second storey," Matt explains.

In the process around forty tonnes of stone was removed from the building. Some of this was what had been knocked out, through making doorways. With the solid walls being 2ft thick there was plenty to spare. This was used to create almost half of the 70m dry-stone wall that now runs around the perimeter of the property

Planning permission had already been granted to the building's previous owners after a four year battle. There had been a great deal of local objection to the grade II listed building becoming a dwelling.

"Eventually the planning office realised that it would continue to crumble and become even more dangerous if it were not converted, so they permitted the development," says Matt.

The plans were amended slightly to include a few more window openings, and some skylights, the latter being difficult to obtain. The new plans also included an extension on the side.

"There was evidence that there had been an extra part of the building, about 3m square. Looking at the archives office at Matlock, I found an inventory of the house, listing the different parts of the site, including the small 'house' that had been knocked down. When I found the written proof, the plans were passed. It means that instead of being a very big two bedroom house, it is a big three or four bedroom house, suitable for a family," says Matt.