Tradition and modernity

The imaginative extension of a farmhouse in the spirit of Lutyens and the Arts-and-Crafts Movement has created a delightful and humane family home, Jeremy Musson reports

- Jeremy Musson

THE older farmhouses scattered across rural, deeply wooded areas on the Surrey and Sussex border have lost nothing of their appeal in the 21st century. Willards Farm, near Dunsfold, has recently been subject to sympathetic renovation and substantial extension. At its core, the house is a four-bay, 16thcentury timber-framed house of two storeys, under a clay-tile roof, with a substantial off-center chimney stack. It occupies an elevated site and was extended to its northern end in the 1930s and to the south in the 1980s. The latest works, completed in 2019, were imaginatively designed by architect Stuart Martin for a young family.

These new additions celebrate the famous domestic vernacular tradition of this district in two different ways. Firstly, the timber-frame original has been sensitively renovated and enhanced; secondly, new reception rooms and accommodation have been created to the north and west, representing an artistic response to the traditional vernacular of timber, brick, and clay tile, and modelled forms. At the clients' request, local people were used wherever possible in the construction work; the principal contractors, Brickfield Construction, are from nearby Fernhurst and many of the craftspeople employed on the interiors come from the area.

Mr. Martin studied architecture at the University of Nottingham and first worked for conservation specialist Jeremy Benson (1925–99) of Benson and Bryant, a leading figure in the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB). Mr. Martin founded his award-winning practice, based near Evershot in Dorset, in 1996, and has made a name for himself creating well-designed houses in both the Classical and vernacular traditions. Chitcombe House, Dorset, a country house designed by him (COUNTRY LIFE, September 6, 2017), exemplifies an imaginative response to both the Classical tradition and the courtyard form.