Projects revisited: Rose Cottage, Gloucestershire
April 2021
This lovely Grade II Listed cottage was originally built in the late 18th Century when houses in the area began to adopt the formality of Georgian design. The earliest record of Rose Cottage dates back to 1780.
In the first half of the 19th Century a single storey extension was added to the east gable wall and this was also constructed in stone. This was probably used as a wash house with the new east gable wall incorporating a fireplace to heat the water for washing clothes. A further single storey extension was later added to the west gable and this appears to have been built of red brick with a stone slate roof. In the west gable wall, fronting onto the road, was a door and a small four pane window. Above the door in the gable was another small window suggesting that the roof space had been used as a store, which is plausible as some elderly locals reported that before the First World War this part of the house served as the village shop.
The interior of the house was refurbished in the 1940’s in a “Tudoresque” style and this remains the dominant internal character of the house.
The timber cladding extension was proposed as a two-story extension built against the north extension constructed in the 1940’s. This was looking to provide a living space with access and views out to the attractive garden and an additional bedroom and en suite shower room for the family’s future requirements.
Several design options were considered in the beginning, including an un-ashamedly modern design down to a pastiche ‘Cotswold’ style.
One difficulty was reconciling the open glazing from the living space onto the garden with the solid structure of the bedroom above. This was overcome by creating the perception of a “lighter” construction above the glazing using timber boarding. The introduction of a new material to the house also clearly shows that this is of the 21st Century. Reclaimed stonework and stone slates have also been used which reference the traditional materials used on the house. A modern approach has been taken in the arrangement and orientation of the external materials which have been designed as clearly defined panels with a slight nod to the painter Piet Mondrian’s later work. Although the design is strongly linked back to the house by extending the stone slated roof, full height slot windows have been provided to visually separate the construction of the new extension from the 1940’s extension.
In conclusion, while the extension references traditional materials and form of the house, it also provides an unequivocal statement clearly showing that the building is contemporary and is another chapter in the development of the property over its 250 years of existence.
