Joe originally got involved to roof the cob office and was asked to stay and manage the refurbishment of the barn and the cob office.

The barn was derelict with a scaffold and corrugated iron roof to help keep it from falling into the ground. The historical roof structure was salvaged, repaired and replaced where repairs could not be made. To recreate the early 1600s roof structure a secondary structural roof was built over the top that mimicked the shape of the collapsed roof at the time. This was slated with reclaimed Delabole slate, heavily insulated with sheep’s wool, with lath and plaster inside leaving the historical roof structure exposed.

The outbuildings were demolished to make way for a new cob scullery and a timber framed zinc roofed sunroom. For the scullery roof we used reclaimed slate from the old barn roof, which is believed to be from Penn Recca local slate quarry which closed in 1908. The straw to make the cob came from the client’s field and the earth was dug from the adjacent ground. The sunroof is a modern timber frame construction, highly insulated with sheep’s wool and wood fibre, with oak cladding and a zinc roof with solar PV. The joinery is predominantly oak with Rationalle door and windows on the modern sunroom.

Most of the timber that was used in the project was brought directly to site from local woodland before being milled, dried and processed by us on the site. The timber was used for all the structural exposed beams and timbers as well as flooring, cladding, staircase and other internal joinery. Most of the internal kitchen and joinery was completed on site. The surrounding land was re-landscaped with new hedge banks and patio areas. The heating system uses a ground source heat pump, which with the solar PV keeps grid energy consumption and running costs to a minimum.