Architecture Wednesday: Renovated Chapel in the Cotswolds

Y’all know I don’t love what goes on inside most churches, but I love the architecture and design of churches and I love the idea of turning a church into a home. So naturally, this ‘Chapel House,’ in the Cotswolds, predating 1862, is the perfect church turned residence.

The chapel and neighboring manse were both built of coursed rubble stone—broken stones of different sizes that are laid in level courses—with smart slate roofs and coped gables. The façades of both buildings are framed by  finely cut stone strips. Approached by a quiet country lane, Chapel House is in a wonderfully rural position, with far-reaching views across neighboring fields.

The architects gave new life to these two 19^th century foundations by joining the two ecclesiastical buildings via a modern glass walkway. It took four years for specialist builders and craftspeople with keen attention to detail to transform the 2,360 square foot buildings into a home. The renovation has been extensive, preserving historic details inside and outside, including rebuilding the stone walls surrounding the garden, constructing a new carport and restoring the home’s huge windows.

There are numerous entrances into the house, including through a working door to the side which opens into a useful boot room—now a playroom—with a place to hang coats; but you can also enter through the original chapel door and step into a voluminous double-height space with vaulted cathedral ceilings paired with arched deep-set sash windows, and set against rustic oak floorboard with underfloor heating throughout the home.

The interior has been sensitively divided, with the chapel featuring a bespoke kitchen and living and dining areas set in opposite corners of the room. Doorways at one end of the space lead through to a playroom—or additional bedroom—and adjacent bath, before entering the glass walkway with views to an internal dining courtyard formed between the two buildings.

The paneled living room features elegant, shuttered windows and a log-burning stove. The adjoining second reception room, or study, has a beautiful stone fireplace fitted with a second log-burning stove and access to one of the three bedrooms through. The stairs lead up to the floor above, with two more bedrooms and another bathroom, or down to the basement which easily be used as a study, gym, fourth bedroom or entertainment room.

Dry-stone walls, specimen trees and mature hedging form the external boundary of the private, drought resistant garden and lawn. There is seating in the front garden, with aromatic planting, fruit trees, a wildflower meadow, and a pond for indigenous species of insects, reptiles and mammals. To the rear of the house is a natural swimming pool which is sustainably heated. There is also a newly-built treehouse, a terrace by the side entrance, bordered by beds of herbaceous perennials, echinacea, salvia, verbena, prairie-style grasses and beds of white cosmos. There are two  garden sheds, both fully insulated and fitted with services, as well as a new carport with a fast electric car charger in the driveway.

It's the old and the new combined as one … and yours for £1.75M or a shade over $2.1M USD. 

As always, click to emBIGGERiate …

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