Best features kept during restoration

Aug 31 2007 by Iain Laing, The Journal

THE challenge of restoring an historic building to a new use while retaining its best features has been faced at Beadnell House by developers, Northside Management and Jane Darbyshire and David Kendall (JDDK).

This £2m plus development in the Northumbrian coastal village of Beadnell has transformed the former 30 room hotel, built in the early 1800s as a grand, neo-classical manor house of, Richard Taylor, local quarry and mine owner.

The developers and architects worked together to create six new homes, five of them are two and three-bedroom apartments and the sixth is a semi-detached three-storey townhouse.

Although each of the new properties is unique, they were created from the same design brief, which was to retain the character of the original house and make the best possible use of the original architectural features, whether this be ceiling cornices and roses, marble fireplaces, wooden panelling and shutters, wide doors or the original wooden floors and deep skirtings.

Northside managing director Neil Forsyth said: “We had operated the hotel for two years and, therefore, knew the building and its potential intimately, but we were determined that any development must retain as many of the original features as possible – the last thing we wanted was to rip the heart and soul out of it in the name of progress and profit. This wasn't simply architectural altruism but also a commercial realisation that it was precisely these features that would add value and make the homes so desirable and unique.

“We had seen the work that JDDK had done at Pottergate in Alnwick, the conversion of Lanesborough Court in Gosforth and the eco-friendly houses at Amble and approached them with the project as they had an excellent name for the sort of sympathetic restoration we had in mind, and it’s been a hugely successful partnership as the designs have fitted perfectly with our aspirations for the development.”

For JDDK Director and Project Architect, Nicky Watson, Beadnell House was a development close to her own love of breathing new life into historic buildings, but also one that was capable of throwing up more than a few surprises.

She said: “It’s been one of those great projects when the client and the architect think on exactly the same wavelength.

“Once we began to really survey the property we found there was more room in the roof space than we had first envisaged and refined the plans to include the extended second floor and roof terraces which produced enough space for a whole new penthouse apartment with a 37-foot long lounge.

“We also found original features which had been covered up or blocked over in some cases – these included an original stone arch, several fireplaces and a range boiler – most of which have been incorporated into the designs.”