Wood End, near Abingdon, Oxfordshire

Erection of a new 4 bedroom natural stone house.

From the start, Wood End was an interesting project, with several environmental concerns. Before work could commence a newt fence had to be constructed around the entire site to prevent Great Crested Newts from entering the site from ponds in the surrounding woodland.

The roof of the existing house had to be carefully stripped whilst Peter, a licensed environmentalist, oversaw the work from a cherry picker to ensure bats in the roof structure were safely removed. One bat was found and rehoused in one of the two bat boxes that had been erected on poles at either end of the site.

The client required that Wood End be as environmentally sustainable as was reasonably possible. To this end, two bore holes were drilled to a depth of 100m and a ground source heating system installed. All windows were triple glazed and reached a U-value of 0.73 for the whole window. The house was made as air tight as possible and a Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery system was installed.

Photo of Wood End, near Abingdon, Oxfordshire

Bespoke Oak framed main entrance and door.

Bespoke Oak staircase.

First floor landing and galleries.

Ensuite bathroom to master bedroom.

Drawing Room with Wood Burner feature fireplace.

MVHR plant room. (Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery)

Plant Room for Ground Source Heat Pump, which provides hot water and heating for the entire house.

This is our pileing rig drilling 32 piles for the ground floor slab to sit on.

We then reduced the ground level around the piles by around half a metre

The edges of the slab were then shuttered. A steel mat was then fixed and the concrete for the floor was then poured to form a reinforced raft sitting on the piles.