Julian Bicknell Associates - Architecture of Fine Quality

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HIGH CORNER, ASHTEAD, SURREY

This new house, in a residential enclave at Ashtead in Surrey, was designed for Mr and Mrs Derek Bird.

The site of about 0.9 acres looks South across picturesque meadowland. The house and garages enclose a formal entrance court on the North side. All the principle rooms overlook the garden to the South and West. The formal reception rooms (study, dining room and drawing room) are grouped around the galleried entrance hall. A second entrance leads to the informal spaces: kitchen, family-room, music room and swimming pool, which curl round the garden to the East. The pool with its clerestory lighting is raised by half a storey in height to take advantage of the slope of the site and to make it directly accessible from the five bedrooms on the first floor. The rooms are simple and domestic in scale with generous low-cilled windows.

The house is built of traditional materials (brick, stone and painted timberwork with a roof of lead and natural slate) by Wiltshiers of Tonbridge. The elaborate painted timber door surround, decorative brackets and shell hood were carved by Dick Reid of York.

The garden with its mature trees is divided into a series of open air rooms each with a different character; a rocky enclosed patio with a fountain at the top of the site, a generous lawn immediately in front of the house, a traditional hedged rose garden in the SW corner, and an orchard of flowering fruit trees to the West.

Julian Bicknell & Associates is a London based architectural practice of thirty years standing, specialising in quality buildings, interiors and landscapes - mainly in classical or traditional style. The practice has worked for private clients and developers all over the UK and in Japan, Russia, the USA, Morocco, Germany and Kazakhstan. The work includes spacious country houses, luxury homes on the prestige estates at Wentworth and St. Georges Hill, museums, restaurants, theatres, schools, a golf club and modifications to important historic buildings. The design philosophy combines a deep sympathy for traditional design and building methods, with a full understanding of energy strategies and construction management. The practice works closely with other professionals and experienced craftsmen to achieve low-energy buildings of real quality within predetermined budgets.