A further seven acres is also for sale

A further seven acres is also for sale.In the village of Chilcompton, between Bath and Bristol, an arch-itectural historian and owner of a listed church is overseeing its conversion to ensure the original features are retained. The guide price for the property is £695,000 through Jackson-Stops & Staff. The tower houses the cloakroom, a bathroom on the first floor, boiler room on the second and the original bells on the third.In the grounds of more than an acre, the old graveyard will still be open to Clay Coton residents, although the graves are mainly 18th- and 19th-century. The Grade II star-listed building and scheduled ancient monument narrowly escaped demolition, with structural repairs tiding it over while its new owners applied for planning permission in the early 1990s.The work in progress is on two floors, with a 40ft main reception room, only divided from the study and kitchen by glazed screens. We had to protect the timber floor and the roof trusses so five of us had to drag each steel, weighing half a ton, around the building and through the doorway. Prices for remaining properties range from £345,000 to £389,000.It is harder to find a home converted from a church in the countryside, not least because local communities rely on them heavily as a focal point. Known as 1854, the flats have mezzanine levels for use as studies or dining areas and many original features.

We were also able to run a triple-storey staircase in the centre of the main window.”Paul Brookes Architects redesigned the interior of a church in Surbiton, near London, to create six duplex and triplex apartments for Gleeson Classic Homes and County Gate Properties. By splitting it vertically we could keep the roof trusses, offsetting the party walls. “They had double, even treble height spaces and worked far better than as flats. Its focus, of course, is towards the front.” He prefers to work with vertical divisions, which maximise the space by using the huge roof height to bring light down from new rooflights, which planners are more likely to approve than alterations to windows.A conversion of St Paul’s Church near Dulwich, south London, into seven houses, is one that Brookes regards as the most successful. A church by its very nature tends to be dark and atmospheric, often with stained glass, and not bathed in pools of light.

The key issues to resolve are the proposed floors and existing windows which are fairly narrow and small. The buildings are often listed, or locally listed, and you have to retain at least the exterior. “They can go so wrong if you slice them up regardless of design. He has now turned his attention to churches and relishes the challenge they present.

This in turn required a re-think of interior design, away from the homely and more towards the functional and minimal, which can be as fitting for a revamped church as for a former warehouse.
Paul Brookes is an architect with experience in converting Victorian schools. But since architects and designers have lifted our horizons, huge windows and acres of space have become features of stylish living.The earliest church conversions, with their somewhat crude horizontal division of the building into floors, which often cut right across magnificent features, gave way to an urban, loft-style of regeneration that wasn’t afraid to use space to its full dramatic effect. If they weren’t taken on by community groups or businesses, they were likely to fall into disrepair and an even more uncertain future. Moneynetmortgagesearches There was a time when redundant churches were more burden than blessing. It said: “Low demand and abandonment are serious obstacles to the renewal of deprived neighbourhoods and to the social and economic well-being of wider communities.”. As well as turning round the areas already affected, the Government will intervene in places showing early signs of developing such problems.Although London and the South-East suffer from a shortage of affordable homes, most vacant properties are snapped up. We have to break the cycle and stop them doing it again somewhere else,” said one source.Other measures in the “market renewal” package include ploughing more Government money in to demolish and rebuild schemes, renovating homes which are in better condition and buying out landlords and owner-occupiers.