Tue 24 Jan 2012
January 2012
Recently completed work includes:
Development of the old school at Lowgate near Hexham into two houses is now completed. The first house (Lowgate Old School) featured in a two-page article in the Journal Homemaker. The second house (Curlew Cottage) is proving popular with its occupants.
Internal alterations to Holy Cross Church at Haltwhistle, a significant Grade I Listed C13 building, are also now complete and make the building far more useful for all kinds of church and community functions.
Also completed is a sedum-roofed extension to St Aidan’s church in Gosforth, dating from 1956, an environmental sustainability statement from an enlightened client group, and a re-ordering scheme for the Grade II listed St Albans Church, Windy Nook, Gateshead.
A further phase of conversion of the listed CastleGate building in Newcastle is now in use, creating an exciting new entrance atrium with a tensile fabric canopy sail forming a ceiling in the 18 metre high space, part of a former turbine hall for the City’s electric tramways.
Work on the various churches we look after continues, with several quinquennial inspections booked for this year. Michael continues as a member of the Newcastle Diocesan Advisory Committee which advises on conservation and adaptation of church buildings across Newcastle and Northumberland.
Michael is also currently acting as client advisor to YHN (Newcastle’s social housing management company) on alterations to the Byker Redevelopment scheme, which he worked on in the 1970s, now listed (Grade II*). This throws up some interesting challenges, such as a total reconfiguring of Bolam Coyne, an iconic feature building in the Byker area, to meet changing housing needs. Now handed over and with its new residents moving in this month.
Over in mid-Wales work on a Grade II Listed Victorian school is nearing completion. The building was designed by the prominent Victorian architect George Edmund Street at the time when Phillip Webb and William Morris, pioneers of the Arts & Crafts movement, both worked in his office. We have designed a sympathetic conversion into a two-bedroomed house whilst retaining the character of the original and restoring the exterior and bellcote.