Kim Sankey

87 posts

Weekly Blog – 43

Another successful outcome, approval for the change of use of a carport to a home office, the internal alterations to a Grade II listed building in Dunkeswell Conservation Area, to create a larger bathroom where previously only a shower room existed and the lowering of a window on the first-floor landing. The clients have waited patiently since 28 May 2021 for a decision made more urgent by the arrival of their first child.  It is difficult to believe that an application for listed building consent can take 5 months but this is average if we are lucky it will take […]

Weekly Blog 42

The farmhouse at Cathole is a fascinating new commission, an early C18 farmhouse with attached byre, it ceased to be a working farm in the 1970’s and since 1992 has become the home of our clients who have sensibly decided to look at options for the repair and conversion of three outbuildings to new uses.  This is a typical Devon long house with a cross passage, previously with two staircases under a thatched roof, now slate.   The hen house and dairy have been turned into utility spaces ancillary to the kitchen.  The re-use of redundant farm buildings needs to consider […]

Weekly Blog – 41

Dana Assinder, friend and accomplished landscape designer was commended this week in the RIBA Off Grid 2030 Competition featured in the RIBA Journal October 2021 with (Exeter based) Hilton Barnfield Architect for their Naturehaus project, so that reinforces the mass of talent here in Dorset & Devon.  There are lots of us trying hard to share the varied and always interesting workload.   I also think that collaboration with others is key to achieving better outcomes, bringing together lots of different skills complementing each other. Working with Niall Maxwell in Carmarthen has taught me a different approach and also just […]

Weekly Blog – 40

On my travels to East Sussex I noted a technique we don’t see much in the west country – galletting. This is a method of filing wide joints with pebbles of shells, pushed into the spaces between stones, which if merely filled with lime mortar would be too wide. This little cottage in Winchelsea has an alternating pattern of scalloped tiles at first floor above limestone with mortar joints incorporating pebbles (probably from Winchelsea Beach). Many houses in Winchelsea have cellars dating from the early C15 when they were trading merchandise with the French before the harbour was completely silted […]