Avebury

CHALLENGE

Our client who farms in Wiltshire is faced with the steady decline of the farming subsidy known as the Basic Payment Scheme and needed to find a long-term sustainable solution that would replace it. They had identified a farmyard site within the centre of the village, that resides within the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site designation, with several underutilised buildings not suitable for modern farming practices and set Savills Architecture the challenge .  

SOLUTION

Working closely with our Tourism, Leisure & Events team we worked up several costed feasibility studies for various options for the site. Such options as simply car parking for the nearby National Trust site, a new hotel, university teaching facilities, housing or some kind of commercial use were considered. The option that delivered the highest yield was to provide tourist accommodation on the site due to the significant number of tourists that visit the area, and the lack of competition.

Working within the designation of a World Heritage Site is never easy, but Savills Architecture and Planning successfully gained detailed planning permission for six holiday cottages replacing several redundant farm buildings. Understanding the historical significance of the site, being on a lost medieval village, many iterations of historical farm buildings of different types, saw the development of the design to create a humble scheme of four contemporary new-build units positioned over previously located lost buildings and the conversion of the oldest buildings into two further units, all set within a newly landscaped setting in the heart of the village.

RESULTS

The works started mid-2023 and are working towards completion in early 2025. The site sees contemporary holiday units being built that have been designed to take the DNA from former buildings lost and mimic common materials seen on farms, where the conversions retain the stone and brick walls, and reintroduce a steeply pitched roof once seen in 19th Century, plus a former barn that abuts the main road which turns its back on the site and provides private and secure car parking for the guests to use. The site resides in a newly planted scheme seeing more than 3,400 plants, trees and hedging, giving the site some sense of what might be in the coming two to three years.

Each unit went through dynamic thermal modelling. The units are highly insulated, heated by air source heat pumps and have triple glazing, EV charging and more.

Working alongside our client, their website designers, marketing and PR teams and the interior designer was essential to ensure that the messaging of this complex design development is embedded into the website for this highly sensitive site.