Compton Cottage originates from around 1770, built as a two roomed malmstone and brick thatched cottage in Frogmore, East Meon. It was extended and modified over the next 250 years gaining bedrooms and living spaces with its external appearance changing from modest thatched cottage to a four bedroomed house with red tiled Hampshire vernacular style exterior and Georgian casement windows.
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Camillin Denny Design have reworked what had become a sprawling mixture of styles and dysfunctional collection of rooms by adding a contemporary and contrasting Staffordshire blue brick addition to the existing building. The key to the whole design was relocation of the staircase and insertion of a two-storey rear extension that helps to re-join the different parts of the building and eradicate the mossy, north facing flat roofed area added in the late 1980s. It is still a 4 bedroom house, with the majority of the works aimed at improving the circulation through the house and much improved energy performance.
The relocation of the stair has enabled a direct connection between the kitchen and living room reducing the distance between the two from 18 metres to 6 metres, the addition of three rooflights has brought light into otherwise poorly lit rooms.
The house has been insulated where it has been possible to do so, the oil-fired boiler has been replaced with an air source heat pump, and new double glazed windows have replaced the old 1990s single glazed windows and doors.
The series of small rooms on the ground floor that had been added in the 1990 extension have been joined together to form one larger room which is where the kitchen has been relocated. The old kitchen had very low ceilings and has therefore been converted to utility and entrance hall.
This house had two front doors, the original Georgian door that opened onto a public footpath running up the west side of the house and the 1990s front door that was added to the driveway on the eastern side of the house which previously was offset to the side of the path. Clearly the driveway entrance is preferred, as the footpath front door is rarely used, therefore the architect moved the 1990s front door to be directly at the end of the footpath from the driveway with a more prominent and appropriate design style as befits the main entrance to the house.
The external pathways have been resurfaced and reorientated using a tumbled limestone cobble and connections between the main house, annex and garage have been strengthened through the landscape design, incorporating the planting of silver birch, hawthorn, grasses and wildflower meadow borders.