This was a lottery funded project for a new village hall: The original hall was a wooden hut with a tin roof and was in a poor state of repair, and the proposal was to replace it with a new building of similar size. After extensive consultation Countryside Consultants prepared the plans and documentation for the community’s successful Lottery bid.

The resulting scheme is a building of traditional appearance with rendered walls and stone quoins, lintels and sills, with a slate roof. The form of the building allows the main space to predominate with the taller hall roof and gables rising above the hipped off-shot roofs over the ancillary spaces housing the kitchen, meeting room, toilets and store.  It incorporates a number of sustainable building technologies including a well insulated timber frame and air-source heat-pumps.

The Duchess of Notrthumberland (of Alnwick Gardens fame) opened the hall on 26^th June 2010 and this was followed by a lively and well-attended community party with hog-roast in the evening.  The official opening of the hall was a great day for Countryside Consultant’s John Widdaker and Sarah Winn, representing the culmination of several year’s hard work, so it is rewarding to see that the hall has proved a great success and is already being very well used by the community.