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Project	York Country House
Location	York
Structural Engineer	Jameson Consulting Engineers
Photographer	Jim Varney
Completion	2026
Sector	Conservation & Heritage Country House Private Estates

New Country House near York

This new country house occupies the site of a former farmstead to the north of York, its footprint chosen to align with the existing stable range and so complete the heart of a new small country estate. The house replaces a redundant farmhouse of little architectural merit, and permission was secured under the replacement dwelling policy, an opportunity, as so often in these cases, for a traditional architect to reconsider not only the building itself but its whole relationship to the land around it.

The design draws on the long tradition of the Yorkshire country house, built of York Handmade brick laid in Flemish bond, with dressings of Leyburn sandstone to the quoins, window surrounds, cornice and portico. This pairing of warm brick and pale stone is characteristic of the region's finest eighteenth century houses, and the choice of Westmorland Blue slate, laid in diminishing courses to the roof, roots the building firmly in the vernacular of the North, where slate rather than clay tile has always been the material of choice for the grander house.

The plan takes the form of an H, a configuration long favoured for the country house for the clarity and balance it offers, with a single storey kitchen wing added to the rear to accommodate the informal life of a modern family without disturbing the symmetry of the principal block. At the crossing of the H sits a triple height staircase hall, its cantilevered stair curving up through the full height of the house, a dramatic set piece that recalls the great top lit staircases of the Georgian house, reworked here as the pivot around which the whole plan turns. Ceilings throughout are generously proportioned, and tall timber sliding sash windows frame views out across the newly landscaped gardens, so that the formal geometry of the interior is held constantly in dialogue with the parkland beyond.

To the rear, the kitchen wing departs from the classical language of the main house to create a more relaxed, vaulted space, its exposed oak trusses giving the room the character of a barn or granary reimagined as the principal family space, a device that acknowledges the site's agricultural history while giving the household a room for everyday life quite distinct in character from the formal rooms beyond.

The building's alignment with the existing stables was a deliberate move from the earliest stages of design, allowing the new country house to read as though it had always belonged to this place. House, stable court and gardens are brought together into a single composition, in the manner of the small English country estate, each part answering the others in scale and material. As a country estate architect, our approach throughout was to give a working farm site new life, drawing its buildings and landscape into a coherent whole, and establishing a new country house that takes its character from its Yorkshire setting while answering the needs of a family home for the century ahead.

The project was a wonderful collaboration with the Sims Hilditch Interior Designers, The Landscape Agency and Laura Whitwam Garden Design, Cooper & Hall QS and Jameson Engineers. The main contractor was John Ellis Builders from Harrogate.