East Byreleask steading has planning permission, reference APP/2012/3074, submitted by the estate and due to expire late in 2015. For the purposes of understanding the layout, we mentally chopped the main building into the three sides of a rectangle that make up the ‘U’ shape around a central courtyard. Because the courtyard faces south the ‘wings’ or legs are on the western, northern & eastern sides of the rectangle.
Here are my own copies of the Approved Site Plan, Approved Ground Floor, Approved Upper Floor, Approved Elevations Sections 1, Approved Elevations Sections 2.
The Steading: The western leg of the steading is 1.5 storey and is shown as having the gable-end wall demolished and rebuilt so as to shorten the leg. It was to be a garage and store, not making use of the upper storey. It has no internal access from the rest of the steading.
The northern leg is single storey, with a narrow lie-in down both sides. The master bedroom/en-suite is against the garage, with a corridor along the southern side past two more bedrooms and a bathroom. The ‘front’ door is towards the east end on the north side into a vestibule. The ‘back’ door is almost opposite. There is a stairway running from the hallway to the upper storey of the east leg. There are a number of other external doors.
The eastern leg is also 1.5 storey, with an open-plan kitchen/diner/lounge on the ground. Above is a bedroom with en-suite and a gallery overlooking the lounge. The large opening in the south wall is retained as window. It is taller than the first floor level, hence the gallery.
So the plan is for a 4-bedroom, moderately spacious and well-appointed, dwelling. It is to be finished very much in the vernacular – granite walls re-pointed, slate roof, no external ‘decoration’. Most existing openings are to be retained as-is, with some new openings. The roof lights, which are rather small, will expand to standard 50cm x 90cm velux-style windows. PVC is a no-no, windows frames are to be stained wood. generally all fine by us. The external details are very much constrained by the usual planning considerations. For example on the visual impact from the nearest public road. It is 300m away – binoculars anyone?
We were particularly taken with the bedroom in the upper storey, it is effectively a good-sized private suite. We wondered why the west leg had been shortened and did not like the idea of the corridor on the southern side of the north leg, effectively blocking summer sun from the bedrooms. We also wondered whether we needed quite so many external doors.
The rest of the site: The small building immediately south of the steading is planned to be retained. The shed at the bottom of the plot and all the concrete is to be removed. No problems here. The foul-water drainage is a bit more challenging. The porosity testing had shown that most of the plot is clay and not suitable for a conventional soakaway from the septic tank. Instead, the architect had designed an enormous raised soakaway that dominated a chunk of the property. Hmm.
The planning permission required that the larger trees on the site are to retained. Again, no problem here, although they do need quite a bit of tlc. At present the site is a bit of a jungle, due to the nettles and perennial weeds and with most of the trees branching out just above ground level. There are quite a few sick-looking elder trees which are not protected and could usefully be removed.
The emphasis is still on the vernacular, with post and wire fencing.
What we might want to change: The wider family played ‘design a steading’ for us, with the western leg being kept its original size and used for accommodation and the upstairs to just about mirror that in the east leg. We experimented with moving the corridor to the other side of the north leg.
It was our daughter Mairi who suggested moving the public rooms to the north leg and doing away with the corridor. With the two bedrooms upstairs, she fitted one in the west leg and two in the east leg. This is pretty much what we decided we wanted, so the game turned into ‘tweaking the design’. An email to Aberdeenshire council got us the reply that keeping the west leg at the current length and re-designing the interior should not be a problem planning-wise, but would require new planning permission.
The raised soakaway is a bit of an issue, we noted that a mini sewage treatment plant producing cleaner effluent might allow us a more discrete soakaway.
Meeting the architect: It was easy to track down the architect who handled the planning permission, Stephen Browne; his name is all over the plans. He lives locally so we emailed, phoned him and arranged to see him, with our list of questions. Our visit was useful. He trained and specialises in designing steading conversions and could be the person for us to work with.
He had designed the western leg to be shortened so as to not overlook the farmhouse on the adjacent property. Since the farmhouse has been demolished and the new house built well away from the steading, that issue no longer applies. He saw no issues with putting bedrooms in the east and west legs and public roomn in the north leg. He did argue for keeping the internal garage. He also saw no issues around getting new planning permission. He thought ‘something’ could be done about the soakaway for the septic tank.
So that was that. Now it was just the little matter of buying the property.
East Byreleask Steading 