Bluefriars House – Creating an Arts & Crafts Home

Bluefriars House is a detached self-build home set in two acres of land in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

When owner Sarah Jones replaced an existing run-down 1930s building on the site, she wanted to create an authentic Arts & Crafts house, with a steeply pitched roof, low eaves, wide overhangs, large chimney stacks, and a prominent front porch.

Its design and proportions would sit naturally within the rural landscape, in line with the Chilterns Building Design Guide.

Meticulous Historical Details

Sarah project-managed everything herself, spending two years reading up on the Arts & Crafts movement, visiting historic homes and photographing architectural details she could recreate.

Guided by the movement’s ‘truth to materials’ philosophy, she worked with skilled craftsmen and was careful to use sustainable, long-life handmade products wherever possible.

Approximately 30,000 of Northcot’s Lyneham Red sand-faced handmade bricks were laid in a traditional Flemish bond using a bespoke lime mortar mix.

The simplicity of the brickwork, with its light creasing and soft orange-red tones, was offset by a brick plinth along the ground-floor perimeter and by brick arches around the entrance doors, chimneys, and some windows. The chamfered brick edges were cut on site.
The exterior brickwork was mirrored in the feature fireplaces inside, where the creasing tiles and brickwork were left exposed.

Why Northcot?

Sarah said, “We wanted to create a genuinely authentic Arts & Crafts home that feels as though it’s been standing here since the late 1800s.

“Getting the brickwork right was critical. After driving around the country looking at different brick styles, we decided on Northcot’s Lyneham Red. There was something about the colour and the almost tactile quality that gave us exactly the character we were looking for.”

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