The Studio, Muddiford

The brief

Our clients wanted a small, private building in the grounds of Dingles Farm near Muddiford, somewhere that could work as guest accommodation and earn its keep as a holiday let, without crowding the farmhouse or the wooded valley around it.

The requirement was easy to describe and hard to get right. One beautiful room for two people, a proper kitchen and a good bathroom, and a real connection to the woodland, all inside a compact footprint of around fifty square metres.

The design

We designed it as an oak framed building raised over an open oak bay, with the accommodation on the upper level under a vaulted, sloping ceiling. The living space is a single open plan room where the bed, the sitting area and the kitchen share one calm volume, with the shower room tucked to one side.

The character comes from the frame and the openings. A large circular window sits in the gable with timber shutters that open straight into the trees, and full height glazed doors lead out onto the deck, so the valley reads as part of the room. Keeping the plan open makes fifty square metres feel generous rather than tight.

The build

The frame was cut in our workshop and raised on site, then clad in cedar weatherboard and roofed in natural slate, materials chosen to settle into a wooded setting and weather gracefully. Oak was carried through inside as well, in the internal doors and the timber floor.

We fitted the studio out end to end, from the shell through to the kitchen and the en-suite shower room. It is well insulated and centrally heated so it works the whole year, and outside we set it into the slope with a private deck, an outdoor shower and off road parking, keeping the ground works and planting in sympathy with the valley.

The result

The Studio at Dingles Farm now lets through Finest Retreats as a sleep two retreat, taken by couples looking for somewhere quiet and well made in North Devon.

It sits within easy reach of the beaches at Combe Martin, the moor at Exmoor and the town of Barnstaple, but the building itself is the draw: a small, private space, hand built in oak, that makes the most of its valley.