We were delighted to receive planning and Listed Building consent for our proposals to redevelop Highfield Farm with the Holbrook Conservation Area, on behalf of the Trustees of the John Strutt Memorial Foundation.

Highfield Farm is situated within the Holbrook Conservation Area. The farmstead comprises of a large stone built farmhouse dating from the 17th century (Grade II Listed), a range of 18th and 19th century stone barns (also Grade II Listed), a small outlying 19th century stone barn, and a mid-20th century concrete block milking parlour.

As a Strutt estate farm the buildings are of high quality and considerable historical interest. The Strutt family are famous for having built the pioneering North Mill at Belper, as well as model housing and other community facilities for their workers. They also built and owned outlying farms, where they applied their industrial knowhow and construction skills to agricultural processes.

Trustees of the Strutt estate still look after a few remaining farms and properties. We were asked by the Trustees to find new uses for the buildings given that they are no longer suitable for modern farming practices.

We liaised with Amber Valley Borough Council and Holbrook Parish Council before developing a sensitive scheme for the restoration of the farmhouse, the conversion of the Listed barns to two new homes, the conversion and extension of the outlying barn to a holiday let, the removal of the milking parlour, and to help fund the renovation of the existing buildings, the construction of a single new house within the curtilage of the farmstead.

The barn conversions have been designed as sensitively as possible –utilising existing openings and internal spaces and facilitating the repair and restoration of the buildings.

The extension to the outlying barn and the new house have been designed in a contemporary yet contextually appropriate style –using sympathetic materials and forms to create an identifiably modern aesthetic, so as to avoid diluting the quality and integrity of the older buildings.

The team at Planning & Design very much look forward to seeing the historic buildings at Highfield Farm restored and re-used, and the new architecture take shape.