HOMEOWNERS Phillip and Sandra Prior
LOCATION Essex/ Cambridgeshire border
PLOT PURCHASED 2016
PROJECT New build manor-style four-bedroom house
SIZE 620m2
BUILD ROUTE Bespoke architectural design by Pete Tonks, regional architectural designer at Oakwrights. Project managed by homeowners
CONSTRUCTION Structural green oak frame and WrightsWall/WrightRoof natural encapsulation by Oakwrights
At the very end of a long lane, on the site of an old builder’s yard, an extraordinary oak frame manor-style home comes into view. Impressive yet characterful, the home has been built where run-down agricultural buildings once stood, on what was essentially a brownfield site. It has been a two-year journey for the owners, Phillip and Sandra Prior, who had previously lived in an old farmhouse three miles away for the previous 20 years. “We agreed to buy the plot with the buildings bulldozed and the site cleared,” Phillip explains. “It needed quite a bit of work before we
