Hilltop haven

It took Jamie Adams and his wife Madeline Hutton 13 years to gain planning for their family home in the Hampshire countryside. But perseverance paid off and their modern take on a traditional home is teeming with sustainable features, inside and out

- Michelle Guy

Nestled on the edge of a Hampshire village sits Hill Top House, a red-brick, part-oak frame and flint-clad sustainable family home that reflects the agricultural heritage of the site in which it sits. But, what you can’t tell from the exterior is the rather arduous planning journey homeowners Jamie and Madeline had to navigate before building could even begin.

BACK TO THEIR ROOTS

Back in 2003 Jamie and Madeline, who lived in London at the time, bought a plot of land for £3,000 (without planning permission) on the edge of the Hampshire village that Madeline had grown up in. The idea was to build a home near Madeline’s elderly parents, to look after them. “Madeline’s family had lived in the village, with three generations of farmers working the land,” explains Jamie. “The idea was to buy the land and start planning a sustainable home.”

So, in December 2003, the couple put in a planning application for a four-bed green oak-framed family home, having employed architects to draw up the plans. But they received vocal opposition from a local minority, including the parish council. Their application was refused on the grounds that the site was outside the area’s Settlement Policy Boundary (SPB). The plot also happens to be on a Greenfield site and in a conservation area. Jamie and Madeline appealed but sadly it was dismissed in February 2005.

“Right from the start, our main aim was to build a low-impact, energy-efficient home”