PROJECT - Insurance Reinstatement

Fire reinstatement of listed building.

ANG acted as Management Contractor and Cost Consultant for the Castle Ashby Trust and Compton Estates to restore the fire damaged Grade II Listed Estates Offices close to the private country house which is located just a few metres from the house itself.

Around 60 firefighters spent three hours trying to get the blaze under control, before it destroyed artifacts and memorabilia dating back more than 500 years. All persons were safely evacuated from the building, and no one was injured.

Only the external masonry walls and gables, several internal partitions and three truss chords of the oak roof structure survived the blaze.

The top of the east and west walls, and parts of the stone gables had to be re-built. Five new oak trusses and the new roof members were manufactured from green and part-seasoned oak to existing details, and with traditional jointing techniques.

The ground floor was redesigned to provide a better layout with four independent offices and a new staircase to help meet fire regulations and provide Building Regulations’ compliant access to the first floor.

Most of the first-floor structure was destroyed with little evidence of layout and construction remaining. This provided the architects the opportunity to re-imagine the layout and to create a high quality and efficiently organised work environment with a mixture of individual offices and open plan work/meeting spaces, a reception area, a meeting room and various support spaces.

Services