• Tenure: Freehold

• Outside space: Yes

• Parking: Yes

• EPC: C

Key features and description

A Grade II listed 18th century barn, rebuilt from the shell and brought into use as a home for the first time in its history, with the rare combination of a genuine 300 year old timber frame and a full new build warranty behind it.

Built in around 1785, with origins believed to run back into the seventeenth century, this was an agricultural barn serving the neighbouring farm for the best part of two and a half centuries. It was never a dwelling and it was listed Grade II in 1984 as part of the historic group at Ramridge Farm.

This barn is not a conversion in the usual sense of the word. Having been taken back to its bones, structurally rebuilt, insulated and re-roofed to modern standards, and then very carefully put back together by a well-respected interior designer local to the area, everything that gave it its character survived the process. The original timber frame was restored rather than replaced, and it is fully on show. The roof was rebuilt to replicate the original profile and pitch, and as many of the original clay tiles as could be saved were reused, now covering one of the gabled entrance porches. The black weatherboarding is exactly where it should be. Eighteenth century red brickwork is still readable at the rear.

Because Barn Owl has been made into a home for the first time, rather than adapted from an existing dwelling, it carries a full LABC new build guarantee. It is extremely unusual to find this attached to a listed building, and it removes at a stroke the single biggest anxiety buyers have about buying a period property: not knowing what is behind the plaster.

The performance figures follow from the same work. The barn is comprehensively insulated, heated by an air source heat pump and warmed by underfloor heating throughout, and it holds an EPC rating of C. For a Grade II listed structure of this age, that is a genuinely rare achievement, and one that matters. A listed barn that is warm, efficient and cheap to run is not a contradiction.

The approach is along a quiet country lane, opening onto a gravelled drive. Two gabled porches sit at the front of the barn; the main entrance is the right hand one. The original double stable doors open into an interior porch, and then a Crittall style glazed door into the entrance hall, which is double height. The openings for the custom-made steel doors were newly formed as part of the conversion and framed in substantial, straight-cut oak. It's a deliberate architectural transition with the intention of bridging new against old. It is a considered sequence, stone flooring with underfloor heating begins here and runs unbroken across the whole ground floor.

The heart of the barn is a single open volume running kitchen, dining and sitting, more than 39 feet long, under a vaulted double height pitched ceiling. Glazed doors on both sides pull light straight through the room and open it to the garden on one side and an additional tastefully presented porch with seating and drive on the other. The original studs, posts and beams are all expressed, and the palette works with them rather than against them: raw, chalky plaster in earthy mineral tones, which softens the vertical scale and lets the aged oak carry the room. Custom made steel doors have been introduced as a deliberate contemporary counterpoint. A modern Swedish log burner in white contrast anchors the sitting end.

A German kitchen, supplied locally, combining white and ridged walnut cabinetry with quartz worktops. Siemens appliances are fully integrated throughout: two ovens, fridge, separate freezer and dishwasher, with the hob set into a generous island that is clearly designed to be sat around. A reclaimed sliding barn door leads through to the utility and ancillary space.

Behind the kitchen, painted timber stairs climb to a floating mezzanine study set up among the rafters, open to the room below. It is the kind of space that cannot be designed into a new house: it exists only because the barn was this tall to begin with. The view over the main living space is breath taking.

Three bedroom suites, each with its own substantial en-suite, and deliberately arranged so that they work independently of one another. That matters more than a bedroom count suggests. It means guests, adult children or a family member working from home each have genuine privacy without anyone crossing anyone elses space.

The ground floor guest suite sits at the far end of the plan, with a freestanding bath and separate shower. Upstairs, the principal suite has a freestanding bathtub, a walk-in shower and views over the garden. The second double is filled with light from a large skylight and has an en suite with an oval bath and teal green tiling. The bathrooms are fitted with Lusso Stone sanitary-ware and sculptural freestanding baths, and the utility and shower room carries a striking geometric tiled floor and a butler sink.