New Builds · High Street, Inkberrow, Worcestershire · 2019

Inkberrow, Four-Bedroom Detached New Build.

Item: Inkberrow, Four-Bedroom Detached New Build
Rating: 5
Author: JRC Developers (J. Coote & Son Ltd)

A full-build family home on High Street, Inkberrow, reclaimed-blend red brickwork, hand-cut grey plain tile roof, a signature twisted-brick chimney, oak-framed porch, vaulted rear lounge with twin aluminium bifolds and full interior fit-out.

Overview

Inkberrow is one of the projects we're most often asked about, a full ground-up build on a tight village-centre plot on High Street, delivered in-house from muck-away through to landscaping. The brief was a proper four-bedroom family home that would sit comfortably in a conservation-sensitive Worcestershire village yet feel unmistakably modern inside.

We ran every trade ourselves: groundworks, drainage, footings, brickwork, hand-cut carpentry, roofing, joinery, first- and second-fix, kitchens, bathrooms, utility, tiling, decorating and the whole external works package. The result is a house that reads as though it's always been on the High Street, and lets on its full quality only once you step inside.

The Vision

A proper family home for a village-centre plot.

Inkberrow's High Street is a conservation-sensitive setting, timber-framed cottages, red-brick Georgian frontages, mature trees. Anything new here has to earn its place. The owners wanted a full four-bedroom detached family home with a generous rear garden, a real fireplace, a vaulted living space and a kitchen that could genuinely host, without any of that reading as flashy from the road.

We designed the massing around a traditional red brick shell with a grey plain tile roof and a signature twisted-brick chimney stack, and reserved the modern moves, vaulted lounge, twin bifolds, floor-to-ceiling glazing, for the private rear elevation.

Rear elevation of the Inkberrow new-build showing red brickwork and grey plain tile roof — The finished rear elevation.

Side view of the completed Inkberrow house from the garden — Side onto the garden.

Groundworks & Shell

Ground broken, footings in, brick shell up.

We took the plot from strip-back to slab in one continuous programme, muck-away, drainage, trench-block footings, DPC and beam-and-block ground floor. From there the shell went up in a reclaimed-blend red brick chosen to sit against the older village stock, with gauged perpends and lined-through courses on every elevation.

The first-floor structure is timber-joisted onto blockwork inner leaves, and the roof is a fully hand-cut grey plain tile, no trussed shortcuts, so the ridge lines and hips read cleanly from the street.

Two-storey red brick shell of the Inkberrow new-build under construction before windows are installed — Shell up, pre-windows.

Rear elevation of the Inkberrow new-build before garden landscaping, showing bare soil plot and finished brickwork — Shell finished, garden yet to come.

Signature Brickwork

The twisted chimney stack.

The chimney is the piece of the Inkberrow build we're asked about most. It's a full-storey decorative stack, hand-laid in the same reclaimed-blend red brick as the elevations, twisted through 90° across its height with a gauged cap.

This is the kind of specialist brickwork you can't order in, it lives or dies on the bricklayer setting out every course on the scaffold. It's also the detail that lifts the whole house from a nice new-build into a house with a signature.

The completed twisted-brick chimney against the sky at the Inkberrow new-build — The twisted stack from below.

Bricklayer standing next to the twisted-brick chimney stack at the Inkberrow new-build — The stack, for scale.

Interiors

Vaulted lounge, real kitchen, calm bedrooms.

The rear of the house is one continuous living space anchored by a vaulted lounge with twin aluminium bifold doors, light comes in from three sides, and the ceiling opens up to the roof structure. A log burner on an oak mantle keeps the room usable through the winter.

The kitchen is a Shaker in a soft grey with white stone worktops, a full-height island under copper pendant lights, and a slot skylight along its length. A separate utility handles laundry and boots, and a downstairs WC finishes off the ground floor. Upstairs, oak internal doors and oak flooring run through a calm landing to four bedrooms and a marble-effect family bathroom.

Vaulted lounge at the Inkberrow new-build with two sets of aluminium bifolds open to the garden — Vaulted lounge, twin bifolds.

Interior lounge view showing exposed vaulted roof structure and two sets of bifold doors — The vault, from inside.

Log burner in the Inkberrow lounge with oak mantle — Log burner detail.

Second reception room at the Inkberrow new-build with carpet and log burner — Snug reception.

Kitchen island under copper pendant lights and a large skylight at the Inkberrow new-build — Kitchen island, copper pendants, slot skylight.

Grey Shaker kitchen at the Inkberrow new-build with white stone worktops — Grey Shaker, stone worktops.

L-shaped white stone worktops in the Inkberrow new-build kitchen — L-shaped run.

Utility room with stainless sink and quartz worktop at the Inkberrow new-build — Utility.

Family bathroom with marble-effect tiling and rain shower at the Inkberrow new-build — Family bathroom.

En-suite vanity and basin at the Inkberrow new-build — En-suite vanity.

Downstairs WC with grey vanity and quartz worktop at the Inkberrow new-build — Downstairs WC.

First-floor landing with oak doors and oak flooring at the Inkberrow new-build — Landing, oak doors and floor.

External Works

Sandstone patio, lawn, planting.

We finished the plot ourselves: a wide Indian sandstone patio wraps the rear against the bifolds, stepping down onto a full-width lawn edged with post-and-rail fencing. Planting beds soften the elevations back to the brickwork so nothing looks freshly landed.

By the time we handed over there was no snag-list of trades to co-ordinate, the same team that dug the footings had laid the patio and pointed the chimney.

Indian sandstone patio and lawn behind the Inkberrow new-build — Patio and lawn.

Sandstone patio against the red brickwork of the Inkberrow new-build — Patio against the brick.

View of the sandstone patio, bifolds and lawn from an upstairs window at the Inkberrow new-build — Garden from upstairs.

Landscaped planting bed against the Inkberrow new-build brickwork — Planting beds.

Handover

A house that earned its place on the High Street.

The Inkberrow new-build handed over in autumn 2019 as a completed four-bedroom family home on High Street, WR7 4BW, ready to sell or let on a long-term contract. It's a build we still point people at when they ask what a full JRC new-build actually looks like, from footings through to the twisted brick on the chimney.