Kinross

Only a few lucky residents get to live in the highly decorative Arts and Crafts houses of a nineteenth century country estate in the midst of the dramatic Scottish countryside, on an estate originally conceived by renowned architect Sir Robert Lorimer no less. Those that live there cherish the atmosphere, the beauty, the heritage. But what if an outsider wants to come in and plonk an enormous black minimalist rectangular building right into the beautiful walled garden, the centrepiece of the estate? That’s what young, ambitious architect Iain and his wife Jenny intend to do. Their grand vision will also involve connecting the new black clad block right through the historic high garden wall into a dilapidated, listed gardeners bothy on the other side - currently a charming building which wouldn’t look out of place in a Beatrix Potter book. Having spent £225,000 on the bothy and gardens, they have just £350,000 to spend on a project that combines the startlingly new with delicate conservation, as well as the conversion of a historic vegetable garden into a practical family garden. The neighbours are watching.

 

The project gets off to an inauspicious start as Iain opts to dump 40 tonnes of earth from the foundations into the middle of the cultivated garden. And it’s not long before the garden wall starts looking seriously sorry for itself when several huge holes are smashed through to connect the bothy to the new building. With the bothy proving far more time consuming and costly to restore and convert than expected, concerns about whether this historic site will be ruined forever hang over the entire project…