When Jamie Shepherd drove away from his first viewing of the 17th century timbers he’d just paid a six-figure sum for, he was “very depressed”. He’d bought the timber, sight unseen, and that first inspection, which took place in the unlikely setting of a turkey shed, made him doubt his sanity.

The purchase was, however, a sprat to catch a mackerel. The timbers, which date back to around 1600, were an essential ingredient in an ambitious project which will see the creation of Hanson Hall, a luxury 10,000ft2 home set in 14 acres of ancient woodland in Cheshire’s Alderley Edge.

The timber had come from one of three Grade II listed barns, which were dismantled during the construction of Manchester airport’s second runway in 1999. The wattle and daub walls could not be preserved, but the timbers were labelled and stored – first under plastic sheeting, but then in the aforementioned turkey sheds, one for each barn.

Hanson Hall will incorporate a rebuilt 17th century barn

Jamie Shepherd, managing director of Forward Construction & Development, had bought the site, formerly occupied by a Ministry of Defence munitions shed and “inherited” the planning permission for Hanson Hall. “There is a moratorium on housebuilding in Macclesfield,” said Shepherd, “so the reconstruction of the medieval barn was crucial to the project because it had been habitable and represented a unit of housing stock that had to be replaced. Rebuilding the barn has enabled the new part to be built – not the other way around.”

In fact, the planners were exceptionally helpful. “The Hanson Hall scheme is in greenbelt land where we would usually restrict development,” said Mike Scammell, conservation officer for Macclesfield Council. “But we felt it was worth granting planning permission to a project that would bring back to life a piece of English heritage.”

The plans were drawn up by James Brotherhood Associates, a practice with many years’ experience of working with listed buildings and scheduled monuments, work which included dismantling, moving and re-erecting timber frame buildings. His brief for the whole project was to create a family home comprising the medieval structure in its reinstated form and an adjacent contemporary oak frame structure.

“The trick is to use the historical evolution of oak frame structures to create a new structure that is contemporary in its form but which has a lot of the medieval ‘technology’ in its detail and joints,” said James Brotherhood.

The frame should be finished and watertight by Christmas

Like Shepherd, Brotherhood’s first sight of the barn was as a stack of timber and there were no photographs for guidance. However, there were some record drawings and, based on these and experience he prepared plans for its reinstatement.

The plans have grown somewhat organically as the challenges of joining two buildings separated by 400 years of history unfolded. Despite accounting for 80% of the total footprint, the contemporary part of the build is classed as the extension and, as such, to comply with planning requirements has to be “subservient” to the original section.

“As a result, in order to achieve a reasonable height in the extension, or contemporary wing, the whole medieval section had to be raised and an extra panel at first floor level introduced,” said Brotherhood. Thus the medieval wing now has a basement – which will house a very 21st century swimming pool and plant room.

Another moveable feast has been the 17th century timber itself. Closer inspection by Shepherd, Brotherhood and the company contracted to re-erect the barn, the Oak Frame Company, established that only around half the original timber could be used. The rest was simply too rotten.

Traditional carpentry methods are being employed, including the use of hand-made pegs

“Sod's law dictates that the place where you want to splice in a bit of new timber doesn’t have sufficient strength to sustain that joint,” said Brotherhood. Judgements and readjustments were continually made on sight where this proved to be the case and the result is a patchwork of old and new, joined by modern adhesives and then wax sealed. The timber will be fully exposed both inside and out and is likely to be steam cleaned or sandblasted to achieve a uniform colour. The frame will then be treated with insecticide and fungicide, with oxalic acid to remove the oxidation marks, and then oiled.

Another contemporary element of the reinstatement is the use of composite infill panels supplied and fitted by TJ Crump Oakwrights, the company erecting the modern part of the build.

These panels, Oakwrights’ own patented design, comprise a WISA spruce 3/3 grade plywood sheet, breather paper on the outside, then a waterproof tanking membrane and a render bead and Compriband (an expandable butyl strip) edge system. A weather bar and lead tray are at the base of the panel, with the lead tray coming up underneath the breather paper. Render is applied onto the tanking membrane.

In the rebuild section, the panels are fitted with battens, which are slotted into slash cuts, with DPC membranes, inside the frame. In the new-build frame, no such fiddly retrofitting is necessary. Instead, a groove is cut into the frame at Oakwrights’ factory in Hereford and the panel is inserted into it. “The panel is integral to the oak frame and is installed as the frame goes up,” explained Tim Crump. “Polyurethane insulation is on the inside and there is a gap left around the edge to allow for the installation of wiring and then that is filled with Rockwool insulation.” The groove also accommodates an intumescent strip, affording the frame and panels a 55-minute fire resistance.

Oakwrights is supplying and erecting the new part of the house

“It takes us longer to finish the panels than it does to erect the whole frame,” said Crump, but it’s time well spent because the performance offered by the panels was one of the factors that secured the business for Oakwrights – that and the cutting edge technology in its machine shop where a computer controlled Hundegger K2 beam processing machine was capable of slicing and dicing the required 39 tonnes of European green oak to tolerances of –0/0.5mm.

Once all the mortise and tenons, drill holes and grooves required were cut, the component timbers were made up in two dimensions in the framing shop where the curving and scribing work was carried out by hand.

Windows are a major feature of the new-build section where the emphasis will be on large, light and airy spaces. “This project is very extravagant with space,” said Shepherd, adding that, in some places bedrooms had been removed from the original design in order to open space out and create “cathedral-like spaces open to the ceiling”.

Oakwrights’ patented panels are being used both in the new and old sections of the house

While floor to ceiling glazing will feature in the extension, in sharp contrast the 17th century wing will be fitted with diminutive single-glazed diamond-paned leaded light windows fixed to a lead bed on a wrought iron frame with copper nails. These will be installed into mullions lapped into the frame.

Construction started at the beginning of the year and the framing should be finished and watertight by Christmas. The internal fit-out – inglenook fireplaces, ledged and braced oak doors with wrought iron furniture, underfloor heating and a heat recovery system are just some of the items on the shopping list – will take a further six months and contribute to the estimated build cost of £2m.

Jamie Shepherd has been on site most days and, due to the complexities of bridging the gap between early 17th and early 21st century timber frame buildings, some of those days have been exhausting and sometimes frustrating – but ultimately worth it. “I’d definitely do another green oak timber frame,” he said, “but maybe not with a 17th century attachment.”