The Providence Chapel in Wiltshire by Jonathan Tuckey Design.

I bet I know exactly what this house smells like. I lived in the UK for five years and was a member of the National Trust so am au fait with the parsimonious timbery whiff of little country churches and barn conversions.

Strap on your Hunter wellies and pass me the Range Rover, we’re going to Bath. Or just outside Bath, in Colerne. Alts and Adds courtesy of Jonathan Tuckey Design, photographs by Dirk Lindner.

Out the back of a little Wrennish chapel is a handsome black timber-clad extension. Taking the vernacular forms of charming Wiltshire village architecture and quoting them in tones heavy with the accent of modern architecture, the architect has managed successfully what so many people mess up (anyone seen the Grand Designs where a country church gets a plastic dome and an indoor pool?) – the insertion of a modern family home into that most frosty of settings, the deconsecrated chapel.

The chapel itself is pleasantly school roomy. The blackboard-cum-aga (I know it’s not actually an aga but give me license) is so Sloaney I could scream but entre nous I quite like it. Above all there’s a double height stack of books in the corner and frankly, what more could one ask for?

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For me the winning part of this project is the discreet way the new wing sits behind the old buildings (refer garden shot). It’s not crass, nor is it apologetic, sycophantically deferential to the old architecture. It’s clean, modern, and good. And I applaud it.

Ende.

Text by Luke Moloney for Yellowtrace.

[Photos by James Brittain and Dirk Lindner, via Remodelista.]