Hilltop Farmhouse straddles a ridge of a hill just outside the village of Martley, Worcester. The complex dates back to pre Georgian times but was radically extended in the 1800’s to provide a tight grouping of oast houses, cider houses, stables, cowsheds, milking parlours, barns and cart houses.
Due to a change in the farming methods most of the traditional buildings on the site had become redundant or had been significantly adapted to suit new working practices. This had resulted in a significant erosion of their original form. To compound the situation further, the brickwork used to construct the buildings is of an agricultural quality and has weathered badly and a number of the buildings were experiencing major structural movement and distortion due to land slippage.
HBA was appointed to repair the buildings, unpick some of the more horrific additions and carryout sympathetic alterations to create a mixture of accommodation. Once all of the buildings were recorded it was possible to determine which buildings were historically and contextually important and which ones were not. The most complete buildings were repaired whilst those most altered were converted, and those in very poor state or clearly modern were removed.
