Thank you for taking an interest in our project, to build a new house in North Devon. We have been thinking about it for more than five years now and our aim is to end up with as sustainable a house as possible (with solar thermal and electricity generation as well as high levels of insulation) and one which is beautiful as well.
When we first bought the site, four acres of steeply wooded hillside, leading down to a small stream (a tributary of the River Taw), there was a scruffy timber and asbestos bungalow sitting forlornly on it which was slowly disintegrating and sinking into the hillside.
The bungalow was built in the early 1920's as a home for the manager of an orchard for the big house further down the valley. As well as the fruit trees (long since rotted away apart from a few ancient Mazzard cherries), many exotic, imported evergreens were planted, as was the fashion then.
In their native forests, these huge trees are surrounded by others which gives them protection from the wind. These were dotted around the bungalow garden, singly and some were looming scarily over the house, on the very steep slope. They were wind damaged and unstable and some had their roots exposed. They needed to be removed before any work could start on the site. The difference once they'd been felled was dramatic. Suddenly, there were far reaching views and the sun could shine in.
The tree fellers were working hard for nearly 4 weeks, in November 2008 and hadn't quite finished cutting up the huge sections of tree trunks when the demolition team moved in.
We will have enough wood for the foreseeable future; it just has to be carried up the site and stacked to dry, once the house is finished. At the moment, it's mostly lying where it fell, right across the southern slope below the proposed build site.
