Old Posingford Farmhouse

A seventeenth-century farmhouse in the High Weald, and beside it a brick barn built from the bricks of a building that came before. The proposal gives that barn its next life — warm, dry rooms for the family — without adding a square metre to its footprint.

John and Vivienne Shorter have looked after Old Posingford as their family home. Their architect is Giles Paul Shorter of SOANE Architects — their son. He surveyed the buildings, researched their history, wrote every heritage document in the application and drew the scheme, with no separate heritage consultancy involved.

Watercolour of a tile-hung farmhouse with a central chimney, framed by trees and lawn — Old Posingford in watercolour — an illustration, not a survey.

A farmstead in the High Weald

Old Posingford sits in the High Weald National Landscape near Hartfield, East Sussex: a two-storey farmhouse of red brick with grey headers below and clay tile-hanging above, casements set under a steep tiled roof — the Wealden vernacular at its most characteristic. It was listed at Grade II in 1982.

A tile-hung brick farmhouse with a tall chimney behind a timber picket fence and lawn — The farmhouse: brick below, clay tile-hanging above.

The farm shares its name with Posingford Bridge in nearby Ashdown Forest — better known, since A. A. Milne, as Poohsticks Bridge. Victorian Ordnance Survey mapping shows Posingford Farm as a small knot of buildings along the lane, with a chalybeate — iron-rich — spring just to the north-west.

Extract of a nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey map showing Posingford Farm and a chalybeate spring — Posingford Farm and the chalybeate spring on the Victorian Ordnance Survey.

17th centuryThe farmhouse is built: red brick below, tile-hung above, under a clay tile roof.
19th centuryThe storage barn goes up in Flemish bond, laid in lime, from handmade brick understood to have been salvaged from an older building on the farm.
VictorianOrdnance Survey mapping records Posingford Farm as a small cluster of buildings beside a chalybeate spring.
1908The Ordnance Survey shows the farmhouse and its outbuildings much as they stand today. The timber garage follows later.
1982The farmhouse is listed at Grade II.
2021SOANE first surveys the buildings.
2026Two site inspections, a full Statement of Heritage Significance, and an application prepared for Wealden District Council.

Built from what came before

A long, single-storey brick barn with a clay tile roof across an autumn lawn — The storage barn from the garden: Flemish bond under a clay tile roof.

The subject of the work is the single-storey storage barn. Its walls are Flemish bond, laid in lime, with brick-lattice ventilation grilles, an arched-head gable window and an external chimney stack. Overhead, hand-worked coupled rafters carry the clay tiles. A rendered brick trough and old pipework point to a working life as a dairy.

The bricks themselves are older than the barn. They are understood to have been salvaged from an earlier building demolished on the same farm — so the barn was a reuse from the day it was built. Adapting it again is not a break with its history. It is the next chapter of it.

A weathered ledged timber door with long iron strap hinges in a brick wall — The original barn door — to be kept and overhauled.

A painted multi-pane timber casement window set in red brickwork — Painted timber casements in Flemish bond.

A long rendered brick trough inside the barn — The dairy trough — recorded in full.

III

Reading the walls

Nobody could say for certain how old the barn was, and no document could settle it. So the walls were asked instead. Over two site inspections, in February and July 2026, every window, door, fitting and stretch of brickwork was examined and graded on a six-point scale. Where the evidence would not support a firm reading, it was marked “Cloud” rather than guessed.

The reading paid off. It identified a probable late Georgian window worth keeping, historic ironmongery to salvage and refix, and the barn's true character: a nineteenth-century building in reused earlier brick. All of it is set out in a Statement of Heritage Significance prepared to Historic England's Advice Note 12, and drawn together on a single sheet.

Plan of the barn and garage with walls coloured by age, surrounded by photographs of each elevation and detail — The Building Age and Significance Plan: every wall dated, graded and tied to the photographic record.

The proposal

Lime, not cement

The brick gable end of the barn with a chimney and a small white window, among autumn trees — The east gable. Repair starts here: cement out, lime back in.

Twentieth-century cement pointing is harming the most significant fabric on the site — the barn's soft, handmade Flemish bond. The first act of the scheme is to take it out and repoint in a matching lime mortar, which the Heritage Impact Assessment identifies as the proposal's principal benefit. The clay tiles are repaired rather than stripped, and plastic gutters give way to black, cast-iron-effect rainwater goods.

Warm, dry, and still a farm building

Today the barn is cold, draughty storage, used now and then. The proposal turns part of it into warm, dry bedroom accommodation for the family — wholly inside the walls that already stand. Vapour-open insulation suits the soft brick; underfloor heating runs over the existing slab, which stays in place with no excavation; an air source heat pump provides the warmth. There is no kitchen, no separate address and no separate access: the barn remains part of the farmhouse, not a house of its own. A linking extension to the garage was drawn, tested and set aside in favour of the lighter touch.

Timber coupled rafters and a tie beam under a clay tile roof, painted brick walls below — Hand-worked coupled rafters under the clay tiles.

Architectural elevation drawing of the barn's north side with conservation rooflights, timber doors and brick steps — Proposed north elevation: part-glazed painted timber doors, four conservation rooflights, reclaimed-brick steps — and the original barn door kept.

The courtyard side

Today

The barn's courtyard side in sunshine, with blue stable doors, white casements and a greenhouse — Blue stable doors, white casements, and a greenhouse against the wall.

Proposed

Architectural elevation drawing of the barn's courtyard side with new painted timber windows — The greenhouse removed, an original window reused in place of a door, and new painted timber windows to match.

Across the yard, the greenhouse and tired modern fencing come away. In their place: a porous surface, hewn post-and-rail fencing and reclaimed-brick steps, all drawn from the farmstead's own materials. The black-stained weatherboarded range sets the tone for anything new.

A long, black-stained weatherboarded outbuilding with red-painted doors open, on a lawn — The weatherboarded range: the farmstead's own palette.

Before anything is removed, the trough and manger are recorded to Historic England's Level 2 standard, with the record deposited with the East Sussex Historic Environment Record — so the barn's dairy past stays on the record for good.

The architect

Giles Paul Shorter is a RIBA Chartered Architect, ARB registered and a RIBA Conservation Registrant, with over twenty years in architecture and more than seventeen specialising in listed and historic buildings. At Old Posingford he has been architect, agent and sole author of the heritage evidence:

the measured survey and existing drawings;
site inspections and the fabric grading;
map regression through the Ordnance Survey editions;
the Statement of Heritage Significance and Building Age and Significance Plan;
the Heritage Impact Assessment, the Design and Access Statement, and the Planning and Heritage Statement;
the proposed drawings, issued for submission in September 2026.

In the interests of transparency: the clients, John and Vivienne Shorter, are Giles's parents.

The principles

Diagnosis before prescription: Two site inspections and a close reading of every wall, window and fitting came before the drawings were issued.
Honest about the unknown: A six-point grading scale, with a “Cloud” marker for anything the evidence could not settle.
Minimum intervention: No extension, no larger footprint, no change of height or massing. The slab stays; nothing is dug.
Lime for lime: Cement pointing gives way to lime. Insulation is vapour-open, so soft handmade brick can breathe.
The farmstead's own palette: Black weatherboarding, reclaimed brick, hewn post and rail — nothing imported from elsewhere.
The building's own precedent: A barn made from an older building's brick. Adapting it again continues its story.

VII

What happens next

The application — for planning permission and listed building consent together — has been prepared for Wealden District Council. The council must give special regard to preserving the farmhouse and its setting, and great weight to its conservation; in the High Weald, it must also seek to further the natural beauty of the landscape. The evidence has been written so that an officer can test every line of it: it names its own limits, is candid about change, and leaves the weighing to the decision-maker.

If it succeeds, a barn built from salvaged brick will be lived in again, looked after again, and kept for the farmhouse it has always served.

Watercolour of a single-storey brick outbuilding with a tiled roof and chimney in a flowering garden — The farmstead in watercolour — an illustration, not a design proposal.

Considering work on a building of this kind? See how every SOANE commission begins — or read our questions on listed and historic buildings.