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The Old Milking Parlour
It was a few years before the restoration of the milking parlour could be entertained, even though the state of dereliction of this building was advanced and every winter saw real damage happening to the old structure. Despite being identified as of national importance by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, the County Council has been slow in defining the building as a Protected Structure. Any thoughts of grant assistance and tax incentives seemed optimistic, but in 2002, it was decided to bite the bullet and attempt to create a viable future for the Old Milking Parlour, which meant that, whatever else, it would have to pay its mortgage in its future use.
The building was twenty eight metres long and four metres wide, with tiny windows at the north facing front onto the courtyard and four cow-sized doors at the rear
facing south; giving onto a haggard, a perfect private garden in the making. There was plenty
of time to think about options for the building – its presence a daily reproach as we watched the
roof gradually disintegrating.
The planning process was lengthy, but successful in the end, and
we were able to approach the Wicklow Rural Partnership(WRP) for grant-aid towards restoration and
use as tourism development – a self-catering cottage. We had made a submission to the
partnership based on a sustainabilty brief with their active support and proposed a building
which would be an exemplary conservation on the one hand, with clear energy conservation
measures and a concern to ensure that all products and materials should be as far as
possible chosen for their green characteristics. The making of a substantial grant by the WRP,
who saw the scheme as an exemplary model for sustainable energy as well as for building
conservation of buildings at risk of being lost, allowed us to restore, convert and equip the
building without compromise.
The studio, formerly the dairy and before that a carriage house and loft with living accommodation
The space available could have generated two units of accommodation, but we realised that
such a high intensity use would all-but conceal the original building form. We opted for a
gentler approach, using the four stepped zones, each with its wide, low door, to keep the rhythm
and identity of the original and where the stall divisions were in stone, to maintain them in
place. The roof was beyond repair and we reluctantly replaced it with a substitute which
was a replica of the original. We used Actis, a very thin multi-reflective insulation solution,
above timber tongue & groove boarding, to ensure that the original roof line was maintained as closely as
possible. The walls, 600mm thick stone, built from the ground without foundations and with a
dry clay mortar, were lime-painted inside, with an original clay based plaster in some places and a
relatively recent hard cement lining up to just above the height of a cow’s backside to facilitate
washing down after milking. We decided not to insulate the walls internally as this would have
removed the diverse evidence of earlier use and the lovely textures of unplastered stone and plain
cement. This was a necessary compromise between building conservation and energy
conservation issues, but the only one from which we consciously exempted ourselves.
The floor was cement, with drainage troughs through the building. Our decision was to install
underfloor heating throughout the building; for architectural reasons, because the walls
would be free of radiators; for technical reasons, because the walls would benefit from a gentle, but continuous heat source; for comfort reasons because of the high levels of comfort in the rooms, all of which have high ceilings under the roof; and for energy reasons, as the low temperature requirement would be ideal for a heat pump.
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