A luxury hotel in a highly sensitive landscape setting on Bath’s outskirts has secured planning consent for an expansion.
The proposals for Homewood Hotel and Spa at Freshford, drawn up by Bath-based Aaron Evans Architects, include six new luxury guest suites each with their own private terraces and a small meeting and events space.
The hotel, which currently has 21 bedrooms along with a 10-bedroom lodge that opened in 2019, is part of the Bath boutique hotel group the Kaleidoscope Collection.
The plans, pictured, involve replacing a number of existing buildings and extending others.
There will also be extensions to the existing spa, including a new entrance foyer, an additional double treatment room, fitness suite and post-treatment relaxation space.
As part of the masterplan, new landscape planting and additional parking will be also provided.
Homewood, pictured, is in the Bath and Bristol Green Belt and Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and so to secure planning consent Aaron Evans Architects’ design needed to satisfy stringent Green Belt policies while overcoming significant ecology and visual impact constraints.
Aaron Evans Architects worked closely with planning officers at Bath & North East Somerset Council to ensure the submitted proposals were supported from the outset.
Despite considerable local objection from local residents and the parish councils, the council’s planning committee endorsed the case officer’s recommendation and approved the application.
The contemporary-but-sympathetic scheme takes its design cue from the existing hotel buildings and adjoining former stables with an articulated roofscape seen against a backdrop of mature trees.
The new guest suites take the form of three, two-storey, linked barns finished in charred timber cladding above rubble stone walling under slate roofs.
Single storey ‘infill’ buildings use a similar material palette with roofs finished in sedum plants and zinc.
The proposals are designed to be energy efficient, with heating provided by air source heat pumps and on-site renewable energy provided by discreet photovoltaic panels.
A new wildflower orchard with mixed, native species hedgerow and a new bat house will provide an appropriate landscape setting whilst also enhancing on-site biodiversity.
Kaleidoscope Collection founder Ian Taylor said: “Since we took ownership of Homewood in 2018, I have had ambitions to make the most of its heart-capturing location overlooking the beautiful Somerset countryside which sits in Green Belt and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
“I have always seen great potential with the barn, outhouses, and spa; and it has been our vision to transform them into spaces for luxury experiences with a touch of playfulness.
“It is a key objective of this project to focus on sustainability and achieve a design that is sympathetic to our neighbours in the local community, by taking into full consideration, ecology, and light spill, given our location on the top of the hill.
“I am delighted with the final result, which marks the last piece of the jigsaw in the Homewood rejuvenation project, quickly developing as a market-leading boutique hotel.”
The Kaleidoscope Collection also owns the 31-bedroom The Bird, Bath, on Pulteney Road, and Bishopstrow Hotel & Spa, a 19th-century, 32-bedroom country house hotel near Warminster.
Aaron Evans Architects has been behind many of Bath’s modern developments, including the Kingsmead Odeon – the first citiplex scheme in a World Heritage Site – and the 148-bed Z Hotel as part of the Saw Close mixed-use redevelopment which also includes a new casino and two restaurants.
The firm is also working on the transformation of Bath’s former Royal Mineral Water Hospital into a luxury hotel with spa facilities.
