Hill Farm

Background

Hill Farm in Little Massingham, North Norfolk, is a former working farm which has been transformed into an upmarket holiday destination by developers Hugh and Heidi Symington. The couple moved into the historic Hill Farm in 2003 and have since renovated its derelict 300-year-old farmhouse into their family home and converted disused wood and mower sheds into additional accommodation. Later, they turned their attention to the farm’s barns and an ambitious project to turn them into holiday lets

Built to last

Phase one of the Hill Farm holiday lets development comprises of three properties. The sympathetic design of the holiday homes retains many of the barns’ original features including wooden beams, open brickwork and flint walls. Each of the properties feature a fully fitted kitchen, spacious living area and luxurious bathroom facilities. In total, there are 11 showers and five baths across the development plus a shower in the swimming pool changing area.

Heidi said “So we started looking for taps and showers which would be durable and built to last as they would be getting rigorous use. People don’t always take best care of things when it’s not their house so whatever we specified had to be robustly made with a solid mechanism that wasn’t going to break easily.”

Product Selection

Some of the bathrooms will be fitted with fixtures from the Quest and Prism ranges, which are also particularly durable, easy to clean and offer high performance even at low pressures. The Prism range includes wall mounted bath fillers, a floor standing bath and shower mixer and bath taps, for a uniform finish across the impressive master bathrooms.

The choice of showers was also an important part of the specification for Hill Farm. In the additional accommodation next to the farmhouse, the showers could become too hot for users and the temperature control wheel was difficult to operate when wet.

With this in mind, the Bristan showers chosen included the Acute recessed mixer shower valve and the Joy thermostatic electric shower, which will be fitted in the swimming pool changing area. Both showers come with thermostatic control as standard for safer showering for the whole family.

Temperature is adjusted using a dial on the Joy shower, while a simple lever operates temperature and flow on the Acute model. 

The Extra Mile

Hugh continued “Service levels was also a deal breaker for us. We’ve found that from day one, Bristan has really gone the extra mile in terms of service and making sure we are happy with their products - even offering for us to trial one of the taps in our own home to see what we think of them! We have planning in place for more development work, which we are hoping to start in 2020. We just love being developers, and thanks to our positive experience on phase one, we look forward to partnering with Bristan on our future projects.”

Jeremy Scrafton, Area Specification Manager from Bristan said: “When it comes to bespoke building projects, there’s a very fine line for developers to negotiate between getting the style and quality of product they want and ensuring they have something installed that is durable, reliable and not too expensive as they are working to a budget. With the Hill Farm project, we delivered a selection of products that ticked all those boxes, for a high quality finish without the top end price tag.”

DOWNLOAD A PDF OF THIS CASE STUDY