A rural, domestic, village development - combining a 200-year-old outer shell with a new, contemporary, energy efficient interior - built with materials from C&W Berry

Chris Brown, MD of Brindle Homes, has converted a pub and outhouses into three brand new, high-end homes. We interviewed him to find out why he uses C&W Berry to source his materials, the products he used, and how others can benefit from using C&W Berry.

We interviewed the MD of Brindle Homes, Chris Brown, who has been a loyal C&W Berry customer since he founded the firm over 17 years ago. His company carries out single developments, generally in village locations, and they have just completed a sympathetic renovation of an old pub and barns in the heart of rural Lancashire.

Over 200-years-old, these beautiful buildings once formed the heart of village life in Churchtown. Now, Chris and his team have given them a new lease of life, whilst also retaining their unique, original features.

Performing such a sympathetic and delicate remodeling of these historic and characterful buildings posed a range of challenges - including digging out the original floors and pouring insulated concrete through windows and small doorways. But Chris and his team did a fantastic job of preserving their distinctive details, whilst offering all the benefits of a new, efficient, well-built home.

Brindle Homes sourced 40% of their materials for this build from C&W Berry. In Chris' own words, our fantastic range of stock, quality advice, and honest lead times are why he continues to use C&W Berry after 17-years in the business.

"Something else I particularly like about Berry’s is that if something has a lead time on it, the lead time is always honest and we are always told if it is going to take four weeks, it genuinely will take four weeks, and it will arrive in a day or two of that on-site."

Brindle Homes is a small, family run building company. We specialise in high-end property. We traditionally have always focused in village settings where we can bring new homes to the market to add to the existing supply.

We always try to do something different to the existing market and try to improve on the housing stock of an area. We don’t hide from the fact that we do build a premium unit and we use traditional materials like stone and slate, and we try to avoid copying or doing what the bigger builders do. That’s our USP really - to do something different from, for example, using vaulted ceilings in bedrooms and over staircases and using lots of Velux roof lights and things like that.

It is more challenging but it gives you a better product at the end.

So we're here today at Churchtown near Garstang where we have renovated three properties which was an old existing pub which we have turned now into three houses. We have a three-bed, two bathroom property, and also two four-bed, three bathroom properties.

That’s what we have just finished and we are now moving onto to a new development called Pinewood Lane, which is in Garstang, which is nine brand new detached properties. Those properties will all be four bedrooms, two bathrooms and two or three reception rooms.

So the reason we use C&W Berry for materials is they have a fantastic range in stock.

Also, one of the major things we like so much is the quality of the advice. If we need something, there is somebody at Berry’s that specialises in that product and they will be able to find it and source it for us.

Something else I particularly like about Berry’s is that if something has a lead time on it, the lead time is always honest and we are always told if it is going to take four weeks, it genuinely will take four weeks, and it will arrive in a day or two of that on-site, which is brilliant.

"One of the major things we like so much is the quality of the advice. If we need something, there is somebody at Berry’s that specialises in that product and they will be able to find it and source it for us.."

I began developing 17 years ago and I started buying materials ever since from C&W Berry. 

I would say 40% of our materials come now from C&W Berry, however, with the new bathroom showroom open we are looking at increasing our offering of materials that are supplied by C&W Berry.

So, Brindle Homes are a small developer and we concentrate on one development at a time. We've just finished a development of three and the site team has now been transferred over to a development of nine units which will take us approximately another 18 months to complete, which is Pinewood Lane in Garstang, where we will have a new show home coming this summer.

From there, my job principally is to oversee everything and get a new site ready for the team to drop onto in probably 18 months time. We do have land in the pipeline, but you will have to watch this space. 

So the development at Churchtown was a development of a pub and some barns which are over 200 years old, so there are many challenges with that. Principally, what we do is that we try to strip the buildings back as far as possible to the original shells and put the new build home within it. So you get the new, efficient, well-built home where everything works perfectly well - all within an old traditional shell.

One of the biggest challenges I would say was probably digging out the original floors and then pouring insulated concrete floors through windows and small doorways... that was a fun task. 

So what we feel sets us apart is that we see that there are a number of developments and housing estates that are very similar and, as a small company, we feel we are able to do the opposite of that, where we try to make every single unit different and unique and customised to its setting and environment. And that comes from doing things like the vaulted ceilings, doing the Velux roof lights which give you lots of light into rooms, and lots of added extras that people don’t realise.

They are expensive to do but they definitely pay dividends in the end. 

A good example of why I would recommend Berry’s, and there are millions of examples, is that we were under the cosh on a development where we needed something doing quickly and I went into the joinery shop because I needed a chamfered piece of oak.

I turned up with the piece of oak that and I just needed a little bit taking off it. I went into the shop to ask what the lead time would be for this piece to be chamfered. One of the gentlemen in the office went off with this piece of wood and, when he came back with it, he said it would be about 2 weeks. When I turned the piece of wood over, I found that it had been done, within 10 minutes, and it got over a lot of problems from site, so I really appreciated that. 

Yes, I would definitely recommend C&W Berry to any developers or anybody building their own house - or any DIY'ers - because the team there and the Berry family should be very proud of the business they have created.