The Woodspeen
Location: Newbury, UK
Building Type: Bar and Restaurant
Status: Phase 1 Completed 2015. Phase 2 Completed 2025
A 19th-century village pub was remodelled and extended to create a beautiful environment for people to work in, learn their craft, and for guests to enjoy their food, a complete hospitality unit.
The Woodspeen hosts a 70-seat glass-fronted restaurant with a bar and a culinary school, with an adjoining half-acre kitchen garden supplying the restaurant. Local and seasonal are honest, 'slow' values which were used as inspiration to salvage much of the remaining fabric from the former pub.
Contemporary detailing and paintwork we used to sensitively rework the time-honoured pub interior. The extension relies on natural materials, including its beautifully detailed thatched hipped roof, to complement the original building.
In contrast, the adjoining cookery school employs British craft and materials in a sleek and homogenous manner. Housed in a barn building that dates from 1811, the mix of tradition and modern technology echo the contemporary culinary approach to time-honoured recipes and cooking techniques.
