We are thrilled with the great article about Warksburn Old Church by Mary Richards, now published in Grand Designs Magazine. Click button below to read it in full.
Major feature on Warksburn Old Church by Mary Richards: January 2025
The article goes into depth about how we achieved the world’s first Passivhaus church-to-home conversion in Northumberland, and how it “showcases the best of sustainable renovation and green tech.” It also highlights that one of our key objectives, in creating Warksburn Old Church as a luxury holiday rental open for guests, was to give “anyone considering their own green build the chance to ‘try before they buy’.” We now look forward to welcoming readers of Grand Designs Magazine to do just that.
Reserve your stay in Net Zero Luxury at Warksburn Old Church
Warksburn Old Church is honoured and delighted to have achieved the Green Tourism Gold Award. The award is the result of a rigorous and demanding independent assessment, carried out by the world-leading sustainability accreditation partner, Green Tourism.
Achieving a Green Tourism award means that our sustainability practices have been assessed and verified by a credible partner. It shows that we have an ongoing commitment:
to sustainability standards and practices
to work responsibly, ethically, and sustainably
to contribute to our community
to minimise our impact on the environment, and
to be accessible and inclusive to all, within the physical access constraints imposed by our heritage building.
Green Tourism has assessed our business against 15 sustainability criteria grouped under the pillars of People, Places and Planet. These consider the social, economic, and environmental actions we undertake, providing a holistic assessment of our sustainability performance. Please click to view our sustainability policy.
What do the Green Tourism gradings mean?
Green Tourism provides an overall grading of Gold, Silver, or Bronze depending on the overall score achieved across the comprehensive criteria. Gold status is awarded only to a business that achieves the highest standards of sustainability, has a strong and broad environmental ethos and can provide excellent examples of best practice throughout the majority of the three pillars of People, Places and Planet.
Warksburn Old Church is a spectacular and stylish holiday rental, for up to six guests, close to Hadrians Wall in beautiful rural Northumberland. It is also one of the greenest buildings in the UK, and is the world’s first ever conversion of a former church into a Passivhaus ultra-energy-efficient home. It generates more energy than it consumes over the course of year. The property has achieved the extremely demanding Green Tourism Gold Award standard.
Celebrating the 150th birthday of the building in 2025, we have a great deal for EV drivers: free charging for your car whilst you enjoy a stay in Net Zero Luxury at Warksburn Old Church. We have three 7kW chargers (and several Tesla Powerwalls fed by large solar arrays) on site, and we’re delighted to offer EV drivers completely free charging during all stays in 2025. Just book a stay using the button below. We’ll sort the free charging when you arrive.
Book a stay at Warksburn Old Church
You can find out more about this special place by clicking the buttons below.
Stream the TV documentary about Warksburn Old Church Requires sign up or log in to free Discovery+ account. Show itself is also free to stream.
Read the Sunday Times article on Warksburn Old Church
We’re delighted and honoured that Warksburn Old Church is now listed on the “Stay in a Passivhaus” page published by the International Passive House Association. We’re thrilled to be listed alongside some amazing properties spanning the globe from New Zealand to Sweden (and all points in between).
We’re now also listed on the Passivhaus Trust directory of UK Passivhaus properties offering guest stays. The “Looking for a Passivhaus Holiday?” page is a great initiative, enabling people considering making their own investment in an energy efficient home to experience living in a Passivhaus for themselves. Big hat tip to PHT for publishing this resource. As the Passivhaus Trust webpage puts it:
“Booking your next trip? Take a look at beautiful places and beautiful buildings to stay at in the UK. Relax in a certified Passivhaus, and experience first-hand the comfort provided by the leading international low energy building standard.”
Click here to book your stay in Net Zero Luxury at Warksburn Old Church.
We’re delighted that the Sunday Times has published a major feature article on our trailblazing conversion of Warksburn Old Church into an ultra-efficient Passivhaus home.
Read the story by clicking the box (paywall). Times/Sunday Times subscribers can access the article. If you have an Apple subscription which includes Apple News, you can also access it by selecting “Open in News” when the paywall is encountered.
Written by Jayne Dowle, one of the UK’s most experienced property journalists, with photography by Charlotte Graham, the article presents a very comprehensive overview of technologies and techniques employed in the conversion project and highlights one of our key motivations for undertaking it.
Alan acknowledges that many people considering making Passivhaus or other low-energy investments into their own homes are put off because it’s hard to imagine what the result will be: “So, in part, Warksburn Old Church is about offering those people a “try before you buy” opportunity to live in a Passivhaus, not just read about it.”
Reserve your stay in Net Zero Luxury at Warksburn Old Church
The ‘Derelict Rescue’ TV documentary about the construction of Warksburn Old Church is available to stream for free here.
The TV show requires a Discovery+ account to stream. If you have an account, it will start automatically. If not, just sign up for a free account. You do not need to sign up for any premium package to watch the programme.
The link works for viewers in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Viewers in other territories may have to search on the Discovery platform for Series 2, Episode 3 of ‘Derelict Rescue’. The programme may not be available in all territories.
We’re thrilled and honoured that the Institution of Civil Engineers has published an article featuring Warksburn Old Church in its “What is Civil Engineering” series about important projects. The article is here.
It was a pleasure to be able to “bring history full circle” with our first-in-world project to convert a former church into a home which meets Passivhaus standards for airtightness, insulation and extreme energy efficiency. In 1875, the building was originally funded by Sir George Barclay Bruce, who served as President of the ICE in 1887 – 1889. He’s holding the architect’s sketch in this hand in the portrait below.
His Presidential Address on 8th November 1887 contains the world’s first recorded reference to the renewable generation and storage of electricity. In 2024, Sir George’s vision came to life in the very building he funded a century and a half earlier: the completed Warksburn Old Church Passivhaus now produces more energy than it consumes over the course of a year.
Sir George Barclay Bruce. President of the Institution of Civil Engineers 1887 – 1889. Portrait by kind permission of Westminster College Cambridge.
Electricity is to us now light, heat, and power. Our streets and beacons shine with it, it signs and speaks for us around the world, across the desert, and beneath the ocean. When we shall have learnt the way of storing up in a more efficient and financially successful manner, the unemployed forces of nature such as the winds and streams and tides, which can be so readily converted into electrical energy at trifling cost, then will it become a factor in the world’s life compared with which the present is as nothing.
George Barclay Bruce – Presidential Address to ICE 8 November 1887
For more information about the historical connection to Sir George Barclay Bruce, and his remarkable anticipation of renewable energy please see this page.
Thanks to everyone who visited Warksburn Old Church during the Passivhaus Trust Open Day event from 08 – 10 November. This followed on from the June Open Day event, when we were overwhelmed with interest, with people from all over the country coming to Wark to view the building works in progress during the our world-first project to convert a former church into a home meeting Passivhaus standards.
The autumn 2024 PHT Open Days event, from Friday 8th to Sunday 10th November 2024 enabled us to show visitors around stunning home that resulted from the rebuild, which is now open for bookings as a unique and spectacular holiday rental property, inviting guests to experience Passivhaus living in Net Zero Luxury for themselves.
Book a stay at Warksburn Old Church
Ahead of the Open Day, we had had some great media coverage, so visitors could take a look at the TV documentary which followed the conversion project, and read the Sunday Times article. All the project certifications were also completed before the event, so visitors could check out Warksburn Old Church on the Passivhaus Trust website and the International Passive House Association database.
It has been a pleasure AirTV, the production company who made the Derelict Rescue documentary about Warksburn Old Church.
The ‘Derelict Rescue’ TV documentary about the construction of Warksburn Old Church is available to stream for free here.
Air TV released the following details ahead of the show’s first broadcast on Monday 21 October 2024.
Derelict Rescue is a series where Britain’s bravest homebuilders tackle the most run down, abandoned buildings. Series 2 is now showing on Mondays at 9pm on HGTV.
Episode 3: The Ultimate Eco Church
Episode three of Derelict Rescue takes us to the picturesque village of Wark in Northumberland, where Alan and Anne James are on a mission to convert a 19th Century Church into a 21st century Passivhaus– the gold standard in sustainable living.
They’ve given themselves just sixty weeks to turn a cold, draughty church that leaks heat into a luxury holiday let, that will be so well insulated it will require little or no heating.
It’s a hugely ambitious project. But if they succeed, this will be the first time in the world a former church has been converted into a home which meets the rigorous Passivhaus standard.
Yesterday afternoon was one of those glorious days of autumn sunshine. With the sun low in the afternoon sky, that’s perfect conditions for the stained glass windows at the west end of Warksburn Old Church. The close up face at the top of this post represents Lady Helen Norah, wife of Sir George Barclay Bruce, in one of the feature windows by the eminent Victorian stained glass masters, Charles Eamer Kempe. The image below represents their daughter, Anne Louisa.
Annie Louisa Barclay Bruce – Stained Glass by Charles Eamer Kempe
