Rather than hold back the river, this Oxfordshire home allows water to flow under the house and drain back out again
Joanna and Martin O’Callaghan, 58-year-old chartered surveyors, married for 30 years and parents of two, are showing strong signs of being middle-aged hipsters. The living room wall of their newly built larch-clad house in the south Oxfordshire village of Sutton Courtenay is lined with original 1980s singles by Prince, the Jam, the Smiths, the Specials and Grace Jones. A woodburner roars away in the centre of a vogueishly “zoned” rather than fully open-plan living space. Taking pride of place in the garden are neat stacks of copper beech logs – the result of a new wood-chopping hobby.
The biggest problem was that it was a zone-three flood plain – but that is also what makes the site so alluring
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Source: Guardian Environment