Schoolhouse TRANSFORMED

It might have been small, but this compact former village school in Yorkshire had so much character that Gail and James Arkle couldn’t resist. “We had been looking for two or three years for a house in the country and were struggling to find somewhere a bit different,” begins James. “This was exactly what we were looking for. It was very charming and unusual.”

There was just one problem. Gail and James wanted to start a family and the two-bed converted village school was definitely short on space.

“We bought it in 2011 with the aim of developing it,” says James. “Around the same time I was setting up my own architectural practice so there was a lot happening all at once.” Taking it all in his stride, James took