Snuggle Cottage, Wells-next-the-Sea
Six miles east. The exterior finish package on a circa £1.8M build: full cladding to both properties, plus a sea view watch tower machined on site in Scottish larch and lined in oak faced cladding.
Cladding · Burnham Market, north Norfolk
Cladding installers in Burnham Market
Cladding for Burnham Market and the villages around it, from a contractor working this coastline out of Wells-next-the-Sea and Cromer. Free site visit, and a straight answer on whether it will get consent before you spend anything.
To be clear from the top: AJB Group has not worked in Burnham Market. The nearest completed job is the exterior finish package at Wells-next-the-Sea, about six miles east, and over 350 square metres of Scottish larch at Cromer further round the coast.
Burnham Market is also the one place on this coast where the specification is not the first question. The planning and design position is, because in a village like this it decides whether the job happens at all. That is what the rest of this page covers.
Planning
Cladding a house here is not permitted development.
Burnham Market sits inside the Norfolk Coast National Landscape, and the village centre is a conservation area. Both of those are what the planning system calls article 2(3) land, and on that land the general permitted development order specifically excludes the cladding of any part of the exterior of a house with stone, artificial stone, pebble dash, render, timber, plastic or tiles.
In plain terms: on a dwelling in Burnham Market you should assume cladding needs planning permission, and you should assume it twice, once for the conservation area and once for the National Landscape. The planning authority is the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk. A pre application enquiry costs very little next to a wall that has to come back off, and it is the first thing worth doing.
Two things soften that picture. Outbuildings, garden buildings and ancillary structures are treated differently from the dwelling itself, and a proposal on a barn, cart shed, garage or garden room is a far more comfortable conversation than one on a principal elevation facing the Green. And a rear extension set behind the main frontage is generally an easier case than anything visible from the street.
None of that is planning advice, and AJB does not give planning advice. It is what a contractor who has clad buildings on this coast would tell you before quoting, so that you talk to the council or an agent before you talk about boards.
The Burnham Market position
- Designations
- Norfolk Coast National Landscape, plus a village conservation area
- Effect
- Cladding a dwelling is excluded from permitted development on this land
- Authority
- Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk
- Easier cases
- Barns, cart sheds, garaging, garden rooms, rear extensions behind the frontage
- Harder cases
- Principal elevations, anything prominent from the street or the Green
- Vernacular
- Brick, flint, carrstone, pantile and lime render
- Exposure
- Two miles inland from Burnham Overy Staithe, no shelter across the marsh
- Fixings
- A4 grade 316 stainless is still the sensible call this close to the sea
Design
What sits well against brick, flint and pantile.
The Burnhams are built in brick, flint, carrstone, pantile and lime render, in a palette that is muted, cool and grey brown. Timber cladding can work extremely well in that setting, and it can also look like it arrived from a different county. The difference is usually the tone and the form it is applied to.
Black stained or dark painted rough sawn boarding reads as agricultural, which is exactly right on a barn, a cart shed, garaging, a pool house or a garden building. It is also honest: it does not pretend to be a traditional material, it recedes rather than competes, and it will not change colour dramatically over the first two summers. AJB installed exactly this build up at Alford Manor House, 111 square metres of rough sawn 6x1 in natural timber with a protective black paint coating, chosen specifically so the new buildings would blend with the properties around them.
Naturally silvering larch is the other answer that tends to sit comfortably, particularly on a contemporary extension set behind the main house. Left alone it goes to a soft grey that is close to the flint and the weathered pantile, and it needs nothing done to it afterwards.
Fresh cedar is the one to think hard about. New western red cedar is a warm orange brown, which next to flint and cool brick is a strong statement, and it does not stay that colour: it greys, and on a building with sheltered and exposed elevations it greys at different rates. If the appearance on day one is the reason for choosing it, the appearance in year three will be a disappointment.
The last consideration here is ownership. A high proportion of the housing stock in and around Burnham Market is second homes and holiday lets, where nobody is going to re-coat an elevation on a three year cycle. That argues for a finish that is designed to be left alone: silvered larch, thermally modified timber, or a composite board, rather than a coated softwood that depends on maintenance nobody has budgeted for.
Exposure
Two miles inland is not sheltered.
Burnham Market sits roughly two miles inland from Burnham Overy Staithe, which sounds like a meaningful buffer and is not. The ground between the village and the marsh is flat, open and largely unwooded, so north and north easterly weather off the sea arrives with almost nothing to slow it down. Salt loading is lower than on a seafront elevation, but it is not absent, and driving rain on the north elevations is essentially the same problem as it is at Wells.
So the build up does not get to relax. A vapour permeable breather membrane on the wall, treated battens over it, counter-battens wherever the boards run vertically, and a drained and ventilated cavity of at least 25mm that is genuinely open at the base and the head with insect mesh at the openings. A4 grade 316 stainless fixings, not A2. End grain sealed. Cills and reveals detailed to throw water clear. The full build up is set out on the cladding hub, and it is the part of the job that decides whether the boards are still doing their job in fifteen years.
Getting to you
Six miles from our Wells job.
Burnham Market is about 55 miles from AJB's Spalding base: the A17 to King's Lynn, then the A149 along the coast. It sits roughly 6 miles west of Wells-next-the-Sea and about 24 miles from King's Lynn, on the B1155 just off the coast road, which puts it between the two places on this coast where AJB has actually worked.
That distance is quoted honestly. Cladding is package work with a start date and a finish date, priced with the travel in it. AJB works King's Lynn constantly, has replaced the roof on Stoke Ferry Village Hall, and holds a fire door contract with North Norfolk District Council, so this is worked territory rather than a speculative trip.
The nearest evidence
Barns, coastal cladding and black boarding.
Alford Manor House
111 square metres of rough sawn 6x1 cladding across a new events hall and workshop, in natural timber with a protective black paint coating so the buildings blend with those around them.
King's Lynn barn conversion
A full barn conversion for Eastern Construction Consultants: a traditional joist set forming a new first floor in a tight building, then a complete first fix.
Common questions
Before you call
Have you worked in Burnham Market?
No. We have no job in Burnham Market. The nearest completed work is the exterior finish package at Wells-next-the-Sea, about 6 miles east, and over 350 square metres of Scottish larch at Cromer further round the coast. Both are real references and both are on this coastline.
Do I need planning permission to clad a house in Burnham Market?
For a dwelling, almost certainly. Cladding the exterior of a house with timber, plastic, render, stone, artificial stone, pebble dash or tiles is excluded from permitted development on land in a conservation area or a National Landscape. Burnham Market sits inside the Norfolk Coast National Landscape and the village centre is a conservation area, so the exclusion applies twice over. The planning authority is the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk.
What cladding suits a conservation area like Burnham Market?
Usually something that reads as agricultural rather than decorative. Black stained or dark painted rough sawn boarding sits comfortably on barns, cart sheds, garaging and garden buildings, and naturally silvering larch works on modern extensions set behind a principal elevation. Fresh orange toned cedar next to brick, flint and pantile rarely does, and it will grey unevenly.
Can you clad a barn conversion?
Yes, and the carpentry that goes with it. We completed a full barn conversion outside King's Lynn for Eastern Construction Consultants, forming a new first floor with a traditional joist set, and at Alford installed 111 square metres of rough sawn 6x1 cladding in natural timber with a protective black paint coating across a new events hall and workshop.
How far is Burnham Market from your base?
About 55 miles from Spalding, out on the A17 through King's Lynn then along the A149. It is roughly 6 miles west of Wells-next-the-Sea, where we held the exterior finish package on a circa £1.8M build, so it sits between our two Norfolk coast jobs.
Will you tell me if cladding is the wrong answer?
Yes. On some elevations in a village like this the honest advice is that cladding will not get consent, will not sit well against flint and brick, or will not last without a maintenance commitment you do not want. Site visits are free, and being told not to do it costs the same as being told to.
Barn, garden building or extension in Burnham Market?
Free site visit, and a straight view on the design and the consent position before anyone talks about boards.