Awards Highly Commended-Sussex Heritage Trust Awards 2006 (earlier restoration) Conversion of a listed building to create a series of boutique guest rooms and wedding ceremony room to support the diversification of the business. We have a longstanding relationship with Trading Boundaries and have been providing architectural and planning support to them for almost 25 years. Trading Boundaries is a commercial enterprise established over 20 years ago and has been key to the ongoing retention and re-use of the Grade II* listed heritage asset known as The Sheffield Arms and was formerly a coaching inn. The Sheffield Arms fell into disrepair in the nineties and was bought for use by Trading Boundaries who have continued to reinvigorate the building and the wider site over a number of years. The building is multifunctional and has had to adapt over the years to supports a diversification in the business. The main building is a showroom for furniture and home furnishings sourced from South East Asia and also contains a café-bar which has become a destination in its own right as a Live Music Venue. We were approached during the covid pandemic to reconsider the existing use of the courtyard shops, a detached series of outbuildings. DJD were awarded a Sussex Heritage Trust Award for the original reconstruction of the courtyard buildings in the early 2000’s. However, due to the current economic and retail conditions, the units were underused with high turnover of tenants and the viability of the units in the long term not positive. Prompted by the regular requests from attendees for overnight accommodation, the vision was to create a series of ‘boutique guest rooms’ to support the popular music events and also the proposed expansion into a wedding venue. We engaged with the planning department at an early stage with a Pre-application given the sensitivity and importance of the listed buildings. Planning permission and Listed Building Consent was secured to convert and extend the existing courtyard buildings to create 12 no. guest rooms and wedding ceremony room and function space. Phase 1 of the build has been recently completed with 8 guest rooms currently available with the extension and conversion of the former listed dairy building to follow.