What it takes to build a modern home high on the Dorset cliffs

With its golden sand sweeping along the bay towards Lyme Regis, the young river bubbling into the surf and the weathered limestone cliffs rising and falling along the Jurassic coast, there are few more picturesque beaches in the country than the one at Charmouth. And it was, of course, that view that Allan and Ali fell in love with.

Ali, who works as an advisor on catastrophic injury awards, and Allan, a retired KC who had spent most of his working life travelling around the north of England dealing with criminal cases, just happened to be passing an estate agents and saw a picture in the window. It wasn’t just love, it was love at first sight. ‘We weren’t even looking for a house,’ Allan says.

They certainly weren’t looking for the existing building that occupied the triangular site on the cliffs above Lyme Bay.