domus - house • home • residence

TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF AND DOMUS

For as long as I can remember I’ve always had a passion for interior design and all things related to that. My parents were far ahead of the times and I was used to living in homes where there was always a renovation project or at least a refurbishment going on in some way or another. Then, when my husband and I met we renovated & refurbished a couple of homes ourselves. For many years I worked with clients from home, mainly supplying bespoke window treatments and room styling advice. Then finally, I got to the point where I decided it was time to follow my heart and that was when I opened Domus in 2016. Domus is a Latin word meaning House, Home, Residence. Hence the tag line.

As you can see from the old photograph my father had an Interiors Business with the same name back in the 70’s, so when we were rebranding our businesses (prior to opening on Princes Crescent) it made sense to reconnect with that & resurrect the name.

Domus caters for the mid to highend market. It was important to me to create a unique environment which showcases what we do. The showroom houses a mixture of beautiful hand-selected furniture, lighting, mirrors, accessories and soft furnishings. All our curtains are hand made to measure & most of the upholstery we offer is hand made in the UK too. Although, we have some lovely ‘ready-made’ pieces as well.

As I only have a small Showroom I am very selective about what I bring in and am lucky to deal with a host of wonderful suppliers. I work with several family-owned companies including a wallpaper company that prints everything in Lancashire. Another local company I work with produces gorgeous digitally printed velvet & wool to order & the designer paint we supply is made to order in Norfolk & more often than not is with me by the next day.

I have seen a definite shift in people wanting to spend more & get better quality as opposed to the disposable eras of the 90’s & 00’s, where people bought cheaper and threw away more. So, I am there to cater for the people that are thinking well, you know what, I’m just going to do things a little bit differently. Without exception, I only bring items into the shop that I have handpicked. This includes the fabrics & wallpapers that we have in the Studio too. It is time consuming but it ensures we keep true to our vision. TELL US ABOUT THE DESIGN SERVICE

The initial consultation is done in the client’s home where we work through a questionnaire & look at what needs to be done. We consider items that are worth keeping in the room(s) & things that the client particularly likes or doesn’t like. I collate all this and produce a mood board which I present on a beautiful acrylic tray, this can include wallpaper, paint and fabric samples for your cushions and your drapery, flooring & furniture, art work - it all depends on the brief. The client can also arrange an appointment to come to the studio and view our fabrics and wallpapers & designer paint.

I enjoy creating and thinking outside the box, I also love making people happy, by helping them to achieve what they really want rather than what they think they should have. It is all about daring to be yourself and creating a home you love rather than just something that you’ve copied from a magazine.

Money is always a tricky issue isn’t it, but a budget is important. It helps to establish what is realistic and achievable, as it needs to work for the client and it needs to work for me. So, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got a budget of £1,500 or £15,000 if I know what I’m working with I can adapt and work to my best potential.

When we are working with our client’s we recommend tradesman and we can also project manage if required. Our other company Domus Flooring which specialises in carpets, laminates, vinyls & LVT has now merged with Domus so we advise there too.

Regarding a timescale, we are a small person to person-based business, so it all depends on how busy we are at any given time. My husband Harry has got more & more involved over the last six years and I defer to him regarding the practical side of things. He is an integral part of the business. HOW HAS DOMUS EVOLVED?

The Interior Design & Styling Service has grown significantly. I think it’s all about taking the mystique out having an Interior Designer. I like to think I’m making it accessible to people. Paying a fee for a design service isn’t silly, it’s a brilliant way to get things right & can help to avoid potentially making costly mistakes. Each commission is different, every home I go to is different and every client I work with is different and I treat them as such.

I have also learnt a great deal on the job and my confidence in my ability has grown. I know that I am good at what I do. I guess over the last few years we’ve put a lot of meat onto the bones with the business in general. There is a lot more substance to the business and are just in the process of seriously considering adding a new team member to help in the Showroom & with the social media.

Harry and I are delighted to be back up and running again and are receiving lots of inquiries. It’s been a difficult time for everyone hasn’t it but people are choosing to invest in their homes again. Domus trades on reputation and recommendations, our clients and customers are genuinely important to us and we are excited about the future of our business.

info@domusbydesign.co.uk 01524 417300 | www. domusbydesign.co.uk

CREWE

A ‘RAILWAY TOWN’

By Mark Bateman

Crewe is a ‘railway town’ and civil parish in Cheshire East located about twenty five miles south of Manchester City Centre. Not much is known about the early origins of Crewe although it is believed that the name of the town comes from the old Welsh word, ‘criu’ meaning a ‘weir’ or ‘crossing.’ The first recorded mention of it comes in the 1086 Domesday Book ordered by William the Conqueror.

Until the arrival of the railway Crewe was a small agricultural village with a tiny population of roughly seventy people. But then in the late 1830’s Grand Junction Railway chose Crewe at the site for its locomotive works and railway station.

Workers flooded into the new yards firstly from the old works at Edge Hill. The men brought their wives and children with them boosting the population by over eight hundred people. In order to house these workers the railway company built over two hundred cottages, as well as chapels, churches and shops to serve them.

Some of these houses still survive to this day. There are grade II listed cottages in Betley, Dorfold, Tolitt and Victoria Streets as well as a manager’s house on Delamere Street.

The company seemed to have a progressive attitude towards staff welfare and provided a doctor’s surgery and a company health insurance scheme. They also built a gas works, provided drinking water and a public baths.

In 1843 the engineer Joseph Locke officially founded the town of Crewe next to the railway station in the old area of Monks Coppenhall. By 1871 the population had reached around forty thousand people.

Meanwhile back at the engineering works, the first locomotive made at the site, ‘Tamerline’ went into service in 1843. The works grew quickly with further sites being opened while the Crewe site continued to produce the boilers and other engineered parts for the locomotives. By 1848 the site employed over one thousand workers and produced one locomotive a week.

Crewe rapidly became an important railway junction as well as engineering works. Lines from Birmingham and the South ran through it and on to rapidly growing industrial centres including, Chester, Manchester and Liverpool.

The Crewe site continued to ramp up production and by 1853 Crewe was also making its own wrought iron to construct rails. This was expanded further when in 1864 they started to manufacture their own steel and by 1868 they were the first locomotive works to use open hearth furnaces to produce their steel on a huge industrial scheme. At the height of its productivity the site employed around twenty thousand people.

Production at the site increased so much that when the works sold ten 2-4-0 engines and eighty six 0-6-0 locomotives to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway privately owned manufacturers took out an injunction in 1876 to stop the yard producing anything other than what it required to meet its own needs.

In its bid to provide a relaxing environment for its workers in 1887 the railway engineer Francis Webb, the Mayor of Crewe and the garden designer Edward Kemp built a park as a place for relaxation and recreation for the workers. There were, however, rumours that it had been built purely to prevent the proposed Great Western Railway line proposed to run across the site.

The park featured a Victorian clock tower, a man made waterfall and fountains. It also included monuments to soldiers killed in the Boer War and later to those killed in the first world war. As well as this it was to become home to ‘Verdun trees’ which were trees grown as memorials from acorns and chestnuts sent back from the battle at Verdun (France 1916).

These days the park is still popular with local residents as it features the largest lake in the area which is popular for boating on. In 2014 a multi-million pound renovation took place which as well as the restoration of bridges and pathways included a new children’s playground, a café and a bowls pavilion.

To return to the railway yard, in 1932 William Stainer the chief mechanical engineer for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway was tasked with finding longer trains and more powerful locomotives to pull them, this was due to an ongoing increase in passenger numbers. Stainer turned to Crewe where they continued to produce bigger and better locomotives. To meet his demand the site was involved in the construction of twelve of the ‘Princess Royal Class’ trains between 1933- 1935 for use on the West Coast main line.

Unfortunately, the success of the locomotive yard and the presence in Crewe of the Rolls Royce engineering firm meant that the town became a target for German bombers during World War II. Crewe lost thirty five civilians to bombing raids including a terrible night on 29th August 1940 when around fifty houses were destroyed.

After the war, the site continued to grow, and evolve, and from 1959 they began to produce the new diesel locomotives with the first one being the D5030 and the last one being the class 56 which was last produced in 1984. Alongside this Crewe helped produce electrical locomotives until 1991.

Production at the site decreased gradually and much of the Crewe works were cleared in a major redevelopment in the 1980s with parts of the site now occupied by a supermarket, a leisure park and a health centre. However, the importance of the site to the town is now commemorated in the popular Railway Heritage museum.

The Crewe Heritage Centre is located on the site of the original Crewe Locomotive Works. It was officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, on 24th July 1987 to mark the 150th anniversary of the first train to arrive at Crewe Railway Station in 1837.

Originally forming part of the Crewe Heritage Festival which was an eight week-long event with activities and celebrations taking place all over the town of Crewe, members of the public were also invited to visit the historic Locomotive Works and see how railway locomotives were constructed and maintained by British Rail.

After a successful festival, Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council decided to open the Heritage Centre again in 1988. The Heritage Centre’s popularity grew, and it continued to attract visitors from all over the United Kingdom and even the world. In 1989 Crewe Heritage Trust took over the running of the museum and continue to run it today. After the pandemic problems, the site will be re-opening in July offering a fascinating insight into a town built on the success of the railways.