Home is Where the Dart Is

The Hand-crafted kitchen of Food Pro Kerry Torrens is inspired by its Rural Dartmoor Surroundings

WORDS BY JESSICA CARTER PHOTOS BY MATT AUSTIN

Rain is rarely welcome in August, in my book. Being one of those solar-powered humans (who are happy as Larry and full of energy all summer, then click into hibernation mode come winter, with an average bedtime of 9.45pm), I need to soak up as much of that vitamin D as I can during the warmest season and have no time for grey skies and soggy feet.

That said, an off-season rain shower can scarper to leave a far more attractive summer’s day in its wake, with the thick, warm air feeling lighter and fresher, and wild greenery looking vivid and juicy. That’s exactly how Dartmoor National Park presents itself on the drive to Kerry’s home, post-downpour, with the foliage shimmering with moisture, its colour intensified by the rain. That and the now-bright blue sky made it seem as if I could be driving through somewhere far more tropical than south Devon.

It’s evident, then, why Kerry Torrens – nutritionist and food and health writer – ended up here, when she was actually planning to move to the coast. And it also makes clear why she was so keen on having a kitchen that represented her picturesque patch of Devon so wholly as it does.

When they moved into their 19th-century home back in 2011, Kerry and her husband knew they were going to relocate the kitchen from inside out into this glass extension. The full-length windows here blur the lines between the outside and in, which, along with natural wood and blue limestone touches, means the room embodies a real sense of nature.

“Now we’re in here all the time,” says Kerry, “and always spot lots of wildlife out the windows, like deer and kingfishers.”

The house – a former rectory – sits on five acres of lush green grounds, and even has a walled garden. Kerry uses the space to grow all sorts of food – although sometimes misses out on the harvest to the local wildlife.

“Our cherry tree was loaded with fruit and we were just about the net it when a squirrel beat us to it,” she says. “I started growing asparagus seven years ago too, but Honey [Kerry’s Cavachon – she also has an American Cocker called Chutney] loves it, so she munches it!”

The walled garden is older than the house, the former building having burned down before the existing one was built in the 1800s. There are other signifiers of the residence’s history too – like the 15th-century listed gate at the top of the pathway.

While the kitchen certainly nods to its rural location and the building’s past, it also has more contemporary flourishes, having been completed in 2014.

The solid wood units – a cluster of cupboards flanking a doubledoored pantry-style affair at the back, a surround for the impressive five-oven, dual-controlled AGA adjacent, and a kitchen island in the middle – are made from Dartmoor oak (sourced from Anton Coaker at Princetown) by the clearly skilled local carpenter Scott McCarthy, founder of Woodscott Joinery.

“We met Scott at the Axe Vale Show and got talking to him about ideas,” Kerry explains. “I’d been having trouble finding a fitter who could do what I had in mind, but he could make everything truly bespoke.”

And Kerry had a rather solid spec. “We wanted these curved display cupboards, but everyone said no, they couldn’t do it. Scott was able to make them, though. He found a taxidermist to work on the curved glass.

“I also knew I’d like the units to be solid wood – another thing that people don’t like doing, as it’s difficult to accommodate the natural movement and expansion of the wood over time, but Scott built in mechanisms for that.”

‘Bespoke’ is a term that gets chucked around all the time in the world of kitchen design, but only rarely can the result be so individually tailored as this, with the cupboards built specifically for Kerry’s appliances and the handles crafted to match the vintage-style doorknobs throughout the house.

It’s not just the woodwork that’s local here: the AGA is from Darts Farm (Garton Kings) as are the mirrored tiles behind it and the Belgian blue limestone floor (both Fired Earth). Devonian through and through.