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Some furniture is made for the here and now. Some is built to stand the test of time. At Neptune, we believe that the best can do both.

Good design never grows old.

ON THE COVER

room

CONTRIBUTORS

FROM THE EDITOR

TOP 100

guide to the Top 100

DECORATE

NOTEBOOK

What’s caught Rémy Mishon’s eye this month

WISE BUYS

Palmer’s selection of serving plates

SWATCH

Mishon puts some of the latest

designs in the frame

STORY

Sleightholme creates bold schemes

by the colours and patterns of

Thompson’s dramatic artworks

ON DECORATING

advice from interior designer

Bulmer on hanging pictures

INSIDER

NEWS

the reopening of Leighton House

OUT & ABOUT AND IN CROWD

This month’s best buys and a reader event

SOURCEBOOK

chimneypieces to fireside accessories

THE LIST

The names to know from our design directory

SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS Fair highlights

OUTSIDE INTERESTS

to visit with sculpture and topiary

BOOKS

Featuring smart interiors in town and country

ART SCENE Lucian Freud exhibitions

PEOPLE

175 LIFESTYLE

Daisy Bell and Bill Gerrish have ambitious plans for the Thirsk Hall Sculpture Garden

183 SPECIALIST

Avena Carpets is reviving the almost lost art of narrow-loom weaving in West Yorkshire 187 ARTISTS IN THEIR STUDIO

Fourth Plinth artist and academic Samson Kambalu gives a whistle-stop tour of Oxford 190 CLIMATE CRUSADERS

The aptly named Charles Flower is the forward-thinking founder of a meadow consultancy and wild flower seed business

STORIES

194 MODERN, GOTHIC, DRAMA

Maddux Creative’s masterly transformation of the interiors of an unusual London house

204 HOUSE ON THE LAKE

The owners of this Georgian house in Berkshire tasked Turner Pocock with creating interiors fit for entertaining their extended family

214 LIFE IN COLOUR

In this reconfigured London flat, interior designer Hugh Leslie has set off the owners’ eye-catching artworks and objets with custom-made furniture he designed himself

TIME CAPSULE

Robert Young enhanced the period details of this 17th-century house in Northamptonshire with a mix of carefully chosen antiques, folk art and richly coloured distemper walls

SCULPTURAL APPROPRIATION

Displaying work by both its namesake and other artists, the garden at The Hepworth Wakefield gallery was devised by Tom Stuart-Smith as a vibrant yet tranquil space

236 ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

In the Chiltern Hills, Gavin McWilliam and Andrew Wilson have used walls, apertures and clever planting to transform a disjointed plot

FOOD & TRAVEL

241 GAME ON

Mark Kempson, head chef of London restaurant Kitchen W8, suggests new ways

to use the best of autumn’s wild game in recipes that make perfect comfort food

TASTE NOTES

Blanche Vaughan’s seasonal favourites

TAKE OFF AND SMELL

THE COFFEE

A leisurely trip through Costa Rica becomes a quest for the best caffeinated shot that the Central American country has to offer

INSIDE TRACK

The cultural, shopping and food highlights of country-music capital Nashville, in Tennessee

TRAVEL COMPASS

The latest itineraries and launches – from a Nile cruise to a walking tour in Slovenia

& FINALLY

STOCKISTS

SUBSCRIPTIONS

How to subscribe to House & Garden

the UK and worldwide

LAST WORD

Dahl on the importance – and pleasures – of lounging on sofas m

Wine Dark

Fabric: Designer´s Guild Tammaro Smoke

Carpet: Light Beige

Bed Linen: Storm Shell

Bedside table: Holme

Headboard: Tornö

Bed legs: Reling

NATASHA GOODFELLOW / WRITER

‘I was always interested in words and language, but never considered being a writer,’saysNatasha.SheworkedintechnologyPRforacoupleofyears,then taughtEnglishabroad,butitwasnotuntilshedidworkexperienceatWaitrose Food Illustrated magazine that everything clicked. As a freelance writer, she contributed to Gardens Illustrated, Country Life and also Home & Antiques, whereshewasdeputyeditorforfouryears. Natasha has since collaborated on books with garden designers Luciano Giubbilei and Arabella Lennox-Boyd, and with the Boglione family of Petersham Nurseries.

In 2019, she set up Finch Publishing to produce illustrated guides for garden lovers. NatashavisitedagardendesignedbyGavin McWilliam for this issue (from page 236). What is your favourite way to spend a day off? ‘Visiting gardens or walking in the countryside – but always with a stop-off for a good cake.’

ROBERT YOUNG / ANTIQUE DEALER AND INTERIOR DESIGNER

Robert dreamed of being a painter, but he was discouraged by his family. So, afterfinishingschool,hetravelledinEuropeuntilhearrivedinParis,wherehe studied French art and civilization at the Sorbonne. He worked for London antique dealer Alexander & Berendt, before joining Sotheby’s as a trainee. His tutor Derek Shrub introduced him to antique styles. ‘He inspired me to follow my dreams and build a business dealing in things that spoke to me,’ says Robert, who left Sotheby’s in 1977 to establish Robert Young Antiques. Alongside this, he set up Rivière Interiors with his wife Josyane in 1983.Inthisissue,hedecoratedandhelped to furnish the house on pages 222-229. What would be your dream project?

‘A beach house, with sea views, open fires and raw wood and stone floors, with clients who would share the vision.’

MARK KEMPSON / CHEF

‘From a young age, I would bake and cook with my grandmother,’ says Mark, whospentmostofhisevenings,weekendsandschoolholidaysworkinginthe kitchen of a small hotel in Hampshire. He went onto Basingstoke College of Technologyandacquiredaseriesofqualificationsinhospitalityandcatering. His first experience of fine dining was at Pennyhill Park, in Surrey, before he went on to The Vineyard at Stockcross. He was part of the team that gained a second Michelin star for the Berkshire hotel in 2007: ‘That was a highlight for me and a memory I’ll treasure.’ Kitchen W8 opened in 2009 with Mark as head chef and, in 2011, was awarded a Michelin star. In this issue, he provides recipes rich in flavour using wild autumn game (from page 241).

Who has been your greatest influence?

‘Marc Wilkinson, the head chef I worked with at Pennyhill Park, is so dedicated – his vision and drive are infectious’ m

BARBARA UZOIGWE. PHOTOGRAPHS: ANDREW MONTGOMERY; ELIZABETH ZESCHIN; PAUL WINCH-FURNESS

HATTA BYNG EDITOR

DEPUTY EDITOR David Nicholls

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jenny Lister

EDITORIAL OPERATIONS MANAGER Kate Shaw

PA TO THE EDITOR/EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Barbara Uzoigwe

FEATURES EDITOR Elizabeth Metcalfe

FEATURES ASSISTANT Christabel Chubb

UNITED IN DESIGN APPRENTICE Afreena Sakeer

SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR Arta Ghanbari

DECORATION EDITOR Ruth Sleightholme

ASSISTANT DECORATION EDITOR Rémy Mishon

DECORATION COORDINATOR Bradley Palmer

CHIEF SUB-EDITOR Caroline Bullough

DEPUTY CHIEF SUB-EDITOR Sue Gilkes

SUB-EDITOR Rose Washbourn

ART DIRECTOR Joshua Monaghan

SENIOR ART EDITORS Danielle Campbell, Eva Farrington PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Owen Gale

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS:

EDITOR-AT-LARGE Liz Elliot | GARDEN EDITOR Clare Foster

TRAVEL EDITOR Pamela Goodman | FOOD EDITOR Blanche Vaughan

CONSULTANT EDITOR Susan Crewe

EDITOR-AT-LARGE (DECORATION) Gabby Deeming

Chrissa Amuah, Lavinia Bolton, Sophie Dahl, Virginia Fraser, Fiona Golfar, Anne Hardy, Rita Konig, Fiona McKenzie Johnston, Nonie Niesewand, Elizabeth Rees-Jones

DIGITAL DIRECTOR Emily Senior

DIGITAL EDITOR Virginia Clark

DEPUTY DIGITAL EDITOR Charlotte McCaughan-Hawes

ACTING DIGITAL FEATURES EDITOR Thomas Barrie

SENIOR MANAGER OF AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Tal Dekel-Daks COMMERCE WRITER Arabella Bowes

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE LIST Charlotte Richmond EDITORIAL AND CONTENT COORDINATOR, THE LIST Lucy Boulton

VICE PRESIDENT, HEAD OF REVENUE STRATEGY, WESTERN EUROPE Malcolm Attwells

EUROPEAN CONTENT OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Helen Placito

CURATOR, THE CALICO CLUB Davey Hunter-Jones

ASSISTANT PRODUCER, THE CALICO CLUB Parinita Dewan

SYNDICATION ENQUIRIES syndication@condenast.co.uk

Copyright © 2022. House & Garden is published monthly by The Condé Nast Publications Ltd, Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU. Colour origination by Rhapsody. Printed in the UK by Walstead Roche. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. The title ‘House & Garden’ is registered at the US Patent Office and in Great Britain as a trademark. All merchandise prices are approximate. The Mail Order Protection Scheme does not cover items featured editorially. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Rates include delivery and digital editions. Full rates are £59.88 for one year in the UK, £109 for the rest of the world. To place your order, call +44 (0)1858 438819. Special offers and exclusive promotions are published in this issue or online at houseandgarden.co.uk. To manage your subscription, log onto magazineboutique.co.uk/solo. For subscription enquiries, email houseandgarden@ subscription.co.uk. US DISTRIBUTION: House & Garden, ISSN 0643-5759 (USPS 464550) is published monthly by Condé Nast, Vogue House, Hanover Square, London WIS 1JU, UK. US DISTRIBUTION: The US annual subscription price is $125. Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named World Container Inc, 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Periodicals postage paid at Brooklyn, NY 11256. US POSTMASTER: Send address changes to House & Garden, World Container Inc, 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Subscription records are maintained at Condé Nast Britain, Subscriptions Department, Tower House, Sovereign Park, Market Harborough LE16 9EF, UK. POST NOTE: All editorial enquiries and submissions to House & Garden that require replies must be accompanied by stamped, addressed envelopes. House & Garden is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (which regulates the UK’s magazine and newspaper industry). We abide by the Editors’ Code of Practice (ipso.co.uk/editors-code-of-practice) and are committed to upholding the highest standards of journalism. If you think that we have not met those standards and wish to make a complaint, please see our Editorial Complaints Policy on the Contact Us page of our website or contact us at complaints@condenast.co.uk or by post to Complaints, Editorial Business Department, The Condé Nast Publications Ltd, Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU. If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or if you would like more information about IPSO or the Editors’ Code, contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit ipso.co.uk. The paper used to produce this publication is based on renewable wood fibre. The wood that these fibres are derived from is sourced from sustainably managed forests and controlled sources. The producing mills are EMAS registered and operate according to the highest environmental and health and safety standards. This magazine is fully recyclable – please log on to recyclenow.com for your local recycling options for paper and board.

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craftsmanship. forever quality.

FROM THE EDITOR

On the eve of sending this issue to print (and with just enough time to acknowledge it here), the news that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II had died came through, rocking us all to the core, making us stop in our tracks. Very few of us can imagine life without the Queen. She’s been there, as an extraordinary rock of constancy, a calming, reassuring force through thick and thin, a role model and the absolute embodiment of graciousness and duty throughout all our lives.

House & Garden was first published in 1947, only a few years before her accession so, though younger than our late Queen, it has weathered some of the same storms and has marked her extraordinary milestones – from her Coronation, at the age of 27, to her Platinum Jubilee this year. In 1953, we reminded our readers that ‘our new Queen is young and active; her interests and occupations are the same as those of millions of her subjects of the same age. She dances joyously – is excited at the races, loves flowers, romps with her children, picnics on the Scottish moors, enjoys popular music’. Seventy years later, reading this only serves to highlight her overwhelming dedication to her role. We have so much to thank her for.

As we put together this issue, which celebrates the talents of interior design and architecture, the world of decoration also lost one of its greats – the wonderful Robert Kime, perhaps best known for his work as decorator to our new king, His Majesty, King Charles III. Robert also leaves an enormous hole. His eye for beauty and mastery of atmospheric,

lived-in rooms, which sparkled with interest in a seemingly effortless way, was unparalleled. He was someone so many of us looked to for inspiration and we revelled in the wonder he created. On page 92, Elfreda Pownall considers what he meant to us. His was most certainly a life well lived, full of beauty and beautiful things: we had imagined there would be more years to learn from him.

And, as we reflect on what we have lost, we also take this opportunity to celebrate what we still have. In this issue, we not only announce our Top 100 Interior Designers and Architects for 2022, but we also unveil the House & Garden Awards winners – all remarkable people doing extraordinary things. Many of their projects have graced the pages of the magazine, ensuring our stories are lively, thought provoking and sometimes unexpected. This includes the bold renovation and redecoration of a gothic revival house (from page 194) by the talented duo behindMadduxCreative,thisyear’sInteriorDesigner of the Year. For me, it is vital that House & Garden features a broad spectrum of styles and approaches, and stretches and inspires us all. So I hope that this is reflected in our Awards, our Top 100 and the pages of the magazine every month… Rest in peace, Your Majesty. Long live King Charles III.

Queen Elizabeth II photographed by Dorothy Wilding

House & Garden

TOP100

Interior Designers & Architects

- IN ASSOCIATION WITH -

On the subsequent pages is House&Garden’s much anticipated and hotly debated annual list of whom we consider to be the best interior designers and architects working on private projects in the UK today. They have different styles and take varying approaches, and their projects reflect the wide spectrum that we feature in the magazine and on the website. But what they have in common is that they are brilliant at what they do, creating interiors, houses and flats with flair, and showing sensitivity to their surroundings and the inhabitants. Assembling this list is one of the hardest tasks in the year for the House&Gardenteam, but the result is an exciting celebration of UK-based talent. For more insights on the Top 100 and the winners of the House&GardenAwards (from page 97), visit houseandgarden.co.uk/top-100

TEXT THOMAS BARRIE, DOMINIC BRADBURY, HATTA BYNG, CHRISTABEL CHUBB, LIZ ELLIOT, SERENA FOKSCHANER, CHARLOTTE M c CAUGHAN-HAWES, ELIZABETH METCALFE, DAVID NICHOLLS

TOP100

Bryan O’Sullivan

bos-studio.com

Refined yet playful describes Bryan O’Sullivan’s style. Having honed his craft under some of the greats, he set up his studio in 2013 and now has a team of 34 across offices in London and New York. With expertise in architecture and interiors, he recently finished projects in both cities and in Greece. His glamorous vision can be seen in the Red Room at The Connaught hotel, W1, and at The Berkeley Bar & Terrace, SW1

Bryan O’Sullivan beside a sculpture he designed in Suite 410, one of the rooms he was commissioned to redecorate at Claridge’s

Eldridge Architects

eldridgelondon.com | eldridgenewlyn.com

Led by Nick Eldridge and Mike Gibson, Eldridge London also has a sister office in Cornwall, along with a portfolio of impressive projects that span both town and country. The practice is much respected for its original newbuilds, such as a recently completed beach house at Shoreham-by-Sea. Other significant work includes an innovative project in rural Surrey; this secured consent under Paragraph 80 of the Country House Clause, which allows for ‘outstanding’ one-of-a-kind designs.

Paolo Moschino

paolomoschino.com

Paolo Moschino and Philip Vergeylen are the brains behind this unstoppable studio. Known for its refined, glamorous style that embodies luxurious comfort, the talented 45-strong team is working currently across commercial and residential projects, recently completing a penthouse in Miami and a chalet in Gstaad, as well as a large flat in central London. The same distinctively elegant aesthetic has also been applied to the studio’s covetable collections of furniture, lighting and pretty fabrics to be found in its shop on Ebury Street, SW1.

Kit Kemp Design Studio

kitkemp.com

A helpful alliterative checklist provided on its website sums up what Kit Kemp Design Studio is all about: colour, craft, character, comfort and curation. And it certainly delivers – its careful restorations of period properties as well as award-winning newbuilds are stylish and smartly forward-thinking, with craft playing a central role. Two architects in a design team of 12 ensure that giving newbuilds more character and interest is a Kit Kemp speciality. As is working on the colourful, hyper-chic buildings in the portfolio of Firmdale Hotels, of which Kit is both a co-founder and creative director. Recent projects include a pool house in Upstate New York and a five-bedroom farmhouse in Hampshire.

100

Shalini Misra

shalinimisra.com

This architectural and interior designer’s opulent and glamorous designs have earned her clients worldwide. Based in London with a newly opened office in Dubai, the studio is currently working on projects from London and Manhattan to Istanbul and Delhi. Shalini’s training as an architect at the School of Planning and Architecture Delhi means that she often uses this knowledge to rework the structure of a space as well as its interiors.

CampbellRey

campbell-rey.com

Having met while working at Acne Paper, Duncan Campbell and Charlotte Rey launched their creative agency in 2014. Initially focused on branding and creative direction, their work now includes interiors and product design. The pair’s aesthetic is sophisticated and cool, often informed by historical design – think trompe l’oeil walls and bold furniture, much of which is bespoke or from their range with The Invisible Collection.

Adam Architecture

adamarchitecture.com

Headed up by six distinguished design directors, this practice now has a team of about 100, with 20 private residences completed over the past two years and 50 projects currently underway. Noted for classical newbuilds, most recently a Hampshire manor house, the firm is also known for sensitive period restorations, such as a Grade I-listed country house in Dorset designed by Thomas Archer.

Edward Hurst

edwardhurst.com

One of our pre-eminent antique dealers, Edward Hurst has an instinctive flair for finding the unusual and the beautiful. Over the past 15 years, he has ventured into interior design, though he shies away from any such label. For him, it is about ‘building up rooms’ by sourcing furniture, rugs, fabrics and objects that have historical resonance and chime together. Clients seek him out for the unerring good taste Edward brings to an interior.

Shalini Misra in her Victorian house in north London, which she reconfigured to include this large, double-height atrium and mezzanine

Duncan Campbell and Charlotte Rey in Van der Nootska Palace in Stockholm, with the ‘Garden Maze’ and ‘Folding Ribbon’ wool rugs from the Campbell-Rey collaboration with Nordic Knots

OCHRE

furniture . lighting . accessories

‘Animal Print’ nickel-framed armchair, by Milo Baughman, £4,960 a pair including fabric, from Suzy Hoodless. suzyhoodless.com

Suzy Hoodless

suzyhoodless.com

No two projects are alike at this London practice, which was established in 2000 by the former interiors editor of Wallpaper* magazine, Suzy Hoodless. Current commissions, undertaken by a team of up to 10, include film-maker Derek Jarman’s former home in north London, where sustainable materials and vintage furniture are being used with an eye on longevity and the environment. Other current projects range from a flat in Mayfair and a large Arts and Crafts house with a gothic edge in Hampsteadtothethoughtfulrestoration of an old rectory in Shropshire, where she is working alongside local artisans.

Caroline Riddell

carolineriddellinteriors.co.uk

Operating from a picturesque mews office in Shepherd’s Bush, Caroline Riddell creates interiors that combine comfort with supremely elegant fabrics and furniture, many of them made by British craftspeople. Her small team of designers has recently completed projects that range from an 18th-century farmhouse in the Home Counties and a jewel-like townhouse in Westminster to an 11-bedroom house in Antibes overlooking the Mediterranean. Judging by the list of returning clients, Caroline’s approach – one of quiet professionalism combined with a delightful sense of humour – is one that they, along with her new clients, very much appreciate.

TOP100

Studio Peake

studiopeake.com

Having launched her London interior design studio in 2019, Sarah Peake now heads up a team of six, creating layered, pattern-rich interiors that nod to tradition but are firmly rooted in the 21st century, with strong, clean silhouettes. Many of her projects are in town, but she works across the country, breathing new life into historic buildings. The Workshop by Studio Peake offers pieces designed by Sarah in collaboration with UK makers.

Sarah Peake in a recently completed project in Fulham. The armchair is Gerrit Rietveld’s ‘Utrecht’ design for Cassina

Sophie Ashby of Studio Ashby in the central London showroom of her furniture brand, Sister, which she launched earlier this year

C Studio Ashby

studioashby.com

‘Start with the art’ is the mantra of Sophie Ashby, the founder of Studio Ashby, and this is evident in her projects, from newbuilds to historic houses. She is an expert at drawing colours from artworks into fabrics she chooses for the – often bespoke – furniture. Some of the designs appear in her line, Sister by Studio Ashby, offering a way to enjoy her desirable modern style.

Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler

sibylcolefax.com

Founded in the Thirties, this renowned studio comprising seven interior decorators, each with their own design team, is incomparable in terms of the knowledge, experience and expertise it brings to its projects. Though it is associated with the English country-house look, some of its most impressive recent projects are, in fact, modern family homes. What is consistent is the undeniable level of class and elegance in all the studio touches.

Mlinaric, Henry and Zervudachi

mhzlondon.com

Three directors – Jason Roberts, Tino Zervudachi and Laurence Macadam –now steer this long-established studio, which has its roots in the early days of the great David Mlinaric. There are five more interior designers and five architects engaged on projects in London, Wiltshire, Switzerland, Japan and Miami. Strong on interior architecture, the studio is also known for its use of colour and mix of modern designs with antiques.

TOP100

Peter Mikic

petermikic.com

A large and international practice based in London, Peter Mikic has a meticulous but glamorous approach to interiors. Its style is instantly recognisable for the use of bespoke finishes and furniture, and distinctive architectural detailing combined with cleverly configured spaces. The team of 22 is currently at work on 19 projects – including a ski chalet, beach houses, a yacht and a private train – all with a worldly and cosmopolitan edge.

Peter Mikic at home in Notting Hill, with his black labradors

Trigger and Bullitt. The wallpaper is Soane’s ‘Scrolling Fern Frond’

Octavia Dickinson in the drawing room of a south London project, where she has combined textiles and antiques to charming effect

Octavia Dickinson

octaviadickinson.com

NEW ENTRY

Since setting up her studio in 2015, Octavia Dickinson has developed a talent for the quintessentially English country-house aesthetic. Her training with Cindy Leveson and a stint with Flora Soames have enhanced Olivia’s way with fabrics and colour. This has won her a host of projects, from a manor house in Wiltshire to a lodge on Scotland’s West Coast. Last autumn, she launched the product design arm of her business, followed by an online antiques shop, through which she sells selected homeware, wallpapers and fabrics.

Sarah Vanrenen

vanrenengwdesigns.com

Traditional with a modern twist sums up the sensibility behind Sarah Vanrenen’s distinctive style. Through her eponymous studio, she puts together careful combinations of patterns, textiles and antiques to create interiors that achieve that highly sought-after layered look. Working primarily on English rural properties and townhouses, she mixes classic elements with fun and contemporary notes. Sarah also designs and sells furniture, fabrics and wallpaper.

Hubert Zandberg

hzinteriors.com

TOP100 ALEX LLOYD

A long list of repeat clients is proof of the skills – and originality – of this practice and its 15-strong team. Hubert Zandberg’s South African roots emerge in the natural materials – wood, metal and linen – that make his spaces so inviting, be it in a Notting Hill townhouse, a Parisian apartment or a Cape Town newbuild. A collector himself, he has a knack for displaying objects drawn from a client’s own collections, ensuring each interior is an original.

‘Connie’ beech and MDF table (capri blue), £1,725, from Sarah Vanrenen

100

Maison Artefact

maisonartefact.com

The London-based antique dealer and interior designer Victoria Davar launched her shop and design practice in Lillie Road, SW6, over 20 years ago and has been conjuring up effortlessly serene and elegant spaces ever since. Unsurprisingly, the 18th- to 20th-century Swedish, Italian and English antiques in which Victoria specialises bring a ‘perfectly imperfect’ character to the interiors she creates – from family homes in London to a mansion in Mauritius.

Turner Pocock

turnerpocock.co.uk

Founded by Bunny Turner and Emma Pocock in 2007, this London interior design studio is known for its tailored and elegant style, which is as at home in the country as in a city. With a team of 12 designers, they work on projects from family houses in London to ski chalets in Val d’Isère, and have collaborated on collections with Peter Page and Chelsea Textiles. Bunny and Emma also set up TP Caring Spaces, a charitable initiative offering their services to worthy causes.

Olivia Outred

oliviaoutred.com

This up-and-coming London practice has gained a reputation for comfortably modern interiors, layered with antiques and handcrafted elements. A team of five works alongside architects, with collaborations ranging from choosing bed linen and sourcing garden designers to structural alterations. Projects on the books include an East End flat and a house in Primrose Hill.

Martin Brudnizki Design Studio

mbds.com

Through his work for hospitality mogul Richard Caring, Martin Brudnizki has reshaped London’s restaurant scene in the past decade, with Annabel’s, Harry’s Bar, Daphne’s and The Ivy to his name. Statement bars, deep banquettes and Belle Époque finery are all signature features that feel equally at home in the residential projects underway in his studios in London and New York.

Sims Hilditch

simshilditch.com

Emma Sims-Hilditch and her design director Louise Wicksteed create spaces in which country house comfort meets neutral serenity. Relaxed, pared-back schemes prioritise flow and function, and nothing is left unconsidered. This year’s projects range from family homes in Cheltenham and in Winchester to a country house with nine bedrooms.

Victoria Davar of Maison Artefact in the kitchen of a project in Richmond. The cupboards are in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Purbeck Stone’

‘TP End of Bed’ bench, by Turner Pocock and Lorfords, £3,900 excluding fabric, from Lorfords. lorfordsantiques.com

TOP100

De Rosee Sa

deroseesa.com

Set up in 2007 by husband-and-wife architect duo Max de Rosée and Claire Sa, this studio has rapidly developed to offer architectural and interior design services. A team of 25 works across three studios: London is the headquarters, with satellite offices in Lisbon (Claire’s family is Portuguese) and also Brussels (Max’s is Belgian). They excel at an appealingly soft modern look, which is both easy on the eye and easy to live with.

Lucy Cunningham

lucycunningham.com

This bite-sized, Hampshire-based interior design studio was set up by Lucy Cunningham in 2014. It has a classical but unstuffy approach, with a deft touch, combined with colour, print and a liberal sprinkling of antiques underpinning its style – in town and country. Recent projects include working with English Heritage and the historical paint expert Patrick Baty on the renovation of a Gloucestershire Grade I-listed manor, and a 17th-century farmhouse owned by Cath Kidston.

Guy Goodfellow

guygoodfellow.com

Along with his team of seven, Guy Goodfellow offers a full architecture and interior design service, turning his hand to everything from Grade I-listed flats in London to vast country houses. His knowledge of historic properties is exceptional and informs his sensitive renovations, which respect the fabric of a building while gently embracing the 21st century. Layered with textiles and antiques, Guy’s style is classic English, just like his popular collection of wallpapers and textiles, which includes the linens (above from left) ‘Lammertin’ in lichen and ‘Persian Vine’ in gold.

NEW ENTRY

Lucy Cunningham pictured in a recently completed project in Gloucestershire HARRY CROWDER; ALEXANDRE DE TERWANGNE

Good Different

Thousands of characterful vintage pieces to make your home wonderfully different. Choose the one for you and feel very, very good about it.

TOP100

Jonathan Tuckey

jonathantuckey.com

An expert in combining the old with the new, architectural designer Jonathan Tuckey is just as adept at adding to and elevating old buildings as he is at creating entirely new ones. Jonathan approaches each project with an understanding of the history of any existing structures, building on them with sustainability in mind. Current projects include two villas on Lake Como and transforming Wool Hall, a 16th-century Grade II-listed building in Somerset, from an iconic recording studio into a contemporary family home.

Todhunter Earle

todhunterearle.com

In business for nearly 25 years, Emily Todhunter and Kate Earle continue to come up with stylish, meticulously puttogether spaces. Working on projects from Manhattan’s Upper East Side to The Little Boltons, SW10, the studio is known for its smart take on refined English design, with delicate colour and pattern combinations, and wellsourced antiques, which places it at the forefront of the British design scene.

Sarah Delaney

sarahdelaneydesign.co.uk

Working with a team of five, this wellestablished London interior designer creates elegant, clean-lined interiors, which embrace the more modern end of design. Rooms are light and airy, but also supremely comfortable, with wellchosen furniture. Much of the studio’s work is in London, but Sarah Delaney is currently running a project in New York. She often collaborates with top architects, including Michaelis Boyd.

Thomas Croft

thomascroft.com

Architect Thomas Croft and his team have worked on some of London’s most prestigious residential addresses. These include an apartment in the Albany, W1, for the interior designer Francis Sultana and art dealer David Gill. An ambitious three-year project to restore a Grade I-listed Robert Adam townhouse on Fitzroy Square, W1, has showcased the practice’s expertise in conservation and bespoke craftsmanship.

Jonathan Tuckey in the kitchen of his family home in north west London, a 19th-century former steel fabricator’s workshop

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Nicola Harding

nicolaharding.com

Alongside her team of 25, Nicola aims to produce interiors that are ‘rich in soulfulness and atmosphere’ though, above all, her projects, which currently range from an eco newbuild in the Surrey Hills to a Tuscan villa, are designed to not just look beautiful, but also function as spaces to be lived in. With sustainability at the heart of her practice, the studio takes part in 1% for the Planet, giving one per cent of its turnover to environmental schemes such as Rewilding Britain.

Nicola Harding is known for her colour-rich interiors, which are as comfortable as they are characterful

Samantha Todhunter

samanthatodhunter.com

Vibrant, welcoming and distinctive all apply to the work of this established London practice with a team of five. Artisan finishes, sculptural furniture and painterly colours bring a distinctive feel to the projects, from a San Francisco townhouse and flats in London and Lisbon to a listed farmhouse in Henley.

K&H Design

kandhdesign.co.uk

Katie Glaister is the dynamic leader of this young and ambitious boutiquesize studio with an individual take on interior design. Pretty flourishes come in where needed, but the look is tailored, with unexpected materials and finishes. There are currently 10 projects on the go – in London, Berkshire and Austria.

James Gorst Architects

jamesgorstarchitects.com

With offices in London and Suffolk, James Gorst Architects has created a distinctive body of work in many different contexts. Led by principal James Gorst and director David Roy, the practice has won many awards and particular praise for its country houses, and has a handful of fresh rural projects underway.

Colin Orchard

info@colinorchard.com

Despitehavingnowebsiteorsocialmedia presence, Colin Orchard and his team of three are always busy. His style is the meeting place between the traditional and the contemporary, mixing antiques and modern pieces with seamless ease.

‘The Montague Chair’, £3,590 including upholstery in persimmon velvet, from Samatha Todhunter DEAN HEARNE; SAMANTHA TODHUNTER DESIGN/JONATHAN BOND

Notafraidtomakearchitecturalchanges to create a space that functions for each client, Colin works on projects round the world, from Sydney and Palm Beach to New York, London and Oxfordshire.

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Max Rollitt

maxrollitt.com

Antiques underpin everything Max Rollitt does – from the beautiful pieces he sells at his Hampshire showroom to the layered, unique interiors he creates for his clients. Having dealt in fine antiques for the best part of 30 years, he has an exacting eye and an innate sense of what is right for a room, which feeds into the designs for his own furniture collection. Working alongside a small team, Max likes to be hands-on with all the interiors projects he takes on, working on just a select few each year.

Max Rollitt in the VIP room he designed for London Craft Week at Somerset House, surrounded by a mixture of antique pieces and his own bespoke furniture

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Clare Gaskin

claregaskin.com

Nicky Haslam in the sitting room of his house in the Cotswolds. The fringed blind is in his ‘Shutter Stripe’ fabric in pomegranate red

This young studio has a small team who create fun, expressive interiors. Clare Gaskin has an individual take on colour and pattern, which draws in clients – currently the owners of houses in Kew, Richmond and Balham. As with so much of her work, there is a charm and an appealing lightness to Clare herself – qualities that should not be underestimated in an interior designer.

Nicky Haslam Studio

nh-design.co.uk

A stalwart of the British interior design scene for over 60 years, Nicky Haslam once said, ‘A room should make you smile without knowing it as you enter.’ Known for his imaginative and witty interiors, he brings a flamboyance to any project, whether his own home or the interiors he creates in collaboration with Jena Quinn and Lucy Derbyshire of Studio QD.

John McCall

mccalldesign.co.uk

Over his nearly four decades in interior design, John McCall has perfected the art of creating spaces that have an air of having evolved over time. ‘I like to come up with a backstory for a new project,’ he says, and it is this story he carefully weaves into each room through the use of antique furniture, art and textiles.

Ptolemy Dean

ptolemydean.co.uk

Clare Gaskin in the sitting room of a project in Wimbledon. The vibrant rug, a bespoke piece from Amy Kent, is characteristic of her bold signature style

An architect, artist and author, Ptolemy Dean is best known for his work in the field of conservation, with gentle updates to landmark period residences. Recent projects include internal refurbishments of Castle Howard’s West Wing, estatewide renovations at Aldourie Castle in Scotland, and a new library for a period manor house in Gloucestershire. About half of Ptolemy’s 40 current projects are residential, and he also serves as a trustee of The Landmark Trust, which restores and preserves historic buildings.

HEARNE; SIMON UPTON

VSP Interiors

vspinteriors.com

In the 20 or so years since Henriette Von Stockhausen launched her own studio, she has taken on a host of projects in the UK and abroad. Drawing on her upbringing spent between Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Austria, Henriette’s traditional style, paired with a keen eye for antiques, makes for grand yet comfortable spaces. Based in Dorchester, the studio has projects across the UK, France and Germany, and is currently working on a house in Montecito, California.

Salvesen Graham

salvesengraham.com

A quintessentially English approach underpins the always lovely, easy-on-theeye interiors created by founders Nicole Salvesen and Mary Graham. This look has gained the London studio plenty of clients in the UK – a Mayfair townhouse and Marylebone pied-à-terre are among current projects – as well as overseas, on houses from Switzerland to Seattle. This savvy duo has also recently added wallpaper to its successful product line.

d’Erlanger & Sloan

derlangerandsloan.co.uk

Founders Emilia d’Erlanger and Anna Sloan, who began their careers with influential designer Veere Grenney, have perfected a look that sits tidily – and welcomingly – between classical and modern. They are based in London and Nashville. Recent commissions include a large barn conversion in Tennessee, a Palm Beach beach house and a two-year remodelling of a Chelsea family townhouse, where texture and colour are key.

Melissa Wyndham

melissawyndham.com

Founded in 1985 by the late Melissa Wyndham, this interior design firm has been headed up for the past seven years by the designer Vanessa Macdonald, who honed her eye while working for Melissa foroveradecade.Thesmalldesignstudio – four strong including Vanessa – offers architectural services, but also collaborates with architects and consultants on projects. These currently include two country houses in Gloucestershire and a Chelsea townhouse. Known for its classic elegant English style, the studio combines patterned fabrics and clean lines with contemporary and antique pieces to create rooms with layers and personality.

Hoare, Ridge & Morris

hrma.co.uk

Established by Mark Hoare, Ted Ridge and Charles Morris, this architectural practice is based in the inspirational setting of Snape Maltings in Suffolk. It has won plaudits for its thoughtful updates and reworkings of period and vernacular buildings, including work at Retreat East, a spa resort located in a 16th-century East Anglian farmstead. Among other projects, Mark and Ted have been instrumental in establishing 10 Church Street – a community hub in Framlingham, where a café, youth club, meeting rooms, art studios and other creative workspaces have been created in a Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse.

Henriette Von Stockhausen in the dining room of her Dorset house, where she has used Ralph Lauren Home’s elegant ‘Marlowe Floral’ wallpaper

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Retrouvius

retrouvius.com

Best known for its architectural salvage – fireplaces, vintage shop fittings – chosen for beauty and utility, Retrouvius also has an interior design studio that has earned a reputation for equally interesting spaces and imaginatively incorporates the finds. The team, including three full-time architects and two interior designers, has projects in the UK and Europe, from London townhouses to the restoration of a house in the Outer Hebrides, a hotel in Rye, Sussex, and a large newbuild in Oxfordshire.

David Bentheim

bentheim.co.uk

Clarity and simplicity combined with artisan surfaces and a lightness of touch characterise a David Bentheim interior.

The London-based practice has forged long-standing partnerships with architects, while past clients include David Linley and the University of Cambridge. Its latest commissions range from an imaginative back-to-brick reinvention of a Seventies house in Gloucestershire to a three-storey Notting Hill apartment and a Cotswold property with furniture sourced from Mallorca and Sweden.

Maria Speake of Retrouvius, photographed in an Umbrian farmhouse, to be featured next year in House & Garden

with Cascade 120/5014 and Versailles Grand Cotton Fabric F111/6023

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Kate Quinlan, her husband Alastair Bowden and her mother Fiona McLean, of McLean Quinlan, in their Chelsea townhouse project

McLean Quinlan

mcleanquinlan.com

Run by architect Fiona McLean and her daughter Kate Quinlan, this family-led practice has established an international reputation for cohesive, original homes, rich in natural materials and craftsmanship. With offices in London and Winchester, the studio has recently focused on newbuild country homes and conversions, including Harbour House in West Sussex and a Passivhaus in Devon. Its engaging blend of contextual modern architecture and characterful interiors has also won it substantial commissions abroad.

Waldo Works

waldoworks.com

Founded by Tom Bartlett over 20 years ago, this Clerkenwell-based studio combines architecture and interiors to create thoughtful, contemporary spaces. With partners Sasha von Meister and Andrew Treverton, Tom heads up a team of 14 and describes all projects – whether a villa in Ibiza or a colourful Donald Juddinspired project in west London – as an entire office collaboration. The blend of form and function is vital to the studio’s approach, with rigorous research underpinning its creative design work.

Hackett Holland

hackettholland.co.uk

Founded in 2001 by architect Jonathan Holland and the interior designer Jane Hackett, the practice draws on both their talents, and those of their team, to offer a comprehensive set of design services. For residential work, particularly, this translates into original and harmonious homes, ranging from newbuilds to renovations and reinventions. Projects on the go include designing a neo-Georgian house in Wiltshire as well as refurbishing listed houses across London, with period and provenance as their guiding lights.

Natalia Miyar

nataliamiyar.com

An architect by training, Natalia Miyar leads a team of 18 architects, interior designers and furniture designers. She oversees every element of her projects from her Chelsea studio, conjuring up glamorous spaces as cool as they are comfortable and mixing strong shapes, luxurious materials and refined palettes.

As well as projects in London, New York and Ibiza, Natalia also works in Miami, where she grew up and studied architecture. She has recently launched her first collection of wallpapers with Fromental.

Hugh Leslie

hughleslie.com

Understated and thoughtful, Hugh Leslie devises immaculate interiors, in which classical decoration and design are given a sophisticated contemporary edge. Hugh is an architectural designer and the spaces he creates reflect a deep understanding of proportion and flow. He is also adept at working with and helping build collections of art. Currently, Hugh and his team are involved in two projects that are both third-timeround for the respective clients – the ultimate praise.

Architecture for London

architectureforlondon.com

Founded in 2009 by Ben Ridley, Architecture for London has always expressed a clear commitment to sustainability, low-energy buildings and healthy homes. His holistic, turn-key approach to design and architecture, which gives the practice’s houses and apartments a rounded quality, encompasses every aspect of a project, including interior design.

Rui Ribeiro

ruiribeirostudio.com

The wide scope of Rui Ribeiro’s creative interests – in the past 12 months, he has developed a ceramic art collection with Portuguese craftspeople and is in talks to launch his own range with a US furniture company – means he does not take on many interior design jobs. Craft rich, his projects feature pleasing textural combinations. Right now, he is refurbishing houses in Clapham and Mayfair.

Anna Haines

annahaines.co.uk

After starting out at Hackett Holland and then Caroline Riddell, Anna Haines opened her own studio in 2013. Her schemes are elegant and pretty with a sense of fun – wallpaper, patterned fabrics and antiques set against serene colour combinations. Primarily in the UK, her projects include a vicarage in Bath, two cottages in Norfolk and a townhouse in London. This year, Anna launched her first furniture collection.

Maddux Creative

madduxcreative.com

This London-based design studio, set up by Scott Maddux and Jo leGleud, is known for its flamboyant, rich interiors, in which pattern, eccentric details and vintage pieces are layered with aplomb (as seen in their north London project in this issue). Clients are drawn to the duo’s fearless approach, which sees them commissioning specialist painters to bedeck the walls and designing rooms around carefully chosen star artefacts.

Hugh Leslie in the sitting room of a recently completed project – a lateral conversion in a London garden square, which is featured in this issue

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Martin Hulbert Design martinhulbertdesign.com

As well as being known for its remarkable hotel projects – The Grove in Hertfordshire and Coworth Park in Berkshire to name just two – Martin Hulbert Design also turns its eye to residential projects across the world, including a recently completed villa in Corfu and a Grade I-listed house overlooking Regent’s Park. Headed up by Martin and Jay Grierson, the team creates spaces that are elegant yet soft, making excellent use of tonal neutrals, texture and a thoughtfully chosen selection of furniture and decorative pieces.

Gras

gras.co

Architect Nicholas Groves-Raines and his wife, the Icelandic architect Kristín Hannesdóttir, collaborated on multiple projects for over 50 years, before bringing together two family-run practices under the name of Gras in 2020. Based in Edinburgh, the firm is expert in conservation and heritage projects, such as the reworking of a stone cottage in Sutherland known as Kyle House, for which the studio has won awards. With a 36-strong team, Gras currently has 40 residential projects underway.

Veere Grenney

veeregrenney.com

Veere Grenney is undeniably one of the greats of British decorating (and his long-time right-hand woman Natasha Greig is no slouch either). What he is particularly revered for is his creation of interiors that undoubtedly have their roots in classical decoration, but which also have an airy elegance that makes them feel right for today – there is not the slightest hint of stuffiness to them. Veere also has a successful fabric line with Schumacher, as well as a furniture range with The Lacquer Company.

Flower Michelin

flowermichelin.com

NEW ENTRY

Founded in 2004 by Alex Flower and Chantal Michelin, this architectural practice with offices in London and Hampshire has a portfolio of projects across Britain. Residential work ranges from the recent remodelling of a London townhouse for a composer to an original beachside home in Scotland and the reinvention of a Surrey country house with a Danish-inspired addition. The practice often collaborates with interior designers, including Todhunter Earle, Salvesen Graham and Joanna Wood.

Martin Hulbert (right) and creative partner Jay Grierson at the Grove of Narberth, in Pembrokeshire, one of their period hotel projects

Richard Found, of Found Associates, in the RIBAaward-winning extension he designed for his 18th-century house in the Cotswolds

C Found Associates

foundassociates.com

The Gloucestershire home designed by architect Richard Found for himself and his family is a great example of his practice’s contextual, site-sensitive approach. More recently, Found Associates has completed ambitious residential projects in Cheshire and the Channel Islands, along with London commissions. Its portfolio includes stores for Alice Temperley, Bamford & Sons and Anya Hindmarch.

Carden Cunietti

carden-cunietti.com

Since founding their interior practice 25 years ago Eleanora Cunietti and Audrey Carden have forged a distinctive look: sophisticated restraint offset by a confident palette, sculptural furniture and striking artworks. With their team of six, they are currently bringing this approach to design-and-build homes in London and the country, and to houses in Jersey, the Caribbean and Virginia.

Sigmar

sigmarlondon.com

The design firm for cool, contemporary interiors, Sigmar is part shop (headed by Danish furniture specialist Nina Hertig) and part design studio (run by Swedishborn designer Ebba Thott). Like the furniture and fittings they sell, many of their interiors projects feature elements of Scandinavian and European design, set against refined palettes and calm, clean-lined rooms. Underpinning everything is an understanding of what it takes to make a home that is truly functional.

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Rita Konig

ritakonig.com

Currently applying her comfortable and considered style to projects in the English countryside, Chelsea and Primrose Hill, and two beach houses in the US, Rita Konig’s design studio continues to go from strength to strength. With meticulous attention to detail – from the careful combination of patterns to the perfect mixture of well-chosen antiques – Rita and her team of five have certainly perfected the art of designing inviting spaces that will last a lifetime.

Known for her distinctive take on English countryhouse style, Rita Konig is pictured in the garden of her flat in London

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William Smalley williamsmalley.com

The essence of William Smalley’s work is ‘creating buildings and places that are pleasant places to be’. There is certainly a gentle warmth to his houses, which comes from his commitment to craft, expressive materials and a rigorous approach to proportion, scale and volume. William is taking this philosophy beyond the revival of period townhouses, with projects such as updating a Fifties Leslie Gooday house in Richmond.

Fleming Architects

flemingarchitects.co.uk

Based in a converted barn in Gloucestershire, Christian Fleming’s studio of 20 is known for its contextual, site-sensitive work. Informed by Cotswolds vernacular, it ranges from a newbuild farmhouse to the refurbishment and extension of a period cottage. Current projects include a newbuild manor, showcasing the firm’s commitment to sustainable design, local craftsmanship and natural materials.

Janine Stone

janinestone.com

Janine Stone’s talents extends far beyond decoration. With a team of more than 40, the studio provides step-by-step guidance, from pre-purchase property design appraisals and architectural planning to project management and interior design. Reflecting a glamorous takeonclassicEnglishstylewithimpressive attention to detail, the results are elegant and luxurious.

Studio QD

studio-qd.com

Headed up by the glamorous duo Jena Quinn (above left) and Lucy Derbyshire, Studio QD specialises in comfortable, elegant and creative interiors that have a wonderful command of scale and colour. Both Nicky Haslam alumnae, they continue to collaborate closely with the iconic designer on projects today. Their interiors often feature an imaginative, unexpected edge, with bespoke finishes and details playing a major role in their work, whether it happens to be a chalet in Klosters, a seven-floor project in Mayfair or the overhaul of a London office.

‘Big Easy’ armchair, £3,500, and ‘Easy’ ottoman, from £1,100 (both excluding fabric), from Susie Atkinson

Susie Atkinson

susieatkinson.com

Powerhouse Susie Atkinson’s work draws on her extensive experience of designing homes and hotels alike. Having created spaces for Soho House, Lime Wood hotel and Beaverbrook House, Susie devises elegant designs that make for joyful, comfortable rooms, balancing natural materials with colour and flair. She also designs wallpaper and furniture, such as the ‘Big Easy’ designs shown above.

William Smalley in the sitting room of his home in London, where tone and texture are key elements

HARRY CROWDER; SIMON UPTON

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Beata Heuman

beataheuman.com

The creativity of this London-based Swedish designer seems to know no bounds, as her dynamic yet charming aesthetic continues to take the world by storm. Colour is always key in Beata’s projects, which sing with a positive energy that stems from varied influences – from mid-20th-century design and Scandinavian folk to the great Nicky Haslam, under whom she trained. Her studio also sells its own fabric, lighting and furniture collection through its online store Shoppa (shop in Swedish).

Beata Heuman likes to combine distinctive colour with playful elements in her interiors, as seen in her London dining room

SOPHIE GREEN

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Berdoulat

berdoulat.co.uk

Since founding his design studio in 2006, Bath-based designer Patrick Williams has become known for his sympathetic, finely crafted renovations with no detail overlooked. An understanding of historic buildings underpins his approach, which has seen him work on everything from the Surrey childhood home of Edwin Lutyens to a 17th-century canal house in Amsterdam. With his wife Neri, he runs a shop in Bath, selling his furniture, as well as kitchenware, books and more.

Alison Brooks Architects

alisonbrooksarchitects.com

This multi-award-winning Londonbased practice is led by the Canadian architect Alison Brooks and takes on large-scale commercial and mixed-use spaces around the world. It also has fine form creating smart contemporary privatehouses,scoopingtheRIBAHouse of the Year 2021 for the Gloucestershire farmhouse that appeared on this July’s cover of House & Garden. Alison brings a rigour but also a sense of joy to her projects; clients who want to collaborate with an architect on a truly spectacular project will not be disappointed.

Collett Design Associates

collett-zarzycki.com

With the retirement of Andrzej Zarzycki, the interior and architectural design studio Collett Zarzycki (founded in 1985 by Andrzej and Anthony Collett) has been reborn as Collett Design Associates. Anthony and his daughter Georgia, who joined the firm a decade ago, remain as directors, providing the creative vision on projects. These include furniture design (available through The Invisible Collection) and rugs with Christopher Farr. The studio is currently working on a newbuild in Australia, an apartment in Tel Aviv and a family home in Holland Park, and also designing a new Mayfair members’ club for Robin Birley.

Patrick Williams of Berdoulat in the sitting room of his Georgian house in Bath, featured in the October 2021 issue of House & Garden

Charlotte and Angus Buchanan of Buchanan Studio, in the dining area of a London mews house project

Buchanan Studio

buchanan.studio

Headed up by husband-and-wife duo Angus and Charlotte Buchanan, this dynamic west London studio turns its hand to everything, from the interior design of a sprawling villa in Ibiza to the creative direction and branding for Della Vite prosecco. What unifies them all? A fresh, contemporary spirit, which strikes the perfect balance between functionality and beauty. Its recently launched product and fabric collections share the same ethos, including the curvaceous ‘Studio’ chair, which has become something of an Instagram sensation.

Seth Stein Architects

sethstein.com

NEW ENTRY

Though Seth Stein has always based his practice in London, his work regularly takes him beyond the capital and overseas. He currently has a newbuild family house underway in Lagos, Nigeria, and another on Australia’s Mornington Peninsula to complement an award-winning equestrian centre, designed in 2014 by the practice. Closer to home, it recently completed RIBA-award-winning Creek House, by the River Fal in Cornwall, a contextual newbuild that reflects the commitment of both architect and client to sustainability and natural materials.

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Richard Parr

richardparr.com

Pleated silk lampshades, ‘Chunky Flower’ (green and turquoise) and ‘Tribal’ (blue and white), £238 each, both from Penny Morrison

Penny Morrison

pennymorrison.com

With the opening of The Farmyard at The Newt in Somerset, architect Richard Parr found his work reaching a fresh and appreciative audience; his much anticipated addition to the hotel estate offers new suites, plus a restaurant, pool and spa. Many of Richard’s recent residential projects have also been rural, including a newbuild, thatched country house in Oxfordshire, which seamlessly fuses the studio’s interest in the modern and the vernacular. As well as its Gloucestershire studio, the practice has created a new London base known as the People’s Space, housed within a Victorian hall in Notting Hill and combining offices with a sociable events space.

This formidable interior designer, who has a team of 12 but oversees all projects, is revered for the way in which she creates richly layered and always pretty interiors. She is also behind The Fabric Collective, where you will find her wallpaper and fabric collections, alongside those from a carefully selected group of other designers, plus a range of colourful accessories.

John Pawson

johnpawson.com

Through his commercial architecture, houses and books, master minimalist John Pawson has helped to shape a distinctive aesthetic and also created an alluring way of living suited to our times. This has been partly defined through his own personal spaces, as exemplified by his Oxfordshire house, Home Farm, which helped to inspire his recent cookbook co-authored by his wife Catherine. The Pawson portfolio now embraces houses and hotels as well as homeware.

Henri FitzwilliamLay

Chenrifitzwilliamlay.com

With a fashion background, Henri Fitzwilliam-Lay applies her keen eye for design to creating quietly joyful and glamorous yet welcoming interiors, where pattern is balanced with mid-century and contemporary pieces. Henri and her small team are working on projects from a London townhouse and a holiday home in St Tropez to a newbuild in Norway.

Architect Richard Parr in the dining room of his Cotswold farmhouse, with vintage Børge Mogensen chairs and an Eames coffee table

SMITH;

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Henri Fitzwilliam-Lay in the sitting room of her Sixties flat in Notting Hill, where glassware and ceramics are displayed on Poul Cadovius’ ‘Royal System’ shelves for Dk3

Francis Sultana at the David Gill Gallery, SW1, where he is artistic director, with Fredrikson Stallard’s ‘Atlantic’ dining table

Francis Sultana

francissultana.com

This bold, ambitious designer is based in St James’s, but his projects take him all over the world. He has houses on the go in London and the US, as well as the relaunch of Hotel La Palma in Capri. Francis is very involved in the arts and this is no doubt part of his appeal for clients, who have budgets that allow him to flex his creative muscles. The results are often brave and always highly considered.

Robert Kime Design

robertkime.co.uk

This antique business-cum-interior and textiles design studio is still coming to terms with the death of its founder Robert Kime just a few months ago (see In Memoriam). For a combined 30 years, its directors, Orlando Atty and Claire Jackson, worked under the guidance and tutelage of the man himself and Robert’s relaxed, layered and spontaneous approach to decorating is entrenched in everything that they and their very talented team produce.

Michaelis Boyd

michaelisboyd.com

This vibrant practice founded by Alex Michaelis and Tim Boyd in 1996 is still based in London, but has expanded in many directions over recent years. The firm now has a sister studio in New York with a number of Stateside projects, as well as residential commissions in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and beyond. Back on home soil, Michaelis Boyd is balancing large-scale commissions, such as 253 apartments in Battersea Power Station, with bespoke country houses.

Flora Soames

florasoames.com

It’s been a busy year for Flora Soames, who has expanded her interior design team to seven, working across a range of residential and commercial projects. Unsurprisingly, fabrics and prints are key to her aesthetic, as Flora’s own fabric collection continues to grow. She is adept at mixing antiques and blowsy florals with more modern silhouettes to create timeless, comfortable spaces.

Studio Duggan

studioduggan.com

TOP100 JOHN LAURIE; EMMA LEWIS

An eye for unusual details combines with comfort, practicality and a dash of glamour in a typical Studio Duggan interior. With clients in the UK, India and the US, the London practice has a team of five designers, three of whom run their own projects, which include a Chelsea townhouse, a vast family home in India, a Henley converted boathouse and a Miami beach pad. Its lifestyle brand Trove sells furniture such as the ‘Avalon 3 Drawer’ chest, £1,900 ( above).

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Joanna Plant

joannaplantinteriors.com

Joanna heads up a small design team, who take on projects that range from London flats to big country houses. If there is a thread that runs through the studio’s work, it might be a certain sense of serenity. Whether in its pared-back interiors or in ones filled with a layered mix of fabrics and antiques, the sense of balance always seems just right.

Rabih Hage

rabih-hage.com

From his Chelsea studio, Beirut-born Rabih Hage and his team of nine offer a full architecture and interior design service, creating slick, sophisticated spaces that strike a careful balance between form and function, contemporary and traditional. Rabih’s architectural training is evident in all he creates, as is his deepunderstandingofproportion,which brings out the best in his projects.

Rachel Chudley

rachelchudley.com

Bold and bright describes the style of this designer, who three years ago was House & Garden’s Rising Star. Rachel’s studio has since grown, taking on a portfolio of projects from mews houses in London to Manhattan apartments. Her imaginative eye for colour has led her to create her own bespoke paints through her Colour Studio, with architectural colour consultant Donald Kaufman.

Adam Bray

adambray.info

An inherent understanding of space is at the heart of Adam Bray’s projects, which range from London mansion flats to period country houses, all treated with the same respect for the architecture and how best to highlight it. A love of antiques is evident in Adam’s distinctive work and that of his two designers, with colour and pattern a common theme.

Carlos Garcia Interiors

carlosgarciainteriors.com

This small practice, based in London and Norfolk, has a knack for colour and the elusive lived-in feel of quintessentially English interiors. Offering both decorating and architectural services, it has current projects that range from the restoration of a Georgian country house and a Scottish estate, which has been in the same family for 28 generations, to the remodelling of a two-storey flat in Cadogan Place, SW1

Having moved to the UK from Madrid, Carlos Garcia creates interiors with a layered, distinctly English look

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Thurstan Design

thurstandesign.com

The antithesis of country-house chintz, the spaces created by James Waterworth of Thurstan are calm, neutral and pared back. Expertly combining antiques (which he also deals in) with contemporary pieces, James’s rooms are inviting and serene.

Current projects span the globe from the Turks and Caicos Islands to Budapest, Puglia and beyond.

Edward Bulmer

edwardbulmerinteriordesign.co.uk

Edward Bulmer is not content with simply creating lovely houses, but is also on a mission to clean up the interiors industry and lessen the ecological impact that renovations can cause. This, of course, makes sense for the man behind a very successful natural paint range. The covetable colours crop up in both his town and country projects, which he takes on personally with just one design assistant. With a background as an architectural historian, it is no surprise that Edward’s speciality is historic houses.

Ben Pentreath

benpentreath.com

Bold colour and pattern is the calling card of Ben Pentreath. The polymath designer is a talented writer and creator of attractive homeware, as well as an interior designer. He is known for rooms decorated with the colours of the English countryside, which often include designs by William Morris – a lifelong source of inspiration. Since 2008, his partnership with Bridie Hall, Pentreath & Hall, has enriched a wide-ranging portfolio of interior design work. This spans grand country houses, Victorian city terraces and His Majesty, King Charles III’s model town in Dorset, Poundbury.

Alidad alidad.com

Comfortable spaces clad in sumptuous fabrics and finishes characterise Alidad’s immediately recognisable work, as this acclaimed tastemaker is continuously in demand 40 years after he founded his design studio. Even his newest schemes are imbued with an immediate sense of history. Alidad designs for the long term and while he is still broadly – and rightly – best known for his grander work, his innovative launch of sub-label Studio A has made his aesthetic more accessible to those on tighter timelines and budgets than his traditional clients.

James Waterworth, the founder of Thurstan Design, pictured in the hallway of his Wiltshire farmhouse

‘Invisible Green’ paint, £51 for 2.5 litres, from Edward Bulmer Natural Paint

MORRELL

Designers Guild fabric, wallpaper, furniture, paint & accessories are available from our flagship stores and selected specialists nationwide including

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Su Chase Interiors

Amersham 01494 721626 suchases.com

CAMBRIDGESHIRE

TM Interiors Peterborough 01733 230499 tm-interiors.co.uk

CUMBRIA Inkwood Interiors Kendal 01539 728887 inkwoodinteriors.co.uk

DEVON

Drapes 2 Exeter 01392 215578 curtainsandblind.co.uk

DORSET

Country Seats Bridport 01308 427968 countryseats.co.uk

ESSEX

House of Garrod Ltd Chelmsford 07817 038786 houseofgarrod.co.uk

GUERNSEY

Clermont Interiors Ltd St Peters Port 07781 736788 clermontwest.com

HERTFORDSHIRE

So Soft Designs Kings Langley 01923 269326 sosoftdesigns.com

ISLE OF WIGHT Anne Ginger Lake (Sandown) 01983 407730 anneginger.co.uk

KENT Fabrics In Canterbury Canterbury 01227 457555 fabricsincanterburyltd.com

LEICESTERSHIRE

Barkers Interiors Woodhouse Eaves 01509 890473 barkersinteriors.co.uk Harlequin Leicester 01162 620994 harlequininteriors.co.uk

LONDON Designers Guild Stores King’s Road 0207 351 5775 kingsroad@designersguild.com Marylebone High Street 020 3301 5826 marylebone@designersguild.com

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

Texture Interiors Towcester 01327 368927 Heart of the Shires shopping village 01327 342426 textureinteriors.co.uk

SOUTH YORKSHIRE Homeworks (Doncaster) Ltd Tickhill 01302 743978

STAFFORDSHIRE

Smart Interiors Newcastle under Lyme 07974 313453 smartinteriorsuk.com

SUFFOLK

Amor Interiors Sudbury 01787 880908 amorinteriors.co.uk Cotton Tree Interiors Saxmundham 01728 604700 thecottontree.co.uk Edwards Design Group East Bergholt 01206 299760 edwardsdesigngroup.co.uk

SURREY

Babayan Pearce Oxshott 01372 842437 babayanpearce.co.uk

WEST YORKSHIRE

Haley Bevan Interiors Bingley 01274 567597 haleybevan.co.uk

WORCESTERSHIRE

Julie Rankin Interiors Upton Upon Severn 01684 438320 julierankininteriors.co.uk designersguild.com

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Tapestry Flower

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TOP100

Rose Uniacke

roseuniacke.com

This often imitated practice is known worldwide for its pared-back, contemporary interiors that are texture-rich and peppered with well-chosen antiques – nothing in her projects ever feels superfluous. ‘Whether it’s a house, a room or a shop, it should make you feel good,’ Rose Uniacke says. ‘My role is to ensure there’s harmony and an ease of living that make you want to spend time there.’

Kate Guinness

kateguinness.co.uk

A childhood spent exploring the historic houses of Ireland, combined with a background in theatre-set design, has imbued Kate Guinness with a feel for interiors steeped in character and individuality. Juxtapositions of old and new characterise the projects undertaken by Kate and her team of three. These include the refurbishment of a five-storey house in South Kensington, a listed house on the Thames and a newbuild in Oxfordshire, which has been skifully designed to echo the architecture and atmosphere of the old cricket pavilion it replaced.

Rose Uniacke, in the study of her Pimlico home, where yellow silk curtains frame inviting views of the garden

EVANS

TOP100

Nina Campbell ninacampbell.com

A grande dame of the international design scene, Nina Campbell has seen her instantly recognisable work sprinkled throughout the pages of House & Garden, ever since she established her practice in 1971. Today, her layered yet refined aesthetic – not shy of colour and pattern – is celebrated worldwide. Alongside her interior design practice, which has completed countless projects in countries across the globe, Nina has her own covetable ranges of homeware, fabrics and wallpapers.

Brandon Schubert

brandonschubert.com

Last year, this Texan lawyer-turnedinterior designer won House & Garden’s Rising Star award. His four-person team has been applying its distinctive and refined use of colour and pattern, and modern and antique pieces, to various projects, including a London terrace house featured this year in the February issue. On the books are a north London family home and a Sussex farmhouse.

Gavin Houghton

gavinhoughton.co.uk

Working from a red shed in his south London garden, Gavin Houghton has been conjuring up colourful, patternon-pattern rooms for 15 years. Mostly a one-man band, he is an artist at heart who, alongside his design work, creates cheeky decorative ceramics and hosts sketching holidays at his Tangier house. His imaginative style combines everything from his signature striped ceilings to painted woodwork with lively florals.

Douglas Mackie

douglasmackie.com

His University of Cambridge training as an architect informs Douglas Mackie’s sensitive, refined and always elegant interiors. Working with his small team of four, Douglas applies his wealth of experience to a range of commissions from London to the Middle East. Most recently, he has completed two large and prestigious projects in Glebe Place, SW3, and taken on a newbuild in Dorset alongside the architect Francis Terry.

Katharine Pooley

katharinepooley.com

Charming, hugely successful and a force to be reckoned with, Katharine Pooley and her almost 50-strong team, which includes 18 senior designers, have completed nearly 20 large-scale projects this year in London, the Lake District, the South of France, Kuwait and beyond. It is a studio for high rollers and clients who wish to experience the full top-totail service. Katharine is also an active supporter of various charities.

Nina Campbell in the sitting room of her Chelsea home with her dogs Archie and Theo. The glass tumblers are from her own range

SIMON

Robert Kime

‘I

can’t explain,’ said Robert Kime when asked how he had put together his exquisite London flat so quickly. It took just one week – but also a lifetime of looking and collecting. Robert, interior decorator to His Majesty, King Charles III and at least five English dukes, plus pop stars and potentates, died on August 17, aged 76. He never made a room plan and was very clear he was not an interior designer. Robert believed in putting beautiful, old and curious things together, assembling the contents of a room to make it settled and comfortable: ‘I want my rooms to be lived in, not looked at.’

From childhood, Robert was fascinated by history. He collected coins from the age of five and, later, was happiest when rearranging the furniture in a shed in his mother’s garden.

By the age of 16, he had won a place at the University of Oxford to read medieval history, but, too young to go up, spent 18 months working on archaeological digs in Greece and Israel.

During his first term at Oxford, his mother arrived to say he had to leave, as his stepfather had walked out and there was no money left. His tutor would not hear of it and gave Robert the rest of the year to sort things out. He always said that selling the furniture his grandmother and his mother, an avid collector, had amassed was how he learnt his trade. He researched each piece and he learnt where to sell it to get the best price. ‘I had to – we needed the money,’ he explained.

By the time he returned to Oxford, he was an experienced dealer, taking the bus every Thursday to the antique and junk shops in the Cotswolds. In typically self-deprecating fashion, he admitted to making quite a few mistakes in those early days, but he learned to be decisive. His friend Alastair Langlands, who wrote the 2015 monograph Robert Kime (France Lincoln), was astonished when he saw the habitually gentle, soft-voiced Robert in operation at antique fairs: ‘He was extraordinary, always first at the gate as it opened, deciding instantly what he wanted, concluding deals at lightning speed.’

After Oxford, a chance meeting at a student house party at Ashton Wold, the Northamptonshire home of the scientist

Miriam Rothschild, led to his first shop. She had a mass of furniture she wanted to clear, but had fallen out with the two great auction houses. Robert persuaded her to let him sell it for her, and she set him up in a shop in Oundle.

The party also brought him his wife, Helen Nicoll. They married when he was 23 and moved to a gothic schoolhouse at Mildenhall, near Marlborough, using two wings of the cruciform building as his shop. Wiltshire remained the centre of their family and work lives, though in the course of a long and happy marriage, they also had homes in Cumbria, the Luberon, Ireland and Faiyum, in Egypt. Helen, the author of the acclaimed Meg and Mog series of children’s books, died in 2012.

Robert was frequently asked by his customers to decorate their houses. At first, he would give only Fridays over to decoration, but the clamour became insistent. In time, he built up a prestigious worldwide clientele, about whom he remained discreet. His mantra ‘Every room begins with the rug’ meant he travelled constantly to Turkey and Egypt in search of antique rugs and textiles. Once, on a Turkish bus, he bought the headscarf of the lady in front of him – a kandili print with a pattern of pea pods. When, in 1983, he realised that the supply of antique fabrics he had been using for curtains and upholstery was drying up, he turned to fabric expert Gisella Milne-Watson. Together they began to create a range of fabrics – including one inspired by the pea pods. A collection she had discussed with Robert before he died is under way.

Swangrove, a hunting lodge on the Duke of Beaufort’s estate was described by Robert as ‘the happiest and jolliest job I have ever done’. It is certainly among his most beautiful. But Clarence House, the official residence of King Charles III when Prince of Wales, was the most prestigious. It afforded Robert the bliss of rooting through the royal attics at Windsor on behalf of a client who shared many of his tastes, including a love of Near Eastern fabrics. As King Charles wrote of Robert, ‘You often hear of people who are said to have “a good eye”, but Robert Kime’s must surely be one of the best’ m Elfreda Pownall

‘You often hear of people who are said to have “a good eye”, but Robert’s must surely be one of the best’

OPPOSITE Liquid floor-standing vanity unit with fluted glass doors, ceramic counter and inset washbasin, with a gloss black wall-mounted basin mixer, illuminated mirror and gloss black shower column. THIS PAGE

RIGHT Liquid wall tiles feature four styles of embossed dots and waves, including this half line decor in grey.

BELOW RIGHT Liquid butler sinks with chrome basin mixers, soap dispenser and two-tone mirrors

GO WITH THE FLOW

Tom Dixon’s first bathroom collection for VitrA, the future-inspired Liquid range, is designed to transcend trends

When Tom Dixon does something new, the design world inevitably sits up and takes notice, and his new bathroom collection with VitrA is no exception. The exciting collaboration between Dixon and VitrA is a perfect pairing, bringing the acclaimed designer’s bold, glamorous sensibility to a brand already well known for its sleek, stylish forwardthinking approach to bathroom products.

Fun yet functional, the new Liquid range is characterised by chunky, rounded shapes that take inspiration from the Pop Art movement and instantly make an eye-catching statement. This is no sensational, trend-driven collection, though: each piece is carefully considered, influenced by aspects of classic design, and the result is timelessly stylish.

All elements of the bathroom are included – showers, loos, basins, taps, tiles and accessories. Distinctive textures and finishes such as fluted glass doors on the vanity unit cabinets and a black gloss option for the fixtures give the collection a luxurious, design-driven feel. The tiles, in a palette of muted colours, feature embossed dots and waves that can be combined to form striking patterns. Whether you choose to focus on just one piece or opt for the entire range, this collection’s impeccable design credentials will stand the test of time. For more information, visit vitra.co.uk/explore/liquid

HOUSE & GARDEN AWARDS 2022

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT DAVID MLINARIC Sponsored by Lapicida

David Mlinaric refuses to spill the beans on his clientele, but when The New York Times profiled him in 2008, it suggested rock stars and Rothschilds were among them. He studied at The Bartlett School of Architecture and worked for Michael Inchbald and, briefly, for architect Dennis Lennon, before setting up on his own in 1961. Based in Chelsea, he was at the epicentre of Swinging London and it is said he was thrown out of both the Cavalry Club and Annabel’s nightclub for dressing inappropriately. That is hard to square with a career during which he has decorated some of the most exquisite interiors in the land, including Spencer House. ‘I learnt early in my career that one job well done always leads to two more,’ he says. Many a designer has spent their formative years learning at his feet, among them Hugh Henry, Tino Zervudachi and Hugh Leslie. David is 83 and continues to work for a few clients with whom he has a long-standing relationship. One gets the sense they will not let him retire. e

INTERIOR DESIGNER OF THE YEAR MADDUX CREATIVE

Sponsored by Farrow &Ball

There is an undeniable glow surrounding Maddux Creative’s founders, Scott Maddux and Jo leGleud, at the moment. This dynamic duo met clubbing some 20 years ago and last year celebrated the 10th anniversary of Maddux Creative. Scott arrived from the US in 1994 and worked for the likes of David Champion, Hubert Zandberg and Ann Boyd; Jo’s background is in embroidery for the fashion industry. House & Garden has published two of their projects this year. Their ‘playful, elegant and brave’ designs for a Primrose Hill family house landed them on the cover of the June issue. It was the second time that this client had chosen to work with Maddux Creative – always a good sign. And, in this issue, we take a look at a completely different project: a rigorously researched renovation of a gothic revival house. ‘They are lovely, warm people and a lot of fun to work with,’ says the owner. ‘They have amazing ideas and pushed us to consider things I thought that I was completely shut off to.’ madduxcreative.com e

OAK CHAIR, BY BENNI ALLAN, FROM BÉTON BRUT

GARDEN DESIGNER OF THE YEAR URQUHART & HUNT

Sponsored by Cole & Son

Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt are still reeling from the Gold Medal win for their rewilded garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year, which was also awarded Best in Show. ‘We wanted to convey the sense of hope that’s possible when we all stop and look at nature,’ says Lulu. ‘We went in as deep as we could to show how quickly the ecosystems of a landscape can be restored if you go about it in the right way.’ Based in Somerset, Lulu and Adam take a sustainable approach. Having joined forces in 2006, they have a shared passion for nature that has defined their work from the start. ‘Our style is naturalistic, romantic and free. Creating beauty through careful design is essential to the ecological restoration that is so needed.’ Adam, who has a master’s degree in ecology from Birkbeck University, is interested in spatial design and sacred geometry, while Lulu brings horticultural experience and an interest in medicinal herbs to the partnership. With a leaning towards large rural projects, their team offers everything from landscape strategy to the finer details of planting and design. In 2012, they worked with Piet Oudolf in the planting and execution of the Hauser & Wirth garden in Somerset, and other public projects include the new Roman Garden at The Newt in Somerset and the Italian Giardini Pistola, in Puglia. urquharthunt.com e

PINE CHAIR AND PAIR OF MEDIUM WOODEN PLINTHS, FROM MAH GALLERY

Lasting beauty and peace of mind. Caesarstone expertly craft quartz & porcelain worksurfaces for the heart of the home.

For more information on how to see and buy our worksurfaces, visit Caesarstone.co.uk.

Lifetime residential indoor warranty.

RISING STAR (GARDENS) CHARLIE HAWKES

Sponsored by WOW!house at DCCH

One of the most exciting young horticulturists to have emerged in recent years, Charlie Hawkes has thrown himself into the world of garden design since completing a master’s degree in landscape architecture at Edinburgh University, and gardening at Great Dixter and Gravetye Manor to gain experience. He worked with Tom Stuart-Smith for three years before setting up his own business in 2021. He also spent seven very formative months gardening at Dan Pearson’s Tokachi Millennium Forest in Japan, an experience that influenced his own approach to planting and design. Current projects include a Quaker farmstead with 77 acres of forest in Upstate New York, where he is gently revealing views and increasing biodiversity.

‘The balance between opening up spaces and not losing the essence of the place is key,’ he says. ‘You have to not impose unnecessarily.’ He won a Gold Medal and a Best All About Plants Garden award for his Chelsea debut this year: an intriguing, plant-filled space for the Wilderness Foundation. ‘It was more of an installation than a garden,’ he says. ‘I wanted to give people an immersive, exciting experience and the planting was inspired by real plant communities in Japanese forests.’ charliehawkes.co.uk e

THE LIST AWARD FOR DESIGN EXCELLENCE LAURA STEPHENS

Sponsored by Poliform

Dulwich-based interior designer Laura Stephens knows how to create beautiful and practical interiors by invigorating spaces with her elegant and charmingly pretty style. Laura, who became a member of House & Garden’s The List last year, started her career as a geography teacher but, after the birth of her first daughter, retrained as an interior designer at Chelsea College of Arts. She started off slowly, running a small business sourcing and restoring furniture, and today she takes on only a handful of full-scale interior design projects at a time. While Laura’s designs are always true to her clients’ tastes, people invariably come to her for her fresh sense of colour and pattern. She says that taking on her first full-time employee has been a game-changer, allowing her to get stuck into what she really loves – creating beautiful rooms that sing with positivity. laurastephens.co.uk

‘RE-IMAGINED’ CHAIR AND ’BLOOMBERG’ CHAIR, BOTH BY STUDIO MAMA, FROM MAH GALLERY

RISING STAR (INTERIORS) AMECHI MANDI

Sponsored by Zoffany

Born and raised in Cameroon, Amechi Mandi moved to Berlin at 17 to study social sciences at university. He built a career in fashion there – styling shoots, working on trade fairs – then moved to England in 2014 to study product and furniture design at London Metropolitan University. After a stint working for lighting company Pooky, Amechi began developing his own collection, based on textiles he had grown up with. ‘I knew I wanted to bring my cultural heritage into my designs,’ says the designer, whose work came to our attention when it featured as part of the Heal’s Discovers programme in 2021. It is Amechi’s rich heritage that so heavily informs his fabrics today, which evoke the geometric motifs and bright colours typical of northern Cameroon and northern Nigeria. His patterns are digitally printed onto cushions made of velvet, linen and silk, and the appeal of both the designs themselves and the energy that goes into them has not gone unnoticed. As well as producing his own collection, Amechi has collaborated with Dado Atelier on a series of fun and bright digitally printed wallpapers. amechihome.com e

PJ-SI-25-A’ CHAIR, FROM BÉTON BRUT

PROJECT OF THE YEAR POSTON HOUSE BY FRANCIS SULTANA

Sponsored byV-Zug

In Herefordshire, this mid-18th-century, Sir William Chambers-designed ‘casino’ (from the Italian for small house) is an architectural gem. This is thanks in no small part to Poston’s previous owners, who collaborated with the late architect Philip Jebb to remove Victorian elements and reinstate neoclassical accents. The current owners worked with the interior designer Francis Sultana, who brought to the project what was described as his ‘hybridised aesthetic that blends historically accurate decorating and unabashedly modern design’ when Poston was in the December 2021 issue. The level of detail is extraordinary – from the customcoloured bedroom carpet that works beautifully with de Gournay’s silk ‘Oriental Landscape’ wallcovering, to the numerous pieces of furniture commissioned from the artist Mattia Bonetti. There is specialist decorative paintwork throughout. For example, the woodwork in the rotunda dining room (right) has a mellowed-out patina that stops it from feeling too box-fresh. Anyone familiar with Francis’s work knows that he is at his best with clients willing to go on a journey with him to explore the heights of creativity. And that was certainly the case at Poston. francissultana.com e

THE PINEAPPLE AWARD FOR HOTEL DESIGN NATALIA MIYAR Sponsored by Vispring

‘Travel informs much of my life,’ says interior architect and designer Natalia Miyar, who was born in Mexico, has Cuban-American roots and runs her design atelier out of London and Miami. It seems fitting that, after working predominantly on residential projects from New York to Ibiza, she should have turned her hand to the hospitality sector. Natalia’s work at The Twenty Two – London’s smartest new opening this year on a corner of Grosvenor Square, W1 – showcases her talent for combining glamour and comfort. ‘Interiors should be easy, tactile and highly personal,’ she says, adding that she likes to balance practicality and beauty. At The Twenty Two, Natalia has worked closely with owner Navid Mirtorabi to create interiors that capture the vibrancy of her personal design mantra, while paying homage to the elegance and history of the Edwardian building. We love the jewel-box colours deployed in the schemes and the fact that her interiors are crazy and fun without ostentation. There is a buzz, an energy and a wit to this hotel, which delivers a new youthful dynamism to the heart of Mayfair. nataliamiyar.com

PAUL

& GARDEN AWARDS

SPECIAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE DESIGN INDUSTRY TURNER POCOCK

Sponsored by Julian Chichester

They are at the helm of a 12-strong interior design team with 18 projects currently on its books, so it is hard to imagine Bunny Turner (left) and Emma Pocock have much spare time. And yet the pair have managed to launch TP Caring Spaces, providing interior design services to charities. So far, they have created a sitting room and bedroom for staff nurses at Mencap Dunstable and a staff break room at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals, SE1. The idea for the charity came about in 2019; in 2021, it received charitable status. ‘We work in an affluent industry and wanted to find a way to give back,’ says Bunny. ‘We’re aware of how a welldesigned space can improve people’s lives.’ Their focus is currently mainly on London and they are working on an end-of-life room at Great Ormond Street Hospital, WC1. ‘So far, we have put about £100,000 into the charity, but we’ve also been lucky to have generous contractors and suppliers who’ve helped,’ says Emma. To boost the coffers, they recently introduced an optional surcharge for Turner Pocock’s clients and will be running a charity raffle throughout December via Instagram, with a prize for each day of Advent. ‘We’re just getting started,’ says Bunny. turnerpocock.co.uk m

RESPONSIBLE DESIGN AWARD EDWARD BULMER

Sponsored by Vinterior

Ever since Edward Bulmer was featured in House & Garden’s inaugural Green By Design supplement in 2008, we have been impressed by his commitment to creating sustainable interiors. The eco-friendly and plastic-free natural paint collection he launched in 2015 is a key part of his mission, but so, too, is his work at historic houses such as Goodwood and Pitshill House. ‘Renovation and sustainability are two sides of the same coin,’ says the designer, whose environmental awakening occurred in the Nineties when he started reading The Ecologist. At the time, he had just started a career centred around historic buildings, working first for David Mlinaric, followed by the National Trust and then picture restorer Alec Cobbe. ‘It makes sense to choose natural, breathable and healthier materials,’ he says. In practice, this goes from small elements, such as choosing wool for curtains or solid wooden frames for furniture, to encouraging clients to convert to biomass or geothermal heating systems: ‘It’s about being conscious and thinking about choices you make when it comes to interiors.’ edwardbulmerinteriordesign.co.uk

‘ESKO’ STOOL, AND ‘CLAM’ CHAIR, BY ARNOLD MADSEN; BOTH FROM DAGMAR DESIGN. ‘ROMAN COLUMN’ PLINTH, FROM MAH GALLERY

SuperOven.

The professional oven of the world’s greatest chefs now redesigned for the most exclusive homes.

STYLE CHALLENGE

Over the past two years, House & Garden set the talented team at Janine Stone & Co the task of devising distinctive decorating schemes for a variety of different rooms and locations

As part of an ongoing series, the design studio at Janine Stone has been responding to House & Garden’s creative briefs for a range of rooms in imagined houses, ranging from renovated Georgian country properties to contemporary newbuilds in the city. Looking back over the schemes the team has created, the whole adds up to a masterclass in timeless sophistication, but just how do they do it?

As an architectural and interior design studio with a construction management department, the team can take on almost any kind of project and see it through to the finest of details. This gives them a particular sensitivity to the proportions and lines of the buildings they work on. Historical elements are carefully preserved, but the space is always tailored for modern life.

Once the framework of the building has been perfected, the more decorative aspects of Janine’s work come into play. One of the hallmarks of the studio’s style we most admire is their restrained, elegant colour palette. Soft, calming tones of porcelain and truffle recur throughout their projects, combined with luxurious materials and interesting textures.

The final layer is a masterful blend of furniture, artworks and objects, including striking contemporary pieces and 20th-century design classics as well as fine antiques. Any commission the studio works on is bound to include bespoke items, often created using unusual materials. It is a thoughtful, painstaking process but, as is evident in the stylish rooms pictured on these pages, it is well worth the effort. For more information, call 020 7349 8888 or visit janinestone.com

OPPOSITE CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT An eye-catching dining room in a Regency house in London. The stylish orangery of an Oxfordshire country house. An inviting drawing room in a period townhouse. ABOVE Company founders Gideon and Janine Stone. A newly built pool house at a Victorian country property

Notebook

RÉMY MISHON shows us what has caught her eye this month

‘Berry Rain’ wool and cotton rug, by Evelina Kroon, 180 x 270cm, £1,095, from Layered

shopping

‘Skirt’ iron pendant lamp (pureed pumpkin), £445, from Broste Copenhagen

Handmade glazed terracotta tiles with sgraffito slipware, 14cm square, £20 each, from Alex Robinson

‘Colette’ cotton, linen, aluminium and iron lamp (white & merlot), £305 including shade, from &Tradition

‘Sophora’ (blanc, noir de lune), cotton with acrylic and viscose embroidery, £150.50 a metre, from Casamance

‘Pugin’ oak table, 76 x 300 x 120cm, £9,000, from Augustus Brandt e

shopping

‘Italian Promenade’ wallpaper, from £432 a 225 x 90cm panel, from Iksel Decorative Arts

‘Olivine’ oak bed, £5,500 excluding fabric, from Pinch; upholstered in ‘Heavy Weight Linen’ (smoke), £204 a metre, from Rose Uniacke. For suppliers’ details, see Stockists page m

Cushions (from top): linen ‘Tickseed’ (rust orange), 25 x 50cm, £280; hemp silk and linen ‘Nasturtium’ (off-white), 35 x 50cm, £390; both by Rosemary Milner, from The New Craftsmen

‘Folly Tasselled’ wicker stool, by Sarah Bartholomew, $798, from Mainly Baskets Home

Terracotta pottery (clockwise from left): vase with handles, $750; ‘Ferrin Pedestal’ bowl, $2,350; and ‘Pedestal’ plate, $600; all by Francis Palmer, from March

‘Serengeti’ (paon), cotton, by Le Manach, £312 a metre, from Pierre Frey

‘Marble-effect’ earthenware platter (brown), by Henry Holland Studio, £75, from Matches

‘Huîtres’ earthenware platter (green), £60, from Harlie Brown Studio

wise buys

SERVING PLATES

BRADLEY PALMER dishes up stylish platters for £80 and under

For suppliers’ details, see Stockists page

‘Budgie’ earthenware platter, £60 for medium oval, from Marigold and Lettice

‘Fiore’ glazed terracotta serving dish (pink & green), £58, from Host

‘Cabbage’ ceramic serving platter, by Bordallo Pinheiro, £40 for large, from Fiona Finds

‘Yellow Circus’ ceramic serving plate, £52, from Late Afternoon

‘Splatter’ clay serving platter (pistachio), £80, from Hot Pottery

‘Menagerie Ottomane’ ceramic serving plate, €95, from Les-Ottomans m

HANGING AROUND

RÉMY MISHON puts the latest wallpapers in the frame

‘Floral Trail’ (original), 69cm, £190, from Salvesen Graham. Carved and gilded 18th-century French frame, £650, from William Campbell Fine Frames and Framing.

‘Cranes’ (teal), 52cm, £80, from Warner House. Carved and gilded Italian Bolognese frame, £1,200, from William Campbell.

‘Palmyra’ (blue), 68cm, £220 a metre, from Paolo Moschino. Carved and gilded British Arts & Crafts frame, £1,800 a pair, from William Campbell. 4 ‘Trumpet Flowers’ (red/green), 70cm, £145, from GP & J Baker. British Arts & Crafts frame, as before. 5 ‘Maluku’ grasscloth (grass), 86cm, by McLaurin & Piercy, £804 a 7.3-metre roll, from George Spencer Designs. ‘Lely’ 17th-century carved and gilded British frame, £1,600, from William Campbell.

‘Plumier’ (4496-05), 52cm, by Nina Campbell, £85, from Osborne & Little. Carved and gilded French frame, as before.

‘Jerash’ (pewter), 51cm, £183, from Robert Kime. 19th-century gilded frame, £110, from William Campbell. Wallpaper border, ‘Heirloom – Coffee Set’ (midnight blue), 11cm, £50 a 5-metre roll, from Deborah Bowness. Background, ‘Linara’ (sorbet), linen, £44, from Romo e

BRIGHT

RUTH SLEIGHTHOLME shows how to use art as the launching point for decoration, riffing off the colours and patterns of Jason Thompson’s work to create inspiring schemes

OPENER BACKGROUND ‘Mambo’ (gold), viscose mix, by Margo Selby, £75 a metre, from Osborne & Little; and ‘Marble’ linoleum (from top: leaf, spa), by Forbo, £56.54 a square metre, from Sinclair Till. Paintings (from top), Through a Tiny Bead of Glass, £3,800; and Everything is Listening, £5,200; both enamel paint and varnish on wood, by Jason Thompson, from Wilson Stephens & Jones. THIS PAGE WALLS ‘Sun Stone’, by Damo Paints, £52.50 for 2.5 litres matt emulsion, from Sigmar. Paintings (from left), Infamante, acrylic and wax on wood, £1,600; and Circles Semicircles, enamel paint and varnish on wood, £2,400; both by Jason Thompson, from Wilson Stephens & Jones. Blind in ‘Field Flowers’, Tana Lawn cotton, £29.95 a metre, from Liberty; jute garden twine, £4.25 a spool, from Nutscene. FLOOR ‘Marble’ linoleum (hunter green, barbados, henna, leaf, honeysuckle, spa, african desert), by Forbo, £56.54 a square metre, from Sinclair Till. FURNITURE ‘Floating’ linen and oak screen (sky blue), £3,000, from Maison Lily Blue. 19th-century, folk art, oak shelf, £2,200, from Puckhaber. ‘91 Aalto Round’ birch and laminate table, by Alvar Aalto for Artek, £1,636, from Aram Store. ‘Rey’ beech and plywood chairs (deep blue, scarlet red, grape red, fall green, soft mint) by Bruno Rey for Hay, £499 each, from Twentytwentyone. ACCESSORIES ‘Small Cone’ enamel shades, £30 each, from Dyke & Dean; with shades covered in ‘Plain Stripe Voile’ (from left: sea blue, sage), linen, £140 a metre, from Flora Soames. ‘Caroline’ brass and fabric pendant light, by Hans-Agne Jakobsson, £2,200, from Tat London. ‘Brown Betty’ vintage ceramic teapots, from £16; vintage wooden bread boards, from £38 each; all from RE. ‘Sunflower’ stoneware side plates (green, beige), by Bernadette, £70 a pair, from Matches Fashion. ‘Riviera’ stoneware side plate, by Le Creuset, £53 for set of 4, from Selfridges. 19th-century Spanish wooden shepherd’s bowls, from £120 each, from Puckhaber. ‘Golden Karkade Nougat’ Murano glass vase, by Stories of Italy, £280, from Greeks Bearing Gifts. ‘Tortoiseshell’ stainless-steel and resin cutlery (cream), £175 for a 6-piece set; and ‘Blues’ stainless-steel and acrylic cutlery, £130 for a 12-piece set; all from Matilda Goad & Co. Nasturtium foliage and flowers, £90 for a ‘Grower’s Edit’ bucket (around 70 stems), from Wolves Lane Flower Company e

style

OPPOSITE WALLS ‘Mambo’ (gold), as before, from Osborne & Little. Hall in ‘Nancy’s Blushes’, £52 for 2.5 litres estate emulsion, from Farrow & Ball. Paintings (from left), The Comet, £7,300; Anther, £3,800; both enamel paint and varnish on wood, by Jason Thompson, from Wilson Stephens & Jones. ‘Pakurigo Wave Tiny’ straw baskets, by Baba Tree, £75 each, from Couverture & The Garbstore. FLOOR ‘Marble’ linoleum, as before, from Sinclair Till. ‘Vora Form’ wool and bamboo rug (sepia), from £3,400, from A Rum Fellow. FURNITURE ‘Bibendum’ leather and polyurethane sofa, by Lucy Kurrein for Molinari, from £3,495; ‘Mag’ ceramic coffee table (fiery red/fuchsia purple), by Daniel Schofield for Collagerie, £655; both from The Conran Shop. ‘Twig 300’ hazel side table, £1,100, from Pinch. ‘Big Shaggy’ lambswool and mohair pouffe, £3,155, from Colville. ‘Sculptural Tree Trunk’, £480, from Puckhaber. ACCESSORIES Books, £9.99 each, from National Portrait Gallery Shop. ‘Carla’ cotton velvet cushions (aubergine and mustard, mint and dark blue), by Christina Lundsteen, £155 each, from Couverture & The Garbstore.‘Totem’ paper pulp lamp (brick), £4,200 as seen, from Palefire. ‘Rainbow’ Murano glass tumblers, by Stories of Italy, £450 for set of 6, from Greeks Bearing Gifts. Vintage French Pernod carafe, £28; vintage bread board, £38; both from RE. Foliage and flowers, as before, from Wolves Lane Flower Company. THIS PAGE WALLS ‘Sun Stone’, as before, from Sigmar. ‘Reggie’ wallpaper borders (from top: yellow, red/black, green), £68 a 10-metre roll, from Susie Atkinson. ‘Rotor’ paper pulp wall lights (brick), £320 each, from Palefire. FLOOR ‘Marble’ linoleum, as before, from Sinclair Till. FURNITURE ‘Post Office’ oak and ash shelving, £12,450, from Pinch. French metal chair, £354, from Retrouvius. ACCESSORIES Vintage ceramic vases, sourced by All’Origine, from £106 each, from Couverture & The Garbstore. Ceramic plates (from top): ‘Les Marais’, ‘Let’s Face It’ and ‘Cheeky’, by Gavin Houghton, £295 each, from 8 Holland Street. ‘Half Log Cabin Patchwork’ linen cushion cover (dulse/linen grey), £65, from Toast e

style

TOP LEFT Wall in ‘Nancy’s Blushes’, £52 for 2.5 litres estate emulsion, from Farrow & Ball. Floor in ‘Marble’ linoleum (from left: henna, leaf, barbados), by Forbo, £56.54 a square metre, from Sinclair Till. Paintings (from left), Anther and Apparatus, both enamel paint and varnish on wood, by Jason Thompson, £3,800 each, from Wilson Stephens & Jones. ‘Sculptural Tree Trunk’, £480, from Puckhaber. Nasturtium foliage and flowers, £90 for a ‘Grower’s Edit’ bucket (around 70 stems), from Wolves Lane Flower Company.

BOTTOM LEFT Background in ‘Marble’ linoleum, as before, from Sinclair Till. ‘Multicolor’ lacquered marquetry boxes, by Biagio Barile, from £110 each, from Greeks Bearing Gifts. ‘Rainbow’ lacquered boxes, from £110 each, from Matilda Goad & Co. Saucer, stylist’s own.

BOTTOM RIGHT Wall in ‘Nancy’s Blushes’, as before, from Farrow & Ball. Floor in ‘Marble’ linoleum, as before, from Sinclair Till. Painting, Carillon, enamel paint and varnish on wood, by Jason Thompson, £5,800, from Wilson Stephens & Jones. Vintage ceramic charger, by Sant Vicens, £690, from Quindry. Papiermâché chair, by Alexis Lahellec, £2,450 including matching side table, from Quindry. Ceramic ‘Tiny Table No 3’ (transparent glaze), by Floris Wubben, £3,190, from SCP. Wooden 19th-century Spanish shepherd’s bowls, £120 each, from Puckhaber. For suppliers’ details, see Stockists page m

on decorating

Interior designer

EDWARD BULMER on HANGING PICTURES

Just as manners maketh man, I believe that hanging maketh rooms. But this can be difficult to get right, particularly when attempting a mass hang. Make use of the architecture of the room. For instance, the wall face between architectural mouldings will most likely be square, portrait or landscape in shape. As a rule, your pictures should mirror this. If you hang a portrait-shaped picture in the centre of a landscape-shaped wall, you have a conflict. This can be resolved by hanging more pictures (perhaps in tiers) on either side of it. The shape of the grouping can then become landscape, too. I like to hang larger works over smaller ones – these are generally more detailed and need to be nearer to eye level.

The wall that remains visible after pictures are hung acts as negative space. Mastering it relies on the right choices, so one sees more picture than wall. Get it right and the room will feel in balance. Don’t put pictures of unequal visual weight together, like a carved and gilt framed oil over a thin wooden framed print. And framed and unframed works tend not to sit well together.

The grouping of pictures can be done symmetrically or asymmetrically, although the latter feels more comfortable if the weight of pictures is roughly balanced either side of the centre line. If I’m hanging watercolours or prints in a group, I mark out the wall size on the floor with two tape measures and arrange the pictures before hanging. I like an undulating line to the tops of the frames, rather than lining up the tops (or the bottoms).

In groups, pictures are best hung on two fixings each to avoid you having to spend the rest of your life straightening them. Use picture rails when you have a lot of pictures and might want to move them around. Heavier pictures require brass or iron rods, or there are less traditional systems in steel and aluminium. I use Birmingham-based specialist Frank Scragg. As well as being helpful and offering good value, it has everything you could need for picture hanging – from rails to picture pins sold in sensible quantities in small cardboard boxes.

I tend to acquire pictures over time and so spare hangs soon become dense hangs. Picture rails make it easy to move pictures up and down and side to side. The ‘Powerail’ from Ray Light is great if you want to light some or all of your pictures.

When it comes to mixing different periods and styles, few people remark if a Holbein is hung with a Holman Hunt or a Lely with a De László (other than how lucky you are to be able to do so) even if they are hundreds of years apart. The point is to hang works of commensurate quality. The works of Lucian Freud, John Singer

Sargent and Thomas Gainsborough have been hung together at Chatsworth and are part of a room that feels right because attention has been given to combining furnishings of similar design status or historic resonance. Though few have the pocket to be able to emulate this, we can all learn from it. Hang your David Hockney print with a lino cut, but not a school photo.

My approach has always been to hang the most special, the most treasured and the most enjoyed pictures in the rooms you spend most time in. But what happens when that is the kitchen or a bathroom? You can use glazed frames in these areas or pictures that are more for decorative effect than connoisseurship. Similarly, hang less appreciated pictures in less-visited spaces –they can still have some decorative, or even dramatic, effect.

The subject matter of pictures has a huge bearing on the feel of the room – light/heavy, masculine/feminine, serious/witty. I have done this in recent projects, such as in the dining room at Pitshill in Sussex, which has red flock walls and male portraits. Give your finest or favourite picture the best position – over the fireplace if you have one, or on the walls with a side light. Pictures can be difficult to see if they are hung opposite windows or in rooms with strong overhead lighting.

I’m quite happy to hang pictures across panelling, on the front of a jib door, above furniture or above a door, and on staircase walls. Too often I see tapestries used on the latter, when they can bring an amazing atmosphere to sitting rooms or bedrooms.

Picture lighting has progressed enormously in the last decade with advances in LED technology. It is energy efficient, low UV, dimmable and capable of good colour rendition. Lighting can be frame mounted or in the form of directional spots – bought off the peg or supplied by specialists m edwardbulmerinteriordesign.co.uk

The List

Find your fabulous

INSIDER

ARTISTIC LEGACY

Leighton House, which sits just north of High Street Kensington, was once the London home of painter and sculptor Sir Frederic Leighton. Now a museum, it is reopening on October 15, following a painstaking restoration. A president of the Royal Academy of the Arts in the late 19th century, Leighton also used the house as a studio and gallery. The relatively unassuming Victorian façade belies the wondrous spaces within, heavily influenced by Syrian, Turkish and North African art and architecture. It is easy to forget you are in London as you stand in the bright blue-tiled Narcissus Hall (above), in the original 1865 wing. The restoration, however, has focused on returning the more modern (1880s) parts to their original form and function, and reinstating original features. Paint colours, which were uncovered under layers of modern paint, have been restored and 19th-century furniture has been sourced. Upstairs, Leighton’s Winter Studio has been brought back to life and the museum plans to introduce an artists in residence programme. Tickets cost £11. rbkc.gov.uk/museums e

DIARY DATES

The Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair

OCTOBER 4-9

Held in Battersea Park, SW11, this is a one-stop shop for antique and vintage pieces. Over 150 dealers, including Andrew Muir, who specialises in ceramics (above), will sell items from the 1700s to the Seventies. Tickets are £20 on October 4 and £10 thereafter, with free entry daily from 4pm. decorativefair.com

INTRODUCING Micaela Sharp

Based in London and soon to open an office in Malaga, Micaela (above) is making a name for herself across the design industry. She opened her upholstery studio, Micaela Sharp Design, in 2017 and, in 2020, added an interiors arm, describing her style as ‘traditional with a focus on craftsmanship, sustainability and layering’. This year, Micaela teamed up with the textile designer Charlotte Beevor to create Studio Janettie, through which the pair sell fabric and homeware in playful colours and patterns. Micaela was also part of the design team for the new Soho House location, Brixton Studio, SW9, and this month, she launches an upholstery course with Create Academy. micaelasharpdesign.com | studiojanettie.com | createacademy.com

Show stoppers

Returning to Berkeley Square, W1, after two years due to the pandemic, PAD London is one of the most exciting places to see contemporary and 20th-century art and design. On October 10-16, the fair will showcase pieces from over 60 dealers, galleries, artists and designers. Highlights include a sculpture by Swedish ceramicist Alvina Jakobsson of Modernist, and Pierre Renart’s ‘Möbius’ console in dark wood (left), as well as interiors by the designers Francis Sultana and Rose Uniacke. Tickets cost £25. paddesignart.com

Decorex

OCTOBER 9-12

Returning to Olympia London, W14, it will showcase over 185 brands including Vincent Sheppard, whose ‘Titus’ lounge chair is seen here. This year, architecture and interior design studio De Rosee Sa have been tasked with creating the VIP lounge. Trade tickets cost £21.60; non-trade £43.20. decorex.com

Point of Balance

OCTOBER 11-DECEMBER 16

Eight artists have been invited by Joanna Bird gallery, W4, to interpret the concept of Point of Balance. The innovative works on display will include Sun Kim’s striking ceramic pieces (above). Entry is free. joannabird.com

A DECORATOR’S DOZEN

It is not every day that paint powerhouse Farrow & Ball introduces new colours to its impressive collection (the last time was 2018), so when it launches 11, it is worth taking note. The new range has been cleverly devised so that any combination of the paints – all with typically inventive names, such as flame red ‘Bamboozle’ (pictured above) – works well. ‘We wanted the new colours to provide comfort, refreshment and excitement,’ says Farrow & Ball’s head of creative Charlotte Cosby. The colours are available in Farrow & Ball’s interior and exterior finishes; from £52 for 2.5 litres estate emulsion. farrow-ball.com m

CREATE ACADEMY; COURTESY OF MAISON PARISIENNE; ANDREW MUIR ANTIQUES

The Appledore Bed and Cashmere 100% Natural Fibre Mattress

Road,

WALK ON WATER

Johnson

certified

Take to task

This ‘Heirloom’ task light, £450, from DeVol, is specially designed to light kitchen work surfaces. It features a brass arm inspired by original Victorian gas light fittings and a creamware shade made in the company’s ceramics studio. 01509 261000; devolkitchens.co.uk

CLEAN LIVING

I love the sleek and minimalist lines of the ‘Elixir Blade’ three-hole wall-mounted basin filler tap, from Matki. In brass with a chrome finish, it costs £400 01454 322888; matki.co.uk

Cloud pleaser

Furniture designer Tom Faulkner has opened a new showroom on Pimlico Road, SW1, where designs such as the ‘Cloud’ coffee table are on show. It can be made in a choice of marbles, with legs in either solid bronze or steel. As shown here in Port Laurent marble with bronze legs, the table costs £6,830. 020 7351 7272; tomfaulkner.co.uk

NO PANE, NO GAIN

Miles Redd and David Kaihoi’s new collection of fabrics, wallcoverings and trims for Schumacher includes this charmingly wonky ‘Painterly Windowpane’ cotton/linen, shown in brown. Also available in black and blue, it costs £118 a metre. 020 4532 0960; fschumacher.co.uk

On the fringe

New from Samuel & Sons, the Trianon collection of 18th-century-inspired passementerie includes beaded fringes, braids, tiebacks and tassels. Available in nine colourways, ‘Trianon Blocked Brush’ fringe is ideal for embellishing curtains and cushions. It costs £64 a metre. 020 7351 5153; samuelandsons.com

BUBBLE UP

Designed by Sacha Lakic for Roche Bobois, the ‘Bubble 2’ five-seater sofa is handmade, including fabrics that have been specially developed to fit its striking curved shape. Available in two versions, it costs £5,870 as shown covered in ‘Orsetto’ wool-mix bouclé. 020 7751 4030; roche-bobois.com e

Paul Upward Photgraphy

Stone effects

Suitable for use on both walls and floors, the Wanderlust collection of porcelain tiles from CP Hart includes 13 colours and textures. Among them are designs that mimic agates, marbles and granite, with evocative names such as galway green (right), four seasons and siberian malachite. You could use them to make a feature of a basin backsplash or to cover a wall. The tiles cost £144 a square metre. 0345 600 1950; cphart.co.uk

ON THE TILES

Inject interest into a kitchen or bathroom with Mandarin Stone’s new ‘Zellige Gloss’ ceramic tiles, £55.20 a square metre. Shown here in coral, they are available in seven other colours. All have a subtle gloss finish and are made with slight variations in size and uneven edges to replicate traditional Moroccan zellige tiles. 01600 715444; mandarinstone.com

Making scents

Take your pick from these smart candles at a range of prices

WOOD AND SPICE

The ‘Touche Bois’ candle costs £62 for 280g, from Victoria Cator victoriacator.com

MADE IN DORSET

Parterre’s ‘Root of all Goodness’ soy wax candle costs £35 for 210g. parterrefragrances.com

Bed fellow

This ‘Avenue Montaigne’ chest of drawers from French Bedroom is inspired by Gustavian designs. Made of sustainable pine with a distressed paint effect in fawn and antique white, it is both practical and elegant, and would make a great addition to any bedroom. It costs £795. 01444 415430; frenchbedroom.co.uk

PRETTY IN PINK Ginori 1735 has collaborated with designer Luke Edward Hall on the ‘La Gazelle d’Or’ candle, with notes of rose, geranium and green tea. It costs £140 for 320g. ginori1735.com

In crowd

BE IN THE KNOW Follow us on Twitter and Instagram to keep up with the latest from the House & Garden team

Join House & Garden and Sanderson to celebrate the launch of the heritage brand’s Water Garden fabric and wallpaper collection at Cliveden House & Spa at 12pm-4pm, on Tuesday October 11. The day will start with champagne and canapés, followed by a two-course lunch with wine in Cliveden’s French Dining Room (above), a rococo-inspired space with views of the river and surrounding Berkshire countryside. After lunch, House & Garden’s acting executive editor Noni Ware, and Claire Vallis, creative director of Sanderson, will discuss the creative process behind the Water Garden collection, which is inspired by Eastern design and the oriental water gardens fashionable in the 19th century. Guests will also have access to the beautiful National Trust gardens at Cliveden. Tickets are limited and cost £75 each, which includes a glass of champagne and canapés, lunch with wine, access to the gardens and a gift bag. To book, visit eventbrite.co.uk/e/ house-garden-reader-event-tickets-376264977677

classic chimneypieces, contemporary stoves

stylish hearth

WHITE HEAT

The ‘Bassington Eco’ stove in white enamel from Capital Fireplaces will complement a pale stone chimneypiece. In cast iron with a large glass window and easy-clean gloss finish, it also comes in matt black. From £995 (53.5 x 53 x 36cm). 01462 813138; capitalfireplaces.co.uk

CABIN COOK

Charnwood has been manufacturing stoves on the Isle of Wight for 50 years. Its ‘Haven’ stove, in gunmetal (shown) and black, is a compact wood-burning range cooker ideal for cabins and other off-grid sites. From £3,900(80x75x43cm).01983537777;charnwood.com

Eco champion

The ‘3112’ multi-fuel stove by Morsø incorporates the brand’s best design elements, while meeting stringent environmental standards. It burns wood, briquettes or approved smokeless fuel efficiently, and is equipped with a riddling grate and ash pan that make it easy to clean. It costs £1,550. 01788 554410; morsoe.co.uk

HEARTH AND HOME

1 This ‘Brass Kindling Bucket’ from Graham & Green will add a chic fireside touch; it costs £55. 01225 418200; grahamandgreen.co.uk

2 With a bronze-finished iron frame and grey leather upholstery, these elegant ‘Berenson’ fenders from Oka offer a stylish place to perch by an open fire. They cost £1,495 a pair. 01235 433930; oka.com 3 Neptune’s ‘Redford’ seagrass basket has an ink-blue band and is ideal for logs. Available in three sizes, from £44 for small (40 x 35cm diameter). neptune.com e

CARVED IN STONE

‘The Chedworth’ chimneypiece

collection

fire surrounds,

OLD FLAMES

1 James Graham-Stewart sells exceptional antique chimneypieces, such as this ‘Londonderry House’ marble design, c1800; £160,000. jamesgraham-stewart.com

2 This handsome late-18thcentury English ‘Neoclassical Inlaid Marble’ chimneypiece from Westland London costs £66,000. westlandlondon.com

Elegant simplicity

Based on an 18th-century design, Jamb’s ‘Easton’ shallow bolection fire surround, with a moulded cornice shelf in striking Breche marble, costs from £8,640 for 118 x 152 x 13cm. 020 7730 2122; jamb.co.uk

native

TAKE UP THE MANTEL

The ‘Cambridge Mantel’ chimneypiece in limestone, from Marble Hill, shown here with a ‘Spherical Dog Front’ in stainless steel (from £714), is a modern take on a classic design. From £2,700 for the small size (122 x 152 x 21.5cm). 020 8892 1488; marblehill.co.uk

MODERN CLASSICS

FAR LEFT Made from Corten steel and inspired by the crater left by a sunken volcano, the ‘Caldera Corten’ fire pit from Paloform is available in wood-burning and gas options, and will add a stylish element to outdoor gatherings. From £3,800 for the wood-burning model. 020 3795 7751; paloform.co.uk LEFT With its pendant shape, the ‘Onyx Orbit’ electric fire from Stovax is designed to be a dramatic centrepiece in an open-plan space. Featuring oak-effect logs and 13 mood-enhancing lighting options, it can be rotated up to 340 degrees to provide a warm glow wherever you are sitting in a room. £3,295; onyxfires.com m

The anatomy of a room by BARLOW & BARLOW

‘We have a trusted formula for completing projects most efficiently and always start by delving into the mind of a client to work out what makes them tick,’ says Barlow & Barlow creative director Lucy Barlow. ‘The owners of this house – a young professional couple – were keen to pay homage to both sides of their cultural heritage, as the wife is Swedish and the husband English. We did a full renovation of the London property, which is close to Hyde Park. It’s a Grade II-listed Georgian terraced house with five floors. The couple like to entertain, so we created several reception and dining spaces for different styles of entertaining and sizes of parties. This is the breakfast room, which leads off the kitchen and is the more relaxed day-to-day dining spot. It has a lovely aspect looking out onto the courtyard garden. The room is fairly narrow so, to maximise space, we designed bespoke banquette seating, inset into the joinery, which includes cupboards for glassware and accessories. We always knew the central space would be used to display a significant artwork, but we didn’t find the right painting until long afterthe joinery had been installed and the owners had moved into the house. At first, they were less brave about colour and pattern, but they were trusting with our lead and we were all keen to let the house’s original architecture steer the design. The couple were quick to make decisions, which meant momentum was never lost and the project kept moving forward, with exciting ideas presenting themselves along the way. We always want to make sure that we deliver something over and above the clients’ expectations –that’s how interior designers

their value.’

ADDRESS BOOK Joinery and banquette seating, designed by Barlow & Barlow and made by Teco Bespoke @teco_bespoke | Banquette covered in suede from Alma Leather. almaleather.co.uk | Blind and matching cushions in ‘District’ (tobacco), by Kelly Wearstler, linen, from GP & J Baker. gpjbaker.com | ‘Stonewashed Linen with Fringing’ cushions, from Oka. oka.com | Pendant lights, from Bert Frank. bertfrank.co.uk | Picture light, from TM Lighting. tmlighting.com | Painting, by Bob Gibson, from JGM Gallery. jgmgallery.com | ‘Pion’ dining table, from Sancal. sancal.com/en | ‘Nestor’ chairs, from Matter. mattermatters.com | Flooring, from Ted Todd. tedtodd.co.uk | Jute braided rug, from The Conran Shop. conranshop.co.uk

WHERE TO BUY DINING CHAIRS

POLIFORM Designed by Rodrigo Torres, the ‘Manta’ metal chair is padded and covered in leather. Shown with armrests, it is also available without them, from £1,379. poliform.it

PINCH Characterised by the company’s dedication to craft and process, the ‘Avery’ dining chair costs £795 as shown in black American walnut with an oil finish. pinchdesign.com

AUGUSTUS BRANDT From the Bespoke collection, this ‘Newlands’ dining chair in oak with front cabriole legs costs £1,100, excluding fabric. augustbrandt.co.uk m

Visit The List today to find a design professional or, to become a member of The List, call 020 7152 3639 or email olivia.capaldi@condenast.co.uk m

The List By House & Garden is our indispensable guide to design professionals. Take inspiration from this interiors scheme and products from some of its members, selected by Olivia Capaldi

BOND; JAMES MERRELL

Make it Better Better and

and

Better

PETRA BOASE

‘Riso Leaping Deer’ Christmas card, £3. petraboase.com

ANNA CRAVEN SAIGON

‘Washed Linen Stitch’ napkin (antique green), £10.50. annacraven.com

SEMON CASHMERE

‘Women’s Cashmere’ socks (cream), £49. semoncashmere.com

IF ONLY IF

‘Emily’ silk nightdress (jewel green), £230. ifonlyif.co.uk

BEST IN SHOW

NONI WARE presents her pick of what to buy at the Spirit of Christmas Fair, in association with House & Garden, at Olympia London, W14, on October 31-November 6. Visit spiritofchristmasfair.co.uk for stand numbers and the full list of more than 700 exhibitors

SOMERVILLE

Cotton make-up bag (pink/cream), £24. somervillescarves.com

BISCOTTILICIOUS

‘Salted Caramel Crunch’ biscotti, from £30 for 150g. biscottilicious.com

CHOICE OF SCANDINAVIA

‘Calore’ glass candle holder (curve brown), by ByOn, £49. choiceofscandinavia.co.uk

HAPPY CABBAGE LONDON

Pink floral block print cotton long pyjama set, £50. happycabbagelondon.com e

INSIDER Spirit of Christmas

GIN IN A TIN

Limited edition festive pear gin, £35 for 50cl. gininatin.co.uk

MILK & BLACK

‘Bunny Zip-Up’ baby’s cotton bodysuit, £24. milkandblack.co.uk

SPRY CANDLES

‘Bergamot and Oud’ candle, £45 for large. sprycandles.co.uk

READER OFFER

House & Garden readers can buy discounted tickets from £20.63 (a saving of 25 per cent on the on-the-door ticket prices). Quote ‘HGNOV’ when you book online at spritofchristmasfair.co.uk. A transaction fee of £2.75 applies.

SANSOM REED

‘Classic Bud’ glass vase, £7. sansomreed.com

POLKADOT PARSLEY

Ceramic jugs (mink), £50 for set of 3. polkadotparsley.com

LUCY LOVES THIS

‘Bristol’ A4 print, £42 (framed). lucylovesthis.com

46 STITCH

‘Martha’ handmade linen reversible collar with cotton trim, £42.50. 46stitch.com

DAVINA COMBE

‘Blue Topaz Sienna Hoop’ 18ct gold vermeil on sterling silver earrings, £145. davinacombe.com

SEDDON AND DAVISON

‘Pure Wool’ throw (grey and blue stripe), £65. seddonanddavison.com m

Outside interests

CRAFT BRITAIN BY HELEN CHISLETT & DAVID LINLEY (OH

MAIN PICTURE To create her sinuous drystone structure Natural Course, Laura used 100 tonnes of local sandstone and carefully placed each stone by hand.

ABOVE RIGHT Laura photographed in the finished sculpture, which she based on a life-size willow model

FOCUS ON: Laura Ellen Bacon

Sculptor Laura Ellen Bacon creates beautiful, organic-looking artworks from natural materials. Known for her intricately woven willow sculptures, she has more recently worked in stone, creating the new Natural Course sculpture at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire in 2020. It is situated on a leafy slope in Arcadia, an area of the garden redesigned by Tom Stuart-Smith. With intricate curves and cambers, its intriguing dry-stone structures appear to grow out of the land and flow down the slope. ‘I wanted it to have its own energy and life force, as if it’s making its way down the hill,’ says Laura. Inspired by old maps, networks of paths on the estate and watercourses that run down the hill there, the work grew

from a sketchbook to a life-size model made in willow. ‘I don’t do calculations: I apply an understanding of the material and location with the coordination of hand and eye,’ says Laura. ‘Designs and design processes can vary between sites. Some projects can require in-depth models prior to creation, but largely I create my work on site with this physical understanding of the form and materials.’ Around 10 metres long and made from more than 100 tonnes of local sandstone, Natural Course was created from tens of thousands of stones, all of which Laura painstakingly placed by hand. Her work can also be seen in the book Craft Britain*, which is published this month. chatsworth.org e

Beautiful south

Charlotte and Donald Molesworth’s extraordinary topiary garden at Balmoral Cottage, in Benenden in Kent, is among the 20 well-chosen gardens in Barbara Segall’s new book Secret Gardens of the South East (Frances Lincoln, £22). With photographs by Clive Boursnell, the book explores each garden in glorious detail to reveal its individual character. quartoknows.com

This vintage-style greenhouse is constructed in Holland from materials salvaged from old French vinehouses. It is fitted with wheels, so it can be moved easily round a terrace and comes in two sizes: 175 x 140 x 70cm (€1,475) and 175 x 70 x 72cm (€1,275). otiq.nl

Made from cedar wood, the attractive ‘Baby Grand Cold Frame’ from Gabriel Ash has solid brass fittings and toughened safety glass, with a lid that can be propped up at various heights depending on air temperature. It costs £664.45. gabrielash.com

Glazed with old-fashioned horticultural glass, these hand-crafted reproduction ‘Victorian Garden’ cloches have cast-iron frames, powder coated in a classic off-white. Available in bespoke colours for £50 extra, they are £420 each. clavertoncloches.com

The ‘Bramber’ portable mini greenhouse is built to last in stainless steel, aluminium and toughened safety glass. The frame features two layers of powder-coating, available in a choice of four colours. It measures 97 x 120 x 80cm; from €2,495. revised.com e CLIVE BOURSNELL; MARK SPENCER; STUDIO AKSENTO

Prep talk

On November 21, the study day Getting the Garden Ready is being held at Great Dixter in East Sussex. Led by the head gardener Fergus Garrett (below), the day will give a fascinating and useful behind-thescenes look at how the Dixter team prepares the garden there for winter – covering everything from compost and soil preparation to dividing and moving perennials. The garden is usually closed in November, so this is a rare chance to see it in winter. The day runs from 10am to 4pm and costs £160, including lunch. greatdixter.co.uk

TOP OF THE GLASS

Daughters of a leading Venetian glass artist, sisters Margherita and Elena Micheluzzi launched their own glassware collection in 2019. Inspired by the vibrant colours of their home city, their distinctive vases are hand-blown before being cooled and textured using an intricate hand-carving process known as molatura. Each vase is a unique, signed work. Prices start at £350. micheluzziglass.com m

WOVEN FABRIC, CHECKER CHECKER VIOLA

taste every time

Found in the world’s finest kitchens, Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances are designed to simplify and enhance your life from morning to night.

Words and pictures

EDITED BY ROSE WASHBOURN

THE COLOURFUL PAST:

Edward Bulmer and the English Country House by Edward Bulmer (Rizzoli, £47.95)

In the course of his 30-year career, Edward Bulmer – interior designer, architectural historian and founder of the eponymous environmentally friendly paint company – has worked on the restoration and interiors of more than 50 historic houses.

This book features some of the most memorable, including Althorp, Princess Diana’s childhood home, the prime minister’s official country residence, Chequers, and Goodwood. It was the request of the Duchess of Richmond, chatelaine of Goodwood –that any changes made to that Sussex country house would not harm the planet or her children’s health – that inspired the creation of Edward Bulmer Natural Paint. The paint is present throughout the book and some pages are in his colours, with the text in white.

A scion of the famous cider-making family, Edward grew up in Herefordshire in a house with interiors designed by a young David Mlinaric, who, years later, became Edward’s first mentor. He then assisted the late Gervase Jackson-Stops at the National Trust and finally worked for the polymath picture (and historic house) restorer Alec Cobbe, before taking on his own projects. Historic research is at the heart of everything he does, as he takes a house back to an era where he can be sure that the records exist. He enjoys the sleuthing and remaking components of an original scheme with the craftsmen of today. As he says, ‘With historical decoration, there are some right and some wrong answers.’

He is generous in crediting the firms and craftsmen he has called on to weave carpets, make trimmings or light pictures without the need to damage walls. It is perhaps his own house, Court of Noke, that the average reader might find easiest to relate to. There are rugs found on Moroccan holidays and walls are hung with Edward’s own drawings alongside grander pictures (see this month’s ‘On Decorating’ for Edward’s guide to hanging pictures). And unlike the house where he grew up, where he had ‘little exposure to the finer rooms’, this is a true (and truly beautiful) family home.

Paul Whitbread’s photography is very fine, with some glowing close-ups of details –a corner of flowery carpet, a gilded mirror, some intricate passementerie – as well as well chosen views of whole rooms. In Edward’s book, colour is king. Elfreda Pownall

SJ AXELBY’S INTERIOR PORTRAITS:

An Artist’s View of Designers’ Living Spaces by SJ Axelby (Pavilion, £25)

Some Covid lockdown projects seem to have crystallised over time into treasured bits of contemporary culture. The best ones are generous of spirit: Grayson’s Art Club, PE with Joe, and – for interiors fans – the Instagram account @sjaxelby. Sarah-Jane Axelby (known as SJ) promised to paint and post a portrait of a beautiful room every day. It quickly became a showcase of ebullient spaces and gave an insight into her designer fandom. In Interior Portraits, she gathers these paintings and couples them with a light-hearted interview with each of the designers. She certainly has a favourite type (layered rooms with plenty of detail) and a distinctive painting style (energetic and rich in colour), which some might find slightly repetitive. I recommend her second Instagram project @roomportraitclub, in which she invites submissions from fellow illustrators inspired by a weekly ‘prompt’ (a photograph of a room with a few details for context), making this series even more dynamic than the first. Ruth Sleightholme

THE ULTIMATE BATH by Barbara Sallick (Rizzoli, £45)

In the introduction to her new book, Barbara Sallick recalls a stay at Claridge’s hotel 35 years ago, where she experienced first hand one of the suites’ ‘storied original baths’. The transformative effect of a beautiful bath in a glorious setting – be it a grand hotel or a seaside cottage – will be familiar to many. As will the disappointment at returning to your own, rather less inspiring space. And so the idea for The Ultimate Bath was born – a collection of exceptional bath and bathroom designs to encourage us all to elevate our everyday experience. As the co-founder of luxury American supplier Waterworks (which has a showroom on the King’s Road, SW6), Barbara is perfectly placed to guide us through this book, from what she calls ‘high style’ (gold tubs, lots of marble and a bathside harp) to ‘tightly tailored’ schemes and even indoor-outdoor spaces. Most of the designers featured are US-based, but this does little to diminish the book’s universal appeal. RW m

Art scene

EDITED BY FIONA M c KENZIE JOHNSTON

LUCIAN FREUD: NEW PERSPECTIVES

The National Gallery, WC2. October 1-

LUCIAN FREUD: THE PAINTER AND HIS FAMILY Freud Museum, NW3.

January

LUCIAN FREUD: PLANT PORTRAITS Garden Museum, SE1.

14-

LUCIAN FREUD

Though unquestionably one of the greatest and most important artists of the last century, Lucian Freud has a reputation for representation that is contentious. ‘A seven-foot portrait of myself looking rather red-faced and fat wasn’t my idea of fun,’ said Andrew Parker Bowles, when asked why he did not buy the portrait Freud painted of him. Entitled The Brigadier (2003-4), it is among the 60-plus works being shown at The National Gallery in Lucian Freud: New Perspectives, to coincide with the centenary of his birth. Freud’s relationship with The National Gallery was significant. He had permission to visit day or night and, in a 1995 interview in The New York Times, said he used it ‘as if it were a doctor… I come for ideas and help – to look at situations within painting’.

‘Freud stuck to painting at a time when it was deeply unfashionable, to the detriment – for a long time – of his finances, so he’s often seen as a lone wunderkind. But he operated in the context of history,’ says Daniel Herrmann, curator of New Perspectives. The Brigadier, for instance, was inspired by a military portrait by the 19th-century French artist James Jacques Tissot. Girl with Roses, Freud’s painting of Kitty Garman (daughter of sculptor Jacob Epstein, whom Freud married in 1948), ‘shows his interest in the old masters of the Northern Renaissance’, says Daniel, mentioning the reflection in Kitty’s eyes, a motif of early Flemish art. ‘It relates him to his past, and his country of birth.’ He was born in Berlin and came to Britain with his family in 1933 aged 11, when they fled from the rise of Nazism.

His childhood is explored in Lucian Freud: The Painter and His Family at the Freud Museum, his grandparents’ former home, which still holds their furniture, books and art. Featuring photographs and letters, alongside paintings and drawings, it gives personal context to the masterpieces on show at The National Gallery.

At the Garden Museum, Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits gives an insight into the development of Freud’s style. In 1939, he enrolled to train under plantsman and painter Cedric Morris. ‘I think he came to the representation of the body through plants,’ says curator Giovanni Aloi. Two Plants, begun in 1977, took three years to complete. The result is dense with what Freud described as ‘little portraits of leaves’. His paintings of friends, lovers and children are not always obviously flattering, but ‘what Freud was doing was recording the scars left on us by the life we’ve led, that make us individuals’, says Giovanni. ‘Culturally, we have been trained to find ugliness in flaws and those marks, but Freud’s representation –whether of a plant, dog, horse or human – reaches deeper than aesthetics.’ Pictured (from top) Girl with Roses, 1947-48. Still Life with Zimmerlinde, c1950 e

Three exhibitions celebrate the centenary of the artist’s birth

Cezanne

TATE MODERN, SE1, OCTOBER 5-MARCH 12

Paul Cezanne has long been called the father of modern art and his mastery of a paintbrush, attitude to perspective and use of colour are recognised as vital precursors to cubism and fauvism. His subject matter is consistent with the classical masters, but from his studio in Aix-en-Provence he found new means of addressing form. Tate Modern is presenting the most extensive British retrospective of his work in more than 25 years. As well as technique, it surveys his relationships with family, his Impressionist contemporaries and the writer Émile Zola, a childhood friend. Paintings gathered from collections in Europe, Asia, and North and South America span the breadth of his career. There was a moment when, to reduce carbon emissions, such blockbuster exhibitions were in danger of becoming a relic of more carefree times. But major institutions across the world are now working collaboratively; most of these works were shipped together from the Art Institute of Chicago, reducing the environmental impact of transportation. tate.org.uk Pictured (from top) Bathers, c1894-1906. Still Life with Apples, 1893-94

Three more to see…

THE HEPWORTH WAKEFIELD

Two exhibitions address compelling parallel themes. Jadé Fadojutimi’s new paintings (until March 19) explore identity; Hannah Starkey’s photography (October 20-April 30) engages with society’s representation of women. hepworthwakefield.org

Pictured An Emphatic Revolution, 2022, Jadé Fadojutimi

ALICE NEEL: THERE’S

STILL ANOTHER I SEE Alice’s acutely observed portraits are renowned as a chronicle of 20thcentury New York. This exhibition at Victoria Miro, N1, is the first to pair those of the same sitter, some completed decades apart. October 11 -November 12; victoria-miro.com

Pictured Ellie Poindexter, 1961

OCTOBER ART FAIRS

While the Frieze fairs (October 12-16) act as market barometers, for the casual viewer, the joy lies in discovery. The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair (October 13-16) is an equal delight. frieze.com | 1-54.com Pictured Party Scene, 2022, Sahara Longe m

J PAUL GETTY MUSEUM; THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON; © JADÉ FADOJUTIMI, 2022.

PHOTO: EVA HERZOG; © THE ESTATE OF ALICE NEEL, COURTESY THE ESTATE OF ALICE NEEL AND VICTORIA MIRO; COURTESY OF TIMOTHY TAYLOR

PEOPLE

THIS MONTH: The couple behind an eye-catching sculpture garden; a highly skilled team reviving the art of narrow-loom carpet weaving in Halifax; an Oxford college fellow and Fourth Plinth artist; and a wild-flower wizard mad about meadows

Daisy Bell and Bill Gerrish beside Jeff Lowe’s painted aluminium sculpture Sheba in the dining room at Thirsk Hall in North Yorkshire

THIS PAGE CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE In the drawing room, an 18th-century Sèvres chandelier and a table lamp designed by John Bell illuminate pictures by Jean Dubuffet (left and right) and Austin Wright (centre). The Palladian rear façade of Thirsk Hall is built of local brick. Bill in the green room, with Derwent Water by Norman Ackroyd on the wall behind. OPPOSITE Jeff Lowe’s painted aluminium The Juggler dominates the hall, in front of a large oil of a hunting scene by John Ferneley

Lifestyle

WHERE THE ART IS

The current custodians of Thirsk Hall, Daisy Bell and Bill Gerrish, have opened a Sculpture Garden in its parkland, an initiative that they hope will help to protect the future of the house and also benefit the local community

T he unearthed remains of a Neanderthal equivalent of a sculpture garden at the Bruniquel Cave archaeological site in France suggest that the desire to surround ourselves with monumental art is nothing new. And yet, there was a period when such places came to be associated with grand country houses. Then, in 1977, Yorkshire Sculpture Park opened; the Henry Moore Institute was established in 1993 next to Leeds Art Gallery; and in 2011 The Hepworth Wakefield was launched. Last year, a new Sculpture Garden opened at Thirsk Hall. Together, they make the region something of a mecca for art enthusiasts (and if Yorkshire is ‘God’s own county’, we can only infer that when it comes to art, His preferred era is 1920 onwards, the period favoured by the above institutes). But the story behind the Thirsk Hall initiative deserves further consideration. It has neither museum status nor Arts Council backing, but combines beneficial ideals with commercial hopes and is the ambitious endeavour of art dealer Bill Gerrish, of Willoughby Gerrish, who specialises in the Impressionist, Modern and Post-War periods – with a specific focus on sculpture – and his art consultant wife Daisy Bell. Having worked at both Tate and the Royal Academy of Arts, Daisy founded Cramer & Bell in 2017, with Bella Cramer, and sources art for interior designers, including Nicola Harding and Sophie Ashby, as well as for private clients. Daisy and Bella particularly enjoy working with emerging artists such as Tristan Barlow and Agnieszka Katz Barlow, e

TEXT FIONA MCKENZIE JOHNSTON | PHOTOGRAPHS TOM GRIFFITHS

ABOVE Daisy looks through the visitors’ book, which is filled with watercolours by Norman Ackroyd. CLOCKWISE FROM

BELOW LEFT The couple’s bedroom with For Anthony by Howard Hodgkin on the bedside table. A Thomas Gainsborough portrait of ancestor Ann Conyers hangs in the dining room, which is furnished with several pieces by Gillows. Grania Howard, who is in charge of the kitchen garden. Daisy catches up with her stepbrother, the artist Robbie Fife, over lunch

with whom they liaise directly. ‘There is a genuine thrill in introducing others to their paintings,’ explains Daisy.

The house, which fronts onto a road in the pretty North Yorkshire market town of Thirsk, has been in the Bell family since it was built almost 300 years ago. Daisy is the eldest of three sisters, but her inheritance is unrelated to primogeniture: when she was 11, her father, John Bell, initiated a card game with his children in which whoever put down the first Jack won – it happened to be Daisy. Her sister Lettice now runs Thirsk Lodge Barns wedding venue, two miles down the road, while Zillah, the youngest, oversees all Thirsk Hall business interests and events, and lives in a recently converted dairy that opens onto Thirsk Hall’s garden.

Daisy and Bill left London and moved up to Yorkshire during lockdown. ‘It was slightly sooner than we’d planned, but suddenly it seemed like the right time,’ explains Daisy. John, who runs the almost adjacent Zillah Bell Gallery (unrelated to his daughter, except in name) has downsized to another house that also opens on the garden, facing the local church and the family crypt. ‘It is unmarked; the Bells are not aristocracy,’ says John. ‘We were dissenters and Liberal MPs, who stood with Wilberforce against slavery.’

When it was built in 1723, at the direction of Ralph Bell who bought the titular deed to the manor of Thirsk from the Earl of Derby, Thirsk Hall was a relatively modest fivebay, two-storey affair. Two generations on, another Ralph Bell married Ann Conyers, who had her own wealth, and, in pursuit of a dining room, employed the Palladian architect John Carr of York to add the third floor and two wings. The cabinetmakers Gillows furnished the house: an early wine fridge, consisting of a thick, lead-lined casket within a mahogany cabinet, is still in situ, among several rather beautiful pieces. And Thomas Gainsborough was commissioned to paint the couple’s portraits. These were later sold, before the portrait of Ann was bought back by Daisy’s grandfather.

‘John refers to the rationing of his childhood,’ says Bill. ‘But he’s not talking about the war. It was the years of surviving on potatoes because everything else was spent on that painting.’

This did not put John off buying art himself. Amid the oils of ancestors and horses – there is a Bell family connection to Thirsk Racecourse – are works by British surrealists. Anthony Earnshaw’s ‘Alphabet’ series hangs along the staircase wall and amusing boxed assemblages by George Trapp and Frank Jennings adorn side tables and consoles. Nor did the experience discourage John from working in the art world. He set up the Zillah Bell Gallery in 1988, together with the girls’ mother Janie, and, having been introduced to the artists by his friend Norman Ackroyd – with whom he often travels on sketching trips and whose archive the gallery holds – he works with several other Royal Academicians. ‘Each year, Norman curates a selection from the RA Summer Exhibition here,’ says Daisy. ‘It’s so great when you see a Yinka Shonibare or a Michael Craig-Martin in a gallery window – in Thirsk.’

‘The Sculpture Garden is building on what John has started and what is already in this county,’ says Bill. The first exhibition, in the summer of 2021, was a survey of the late Michael Lyons’ works; his estate is represented by Bill and he was one of the founding members of Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Pieces by him remain in situ, alongside e

ABOVE LEFT Michael Lyons’ painted steel sculpture Amphitrite ABOVE RIGHT CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Bill with Catherine Duck, who heads up Thirsk Hall Sculpture Garden, in the Orangery Gallery, with Rob Ward’s marble Circles of Solitude seen through Michael Lyons’ steel High Priest. Galvanised steel Hornblower by Michael Lyons. Circles of Solitude by Rob Ward. Paul de Monchaux’s bronze Volute IV RIGHT Lock No 2 in Corten steel by Jeff Lowe. BELOW Zak Ové’s graphite Invisible Men

works by artists such as Jeff Lowe, Austin Wright and the stone carver Emily Young. ‘We also wanted to give people who live in Thirsk a chance to see beyond the façade of the house and use this garden,’ says Daisy, explaining that picnics are allowed, dogs are welcome (on leads) and there are activities for children. ‘It’s been a private house for so long and you wouldn’t know it has the parkland behind it. We have been so lucky. Not everyone has the chance to grow up around art and sculpture.’

While Daisy and Bill spend a day or two a week in London seeing clients, meeting artists and – in Bill’s case – exhibiting at fairs such as Masterpiece, further plans for Thirsk Hall are developing. Bill has turned an outbuilding into the indoor space Gallery One, which hosts six exhibitions a year. The current programme includes David Hockney’s works on paper and, from mid-October, an exhibition on Gordon House, the printmaker and painter who created album covers for The Beatles. It also hosts events, such as artist talks, life-drawing classes and concerts. These reach their annual climax with the new three-day Thirsk Hall Festival, which is held in August (this summer was its second iteration) and includes music in the town’s church, screenings in the independent Ritz Cinema and a carnival day in the Sculpture Garden. In a discreet corner, seasonal glamping is being set up and it is possible to rent a self-contained flat in the house, decorated with art from Daisy and Bill’s own ever-changing collection.

This collection, described by Daisy as ‘still young’, is adding another layer to the decoration of Thirsk Hall, introducing Howard Hodgkin, Robbie Fife and Katherine Jones RA to the walls, and making the couple’s own mark on the house. They have revived the kitchen garden, with an area now given over to community volunteers, who are growing produce for local food banks – another means of combining what is by necessity a commercial enterprise (a renovation of the house’s interior is a priority) with something that will benefit Thirsk residents.

‘We hope the local community will feel an element of ownership of the Sculpture Garden, because it’s in their town, open to them and will draw more people here,’ says Bill. ‘Mainly though,’ adds Daisy, ‘we want people to know the feeling of being surrounded by great art and to love it, as we do.’ Their enthusiasm, combined with obvious expertise, bodes well m

Thirsk Hall Sculpture Garden and Gallery One is open from Wednesday to Saturday, 11am-5pm: thirskhall.com willoughbygerrish.com | cramerandbell.com

ABOVE LEFT An old outbuilding was transformed into the Gallery One exhibition space. ABOVE RIGHT The gallery’s recent exhibition of prints and sculptures by Jeff Lowe. CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW LEFT Bella Cramer, who runs the art consultancy Cramer & Bell with Daisy, with the artist Tristan Barlow and his work Untitled. Bill in his London office. Daisy and her father John Bell look at Norman Ackroyd prints in John’s Thirsk gallery. Artist Agnieszka Katz Barlow at work in her studio

LIKE YOU MEAN IT

AVENA CARPETS

HATTA BYNG visits a former plant nursery in Halifax, West Yorkshire, where a highly skilled team is reviving the art of narrow-loom weaving intricate Wilton and Brussels carpets

Although I struggle to tell the weft from the warp or understand how a pattern translates from a card with punched-out holes to a finished textile, mention looms and factories and my ears prick up. So when bespoke rug specialist Luke Irwin alerted me to Richard Hughes and his mission to get Avena Carpets, one of the last producers in the country of narrowloom Wilton and Brussels carpets, back up and running, I was off like a shot to Halifax to see for myself.

If you have been to Halifax, you will have seen Dean Clough, the former carpet mill that dominates the town. It once housed perhaps the biggest carpet factory in the world – John Crossley & Sons – where more than 5,000 workers made the finest quality, narrow-loom Wilton and Brussels carpets, which are just 69cm wide and defined, when laid, by the sewn seams between the widths. In the Seventies, John Crossley moved over to standard broadloom carpet and a group of employees founded Avena Carpets, a much smaller enterprise that would keep some of the looms, the skills and the intricate patterns (a single design can have 30 or 40 colours) alive. But, by 2021, production had ceased for a number of reasons.

This is when Richard stepped in. Carpets course through Richard’s veins: he started as an apprentice fitter aged 15 and laid carpets for 20 years for everyone from the Royal Household to historic houses and designers all over the world. He knew Avena’s product well and he also knew there was still a demand for it. So having heard of Avena’s closure at a time when he was looking for a new opportunity, he did everything he could to gather support to help him buy its 10 looms and archive of more than 7,000 carpet designs. Spanning 150 years, these have been made for historic houses and well-known designers, from David Hicks to Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler (its designs can be ordered through its Pimlico Road, SW1, shop).

The project of taking apart the old looms and moving them to where they are now, in a former plant nursery, was a huge task in itself. Richard himself had never seen them working. This began in April 2021 and production started in September that same year; there are now five looms back in working order.

Richard has also recruited seven of Avena’s former employees, most of whom had been working out of the carpet industry for 10 years or more, but who were eager e

ABOVE One of Avena Carpet’s skilled weavers, John Joyce, works on the loom; he is recreating an early-20th-century Brussels-weave carpet for a historic project in Norway. BELOW The company’s archive, which spans 150 years, provides an invaluable treasure trove of appealing designs

to come back and to be creating this extraordinary fineweave carpet again. Rachel Tighe, the design manager, is the daughter of one of the founders of Avena, John Tighe. Alison Shedden, who punches the cards for the company’s new designs, was lured out of retirement. One of the looms is the only one of its type that still exists and only one man, production manager Gary Charles, has the skill to use it. This produces a three-shot weave with extra weft, making the carpet almost indestructible. Richard has also taken on two apprentices enrolled in a textile manufacturing apprentice scheme, which is vital to the longevity of his mission.

Many of Avena’s original suppliers are no longer in business, so the company is constantly problem solving for the different elements of the process that begins with the arrival of the raw hanks of wool. The only part of the production no longer done in-house is the dyeing. Everything else, from the winding of the cops – winding cotton, or jute into thin little cones of yarn to go inside the shuttles to supply the weft yarn – to the punching of the cards happens here in Halifax. Every person has a specific job – from Raymond Branter, who loads the creels onto the loom, to Michelle Newton, who carefully checks every millimetre of carpet and mends any irregularities after it comes off the loom.

It is wonderful and heartwarming to see the enthusiasm for and pride in the part they play in the creation of this extraordinary product. I leave Avena uplifted, and with my head buzzing with designs from the rows of samples in the archive – a veritable sweet shop for any designer looking for something to anchor or lift a room m avenacarpets.com

ABOVE Designs are punched onto cards using a traditional machine. BELOW Craig Sloan loads the creels that hold the yarn onto the loom. BELOW RIGHT CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT A fine-pitch Brussels loom, weaving worsted wool. Wool colour tufts for bespoke project requirements. Michelle Newton inspects and mends the carpet. Archived job slips

One of the LOOMS is the only one of its TYPE that still exists and only one man has the SKILL to use it

SAMSON KAMBALU

Spending time with Samson Kambalu – whose Antelope sculpture is scheduled to soon occupy Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth – is akin to accompanying a dragonfly on its zigzag flight. Striding at some speed, he leads us back and forth through the sun-dappled cloisters of the Great Quad at Oxford’s Magdalen College, past the ancient deer park, into the modern library, then – via a succession of pauses in panelled common rooms – up to the medieval Hall.

Samson is a fellow of Magdalen and associate professor of fine art and director of research at The Ruskin School of Art, and the peregrination is pertinent. Despite having use of a study in college and Dylan Thomas’ former writing hut on the banks of the River Cherwell, Samson’s practice is

consciously unconstrained by walls. ‘I did once try having a studio, but Africa wasn’t going to come to me there,’ he says. Samson was born and raised in Malawi during the early years of independence – a childhood he has charted in his book The Jive Talker: Or How to Get a British Passport*. Antelope began with a 1914 photograph he found in the African and Commonwealth archives of Oxford’s Weston Library. It shows the Baptist preacher and pan-Africanist John Chilembwe – leader of an uprising that led to the founding of Malawi – with John Chorley, a white European missionary. Both are wearing hats. ‘For Chilembwe, it was an act of defiance. It was illegal for a black man to wear a hat or shoes in the presence of a white man. But, e

The Magdalen College fellow and Fourth Plinth artist takes FIONA McKENZIE JOHNSTON and photographer JOSHUA MONAGHAN on a whistle-stop tour of places in Oxford that inspire his work

Artists in their studio

evidently, Chorley supported him,’ says Samson. He has made Chorley lifesize and Chilembwe much larger, correcting an imbalance in narrative from the other side of colonial rule.

That variance is a thread through Samson’s art: ‘In Africa, we don’t have museums, but we have traditions – we have Nyau practice, we have masking. Masks aren’t accessories to hide behind: masks help adults play and play is the dance of the universe.’ Such irreverence is reflected in his performance pieces, often posted on social media. The shelves of his study contain wigs for such occasions and a bag of rubber bones – a purchase inspired by a scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey

This curious mix of pop culture and tradition is embodied by Samson himself, who often pairs brands such as Armani and Dolce & Gabbana with academic regalia – and a hat. ‘I’ve situated my practice in the territory of the dandy, the flâneur,’ he explains. ‘It’s art as lifestyle.’ The dragonfly, symbolic of change and uninhibited vision, seems an appropriate analogy in more ways than one m Samson is represented by Kate MacGarry in London, Galerie Nordenhake in Stockholm and Goodman Gallery in South Africa: samsonkambalu.com katemacgarry.com | nordenhake.com | goodman-gallery.com

ABOVE CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Samson on the roof of Magdalen College. His style is a reflection of his practice – ‘in the territory of the dandy, the flâneur’. In Magdalen’s Hall. The sign outside his study. TOP RIGHT A maquette of Antelope, which was sponsored by Galerie Nordenhake. RIGHT By a college staircase in Dolce & Gabbana trousers, an Armani waistcoat and Amiri boots

GREAT LIGHTING IS AN ART

Garden series: part 8 FLOWER BY NAME

Continuing her series in which she meets people passionate about saving the planet, CLARE FOSTER talks to Charles Flower about his meadow consultancy and wild flower seed business

These days, everyone wants a wild flower meadow. Landowners, farmers, community gardeners and even city dwellers are all eager for their own slice of nature. But when the aptly named Charles Flower started a meadow consultancy and wild flower seed business in the Eighties, he was most certainly the odd one out. Having worked in the brewing industry for the first decade of his career, Charles had travelled extensively round Britain and saw the countryside being devastated by intensive agriculture. This was enough to send him off on a new trajectory and, having been introduced to the ecologist Sir Frank Fraser Darling, he enrolled on the ecological science course at the University of Edinburgh in 1973, aged 33.

The course changed his life: ‘I was convinced then this was the direction I wanted to take.’ For the following five years, he ran the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers and then he came into some money, which he used to buy a small farm in Wiltshire.

‘Everyone thought I was mad,’ he says. ‘The 175 acres weren’t enough to make a viable farm and my parents were completely horrified. But I wanted to restore the countryside.’ Using the new farm as a test bed for his regenerative ideas, Charles started planting native wild flowers, creating headlands and margins around his arable fields to accommodate them. ‘We had started by putting all the hedgerows back and I noticed that there still weren’t any butterflies,’ he says. ‘The penny dropped and I realised that, without wild flowers, there wouldn’t be butterflies.’

In the late Eighties, his fellow farmers were sceptical. ‘The overwhelming view was that you couldn’t get wild flowers to grow on arable land, as it was too fertile,’ he says. ‘I sowed my first headland 10 metres wide and 200 metres long and it grew brilliantly.’

By the end of that decade, the price of grain crops was falling and Charles knew he needed to diversify; he began to grow wild flower seed crops to harvest, so he could sell his own seed mixes. He organised workshops for farmers and landowners, and soon countryside agencies such as The Wildlife Trusts and Natural England were sending representatives. ‘They came because I was saying the opposite to everyone else – that it was perfectly possible to grow wild flowers on farms.’ On his own farm, he began to see the benefits: ‘Hundreds of butterflies, grasshoppers, moths and other insects appeared, because the nectar supply had been restored.’

Since then, Charles has advised on a vast number of projects in the South of England for clients who want to transform grass or arable land into species-rich meadow. As well as small garden projects, he has worked on meadow land at Highgrove, Kensington Palace and Stonehenge, where he managed the regeneration of 600 acres of former arable land around the monument.

For the past two years, Charles has been joined in the business by his daughter Sarah, who studied geography at Anglia Ruskin University. Together, they work with leading garden designers, such as Tom Stuart-Smith, and run workshops on making meadows, collecting seed and propagating wild flowers.

As they discuss the finer details of establishing a wild flower meadow, it is clear that educating people about management is key. The most important part of the initial sowing is to create a sterile seed bed. ‘Without using herbicides, this is done by harrowing the land,’ explains Charles. ‘In spring, the grass should be ploughed or rotavated and the soil left bare for the dormant weed seeds to chit and flush. Then, you have to reduce the weeds by harrowing whenever there is a new flush of weeds.’ This may have to be repeated up to four or five times over the spring and summer, gradually knocking out the dormant weed seeds. Once this is done, the wild flower seed can be sown in early autumn.

Ironically, ex-arable land that has been impoverished by repeated cycles of pesticides and artificial fertilisers is easier to establish as a meadow than grassland, where the sward of grass may harbour difficult weeds such as docks. The parasitic yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor) plays a crucial part in establishing meadows on this type of land, as it halves grass growth – opening up the sward helps other wild flower species germinate. After the initial sowing, the meadow needs to be carefully managed, otherwise diversity begins to decline. In the first year, Charles advises keeping all areas mown down to 20cm until the end of June and then to cut and clear it at the end of September. In subsequent years, the meadow is left to flower and set seed, and then it is mown at the end of July or early August, so that the yellow rattle can control the grass growth. The best results from yellow rattle are seen when the meadow is grazed by sheep in autumn, which keeps the grass down as well as treading the seeds into the soil.

For Charles and Sarah, the most rewarding projects are those that yield unexpected results. ‘I got a call from someone earlier this year asking me to go and see their meadow,’ says Charles. ‘I arrived and it was completely pink. Thousands of pyramidal orchids had been released from dormancy by yellow rattle pushing the grass aside, it was astonishing.’

Offering seed mixes and sage advice for every kind of site and soil condition, from chalk downland to wetland and woodland, the Flowers are the leading meadow experts in the UK, with decades of experience. ‘When people see local meadows that have been successful, the message starts spreading – the countryside grapevine is extraordinary,’ says Charles. With every meadow they create, another link in the chain is added, joining up areas to restore the countryside our wildlife so desperately needs m

Charles Flower: charlesflower.com

Stories

distemper

MICHAEL

TEXT DAVID NICHOLLS

Modern, dramagothic,

With such an extraordinary, enigmatic exterior to live up to, the interior of this north London house required special treatment. The owners called in visionary design studio Maddux Creative and the resulting collaboration is a masterclass in distinctive detail

EXTERIOR The gothic arch windows and decorative bargeboards painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Dix Blue’ stand out against the pale Kentish ragstone façade. DINING ROOM A chandelier from Windsor House Antiques hangs above a bespoke table with Portofino marble inserts, which is paired with gothic chairs from John Nicholas Antiques

DRAWING ROOM Walls in Phillip Jeffries’ ‘Leo’s Luxe’ linen in brando blue, curtains in Watts 1874’s ‘Tresco’ linen mix in prussian blue and a bespoke Pierre Frey rug establish a blue and gold palette. This sets off the antique red chairs and standard lamp, and the green ‘Conversation Piece’ by George Smith. On the table next to the fireplace is one of a series of artworks by Darren Waterston

DRAWING ROOM A wall hanging sourced from a vintage textile dealer is the backdrop for a sofa in Holland & Sherry’s ‘Primo’ velvet in calypso. The scroll-armed sofa is in ‘Montepulciano’ chenille in argento from Watts 1874. Maddux Creative designed the corner cabinets, which were made by Wardour Workshops with verre églomisé peacock panels by Studio Peascod

SITTING ROOM

The bespoke rattan-backed sofa is teamed with vintage rattan finds – an ‘Emmanuelle’ peacock chair from Pamono and a mirror from 1stDibs. CONSERVATORY Maison Gatti French café chairs echo the London Mosaic floor tiles KITCHEN A rug taken from a larger piece of William Morris carpet picks up on the DeVol cabinets in a custom blue. HALL Farrow & Ball’s ‘Castle Gray’ on the lower part of the walls complements Watts 1874’s ‘Pineapple’ wallpaper in castle grey

DRESSING ROOM The ceiling clad in reclaimed wood from The Main Company contrasts with the elegant cabinetry in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Castle Gray’ with gold-leaf tracery. An antique valet stand is positioned beside the antique copper bath, both from The Water Monopoly

MAIN BEDROOM Fromental’s ‘Prunus’ wallcovering in a bespoke colourway showcases the carved walnut four-poster, which has a bedcover in Schumacher’s ‘Khotan Weave’. The custom sofa in de Le Cuona’s ‘Vienna Velvet’ anchors a ‘Digby’ rug in bone from Stark

SPARE ROOM Morris & Co’s ‘Compton’ wallpaper envelops the space. MAIN BATHROOM Arabescato marble provides a striking background for the Catchpole & Rye shower CORRIDOR Murals painted by Lizzi Porter frame the door to the turret, where there is a bespoke peacock hanging seat made by Justin Van Breda. GUEST BATHROOM Balineum

wall tiles showcase the Thomas Crapper basin EXTERIOR Built from Petersen Tegl brick, the extension is a harmonious yet distinct addition

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mong their many talents, Scott Maddux and Jo leGleud of Maddux Creative have a rare skill for adding a sense of drama to a project. This can be – and has been – expressed in a seemingly endless number of ways, from a dazzling gold sitting room ceiling to a bold juxtaposition of the very contemporary and the antique. A close relationship with top decorative paint specialists is a key part of their armoury.

The project on these pages might be seen as Maddux Creative’s magnum opus. As with the most successful undertakings, it was one that was shared, in this case with Jenifer and Kunal, the young couple who bought this house in north London and had plenty of ideas and ambition of their own.

Built in 1879 for the grand sum of £4,600, it is in the gothic revival style and has a commanding presence. The exterior bears some of the hallmarks of the style – from the pointed arches of the windows to the quatrefoil motif – and foreshadows what is to be found inside. It is no surprise to learn that it was once used as a location for a Hammer Horror-inspired episode of the BBC TV programme Inside No. 9; the review in The Times advised it was ‘best avoided by those of a nervous disposition’.

Jenifer and Kunal met as students at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, a stone’s throw from the gothic masterpiece that is King’s College Chapel. During the summer, they would escape to Italy where they were taken by the country’s own versions of gothic and gothic revival architecture. Perhaps these memories were stirred when they came across this house for sale in 2013. ‘It was the only house that we viewed,’ recalls Kunal. ‘We walked in, loved it and knew that we had to buy it.’

A previous, unsuccessful buyer had secured planning permission for a series of works. This was no mean feat considering the Grade II listing of the house and the highly engaged local conservation society. Wisely, the couple decided to piggyback on some of these permissions and instructed the same architect, Frank Reynolds. It was his London practice that also designed the eye-catching extension.

While the peak-and-trough roofline of this addition mimics that of the main house, it is built in slimline Danish brick. This creates a distinction from the original house, which is clad in stone, cut in a crazy-paving pattern. Within is a huge, modern-country-style DeVol kitchen, which benefits from plenty of natural light.

Before buying the house, which they share with their two small children, Jenifer and Kunal were living in a contemporary flat in Shoreditch. They knew they would need help with such a large project and kept coming across the name Maddux Creative, which they had spotted in House & Garden’s list of Top 100 Interior Designers and in The World of Interiors, when a Maddux-designed arabescato marble-clad bathroom was featured on one of its covers.

‘I remember thinking “Wow”,’ Kunal explains. ‘I really liked what they did with the materials and the colours they used.’

Moving from the kitchen to the front of the house, you pass through the original conservatory, which has several skinny windows that are topped with gothic arches. Under the glass roof,

a quatrefoil-within-octagon

frieze was added. These two motifs are standard gothic fare, and were inspired by those on the original chimneypieces and wooden doors. The frieze reappears in the adjacent sitting room, under a newly created octagonal skylight. These two rooms are bright and airy spaces, rich in understated detail. Things get more lavish as you progress through the house.

First to the dining room, where Maddux Creative took its lead from what Scott calls the ‘polychromatic’ Victorians. ‘You see it a lot in houses in San Francisco, where that tradition is still very much alive,’ he explains. ‘They will use eight or nine colours to create a pleasing whole.’ In this case, the myriad blues, reds and yellows of the wallpaper borders are picked out on painted walls and ceilings. So strong are the original features that these decorative gestures enhance rather than overshadow them. ‘When you are working in a house with this level of detail, you have to bring something of the same level,’ Scott continues. He points out the long, octagonal table that they designed: it is set with panels of Portofino marble shot through with fiery red veins.

Colour inspiration for the drawing room next door came from the celebrated Peacock Room, decorated by James Whistler and Thomas Jeckyll. Also known as Harmony in Blue and Gold, it was created in a Kensington house at around the same time that this one was built. These colours define the luxuriantly swathed Victorian salon of a space, from the gold-flecked wallpaper to the peacock-themed, verre-églomiséfronted corner cabinets. Inspiration alsocamefromartistDarrenWaterston, whose clever reimagining of the Peacock Room was displayed at the V&A a couple of years ago, and whom Scott, Jo, Kunal and Jenifer commissioned to create a group of artworks for this room.

Into the broad entrance hall and up the once-whitewashed staircase, which is now stripped back and dressed in a bespoke Le Manach runner from Pierre Frey, you arrive on the first floor. Here, three rooms have been converted for Jenifer and Kunal. It is bright again up here, thanks in no small part to the decision to remove the ceilings in the bedroom and the dressing room. ‘These came out during construction and, when they saw the enormous volume, they wanted to keep it,’ Jo explains. Anything above the original ceiling height remains seemingly rough and unfinished (it is actually clad in reclaimed barnwood and the beams are perfectly stripped back). Below this line, the decoration is refined – from the hand-painted wallcovering in the bedroom to the gold leaf added to the gothic tracery on the dressing room cabinets. Jenifer describes the process of restoring this house to its former glory as a labour of love. ‘But also insanity,’ she admits. ‘You do have to be a little bit mad to take on a project like this and to persevere with it.’ What was meant to be a 13-month refurbishment turned into a complete restoration and rebuild that lasted more than five years. ‘There’s something about this house,’ she says. ‘When you walk in, it seems to have a life of its own. I feel like we are its caretakers, rather than simply the owners’ m

Maddux Creative: madduxcreative.com

Frank Reynolds Architects: frarchitects.com

HOUSE ON

Drawn to this Georgian home in Berkshire by its tranquil waterside location, the owners tasked Turner Pocock’s designers with creating interiors that would reflect the surrounding natural beauty and provide a welcoming space for visiting family and friends

THE LAKE

DRAWING ROOM Bespoke metal shelf units from Tom Faulkner stand behind an Ensemblier ‘Eltham’ sofa in blue linen from Robert Allen, with cushions in a Tapet-Cafe striped linen. On the mantelshelf, ‘Pumpkin’ lamps from Porta Romana flank a circular metal relief by Rowan Mersh from Gallery Fumi. ‘Gimlet’ armchairs by Ben Whistler are covered in a Zoe Glencross fabric

DRAWING ROOM In one corner, cyanotypes sourced by art consultant Rebecca Gordon are the backdrop to a seating area with a concrete and bronze table from Talisman. LIBRARY Soane’s ‘Simplified Boyd’ chairs, in leather from Moore & Giles, partner a live-edged walnut table with metal legs by Handmade in Brighton. The rug is from Peter Page. SITTING ROOM A Lorfords sofa in blue linen is paired with two sheepskin-upholstered ‘Chagal’ chairs by Julian Chichester. BOOT ROOM Tumbled Dorset limestone provides practical flooring. The seat cushion is in Fanny Shorter’s ‘Mill Pond’ linen in a bespoke colour

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sturdy oak gate opens onto a narrow lane, overhung with trees and bordered by ferns, which winds down the gentle valley to reveal – at its lowest point – a lake fringed with rhododendrons whose reflections make a mirror image in the water. On the left, an elegant Georgian house overlooks the lake and, straight ahead, half buried in the opposite slope, is a long and low modern pool house, its façade a curve of glass. The only sound is birdsong and the occasional swish as a waterbird lands on the lake.

‘The owners fell in love with this place the moment they came down the drive,’ says Bunny Turner of the interior designer studio Turner Pocock, who, with her partner Emma Pocock, was tasked with making this Berkshire house a meeting place for a family who have relatives all round the world. It was not just the seclusion, but also the lack of ostentation that drew them to this very English scene.

Turner Pocock worked on this project with Yiangou architects, who added the stone-pillared porch, which gives the house more definition. On opening the front door, you find yourself in a library, with a robust liveedged walnut central table lit by a pair of hefty lamps of a style often seen in college libraries. The owners met at Cambridge and, judging by the books lining the shelves, both they and their three children – aged between five and 13 – have a great appetite for learning and reading. A pair of chairs by Soane, covered in pale blue leather, is the first gentle iteration of a blue and white palette that is continued in the drawing room beyond and over the whole of the ground floor.

‘We like to create a rhythm through a house,’ says Bunny. Here, you look over the back of a plump white, deliciously soft sofa, to a more shapely one by Ensemblier opposite, covered in blue linen, both flanked by buttoned armchairs, also blue. In one corner, a round table with a bronze top and concrete base – ideal for doing jigsaws or checking a laptop – is surrounded by a grid of cyanotype prints of plants, sourced for the house by art consultant Rebecca Gordon. ‘Our clients wanted the interiors to reflect the abundance of nature outside,’ says Bunny. ‘But they didn’t want soft florals – they opted instead for Fanny Shorter’s strong graphic patterns featuring plants and animals.’

The wallpaper in the sitting room next door is also by Fanny, where sofas and a pair of mid-century-style chairs upholstered in sheepskin are arranged around a low central coffee table with a handy shelf under it, used for storing board games.

When the whole family gets together, there can be as many as 16 cousins in the house and the kitchen,

which can be seen through a door from the sitting room, is where they congregate. Turner Pocock created this room from a series of smaller spaces, including the original dark kitchen. It has tall metal windows overlooking the garden, designed by Mazzullo + Russell. These make it a light-filled – if slightly distracting – place to cook. There is also a huge island. ‘I asked the client, “Are we sure that we want such an insanely monumental island?” ’ recalls Bunny. ‘But she was quite sure – she’s a great cook, making jams and wonderful salads with produce from the garden.’

The kitchen floor looks like limed oak parquet, but is in fact wood-effect ceramic. ‘It’s brilliant for this hightraffic area,’ explains Bunny. ‘Real wood would have had dreadful tracking marks.’ The internal details of the kitchen cupboards, in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Hague Blue,’ are also testimony to Turner Pocock’s careful attention to the practical needs of an excellent cook. The interior of one of the cupboards, housing a rice cooker, is lined with stone, as the steam could have damaged wood, and specially designed chill drawers help to keep herbs fresh and salads crisp until mealtimes.

Small details also make a big difference in a visiting cousins’ bunk bedroom upstairs. ‘We make the frames for bunk beds slightly larger than typical mattresses, to give room for the duvet, so bed-making is easier,’ says Bunny. Each bunk has its own light, a shelf for books and a glass of water, plus a light-excluding wool curtain, for children who go to bed at different times.’ There is lots of hidden storage and cupboards are flush to the floor, so suitcases can be wheeled straight in.

There is a restful off-white theme in the main bedroom, with its de Gournay hand-painted wallpaper and a metal-framed four-poster bed overhung by a loop of softest alpaca. The owner insisted there be no marble surfaces in the bathroom next door, as she finds them too showy – the glorious views of woods and lake from both windows are show enough.

For her sons’ bedroom, however, the owner told Emma and Bunny, ‘Go wild; do something crazy and fun.’ So they have made a boys’ kingdom, which feels like a treehouse. A leaf-patterned wallpaper makes a background for four bunk beds, with pointed roofs, a slide down from the top bunk and a wealth of concealed storage in the many crannies. If nature is the decorative inspiration inside the house, in the woods outside there are small houses set among trees and shrubs: a treehouse you can sleep in, with a swaying walkway high up among the branches; a cosy hobbit house deep in the woods, with interiors so elegant they would make Bilbo Baggins blush; and the boat house, the wooden sides of which can be lifted to open the interior to the air. Here, the family can cook and eat overlooking the water, or spend a lazy afternoon reading, suspended in a woven structure over the lake itself, with just birdsong for company m

Turner Pocock: turnerpocock.co.uk

KITCHEN (both pages) Vintage industrial pendants from Skinflint hang above the island, in this kitchen by Blakes London, which is topped with Caesarstone’s ‘Fresh Concrete’ and holds two sinks with Abode’s ‘Stalto’ taps in a custom satin-brass finish. The units below are painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Hague Blue’. The counter stools are from Cox & Cox. Niels Møller’s ‘Model 78’ dining chairs from Skandium, in an acrylic stripe from Perennials, surround a bespoke pippy oak table by Rupert Bevan, with Original BTC’s Diner 75 lights above. Ceramic wood-effect tiles from Parkside were laid to resemble parquet

MAIN BEDROOM Hand-painted wallpaper by de Gournay creates a beautiful background for a custom-made metal four-poster, with bed hangings in an alpaca fabric from Lauren Hwang New York. The ‘Salina’ ceramic table lamp in teal from Paolo Moschino adds a dash of bold colour to an otherwise pale scheme, with curtains in ‘Bartok’ linen from Shelia Coombes, a ‘Dunton’ ottoman by Ben Whistler, covered in Veere Grenney’s ‘Temple’ linen in pink, and an ‘Aries’ wool carpet from Tim Page

MAIN BATHROOM A roll-top bath and Lefroy Brooks’ ‘La Chapelle’ console basin are set off by Studio Express ‘Wicker Mosaic’ floor tiles from Waterworks. The blind was painted to match the bedroom wallpaper. SPARE ROOM Fermoie’s ‘Wicker’ linen on a Ben Whistler blanket box picks up on curtains in ‘Lotus’ in emerald from Galbraith & Paul. SONS’ BEDROOM Bunk beds by Turner Pocock emerge from ‘Feuilles de Luxe’ wallpaper from The Loft & Us. The ‘Monkey’ rug is by Jane Bristowe for Amy Kent. SPARE ROOM The Rug Company’s jolly ‘Frog’ rug by Barber & Osgerby brightens a bunk room for visiting cousins

BOAT HOUSE (top left and right) A section of the wooden roof and side-panels can be raised to open the space to its surroundings. John Lewis’s ‘Calia’ dining table and bench and Julian Chichester archive ‘N’ chairs in a blue Mark Alexander fabric stand out against the dark-stained interior. HOBBIT HOUSE (above left and right) With mattresses in Perennials fabrics, beanbags in And Objects’ ‘Tangle’ linen/viscose for Christopher Farr Cloth and a ‘Roland’ handwoven acrylic rug from Peter Page, this is the perfect hideaway in the woods for children. EXTERIOR Yiangou added a stone-pillared porch to the Georgian house

It was not just the seclusion, but also the lack of ostentation that drew the owners to this very English scene

Life in colour

Known for his artful way with bold hues, interior architect Hugh Leslie has turned his talents to every aspect of this picture-perfect London flat, designing much of the furniture and using eye-catching displays of paintings and objets to create a sophisticated yet practical home

SITTING ROOM (both pages) The walnut table, the corner banquette and a pair of chairs based on a Scandinavian design – all custom made – create an inviting spot for dining. An eclectic display of art includes an original Picasso linocut, Tête de Femme au Chapeau/Paysage avec Baigneurs, above the chimneypiece, a painting by John Hoyland above the sofa and Oceanic wooden shields. The ‘F10’ single-arm chair is from Mint

SITTING ROOM An ancestor shield from Papua New Guinea hangs between the French windows, framed by curtains in ‘Pienza Tigrotto’ linen in tangerine/ivory from C&C Milano. The sofa is covered in Prelle’s ‘Fleuret Jaspé’ viscose/cotton in persan from Alton-Brooke. Flexform’s ‘Boss’ swivel chairs, with seat cushions in Namay Samay’s ‘Mende’ striped silk in indigo, face the custom coffee table in blackened steel with a white ebony veneer top. The rug is from Sandy Jones

KITCHEN (opposite) Walls panelled in European oak showcase two abstract artworks by Debbie Loftus above the breakfast bar, which is teamed with a vintage orange stool from 1stDibs and a ‘Chester’ wall light in satin copper from Original BTC. CORRIDOR Hugh has concealed useful storage behind doors with striking cut-out designs, which tone with the walls in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Oval Room Blue’. A custom-made Scandinavian tufted-back chair, which matches those in the sitting room, stands on the new oak floorboards below composite photographs of Pisa (top) and Reims cathedrals, with a Noguchi lantern above

What a relief that the days of beige, greige and all those nothings in between are over. Colour, in all its infinite variety, is back and those designers adept in its use are revelling in the chance to open the door and let in the light. Certainly, the interior designer Hugh Leslie is very much into colour, as is illustrated in his transformation of this garden-square flat in central London, commissioned by an owner who loves colour almost as much as Hugh does.

A perfect flat is one that is cocooning to the owner and welcoming to guests at the same time. A perfect flat is also one where there is a place for everything and everything in its place – but with all the boring bits out of sight. In other words, the perfect flat is like this one, of which the owner says, ‘It works perfectly for us – Hugh is brilliant at the management of space.’

This is a lateral conversion that stretches across two buildings. It is, however, still relatively compact, with two bedrooms, a practical and comfortable sitting room, and a chameleon-like kitchen-cum-hall. Originally, the front door opened directly onto a narrow corridor that ran the length of the flat, with the kitchen, shower room and bedroom on one side, and the sitting room and main bedroom leading off the other, garden-square side.

‘It was dismal,’ declares the owner, ‘but Hugh has transformed it.’ He did this with a simple but gamechanging solution, which was to remove the corridor wall and completely open up the space, in effect creating a hall/kitchen that flows through into the sitting room. He panelled the newly created space in warm European oak, installed a chic breakfast bar, and banished kitchen necessities to behind the panelling, as well as to a selfcontained pantry. He also laid wide oak floorboards that run through the whole flat and unify the space.

The open-plan room is a space for living, where the owner can eat and relax, with separate areas connected by a rug from Sandy Jones. In one corner, there is a highbacked banquette as well as an oval walnut dining table. A new chimneypiece is framed in green onyx with a marble mosaic inset. Across the room is a capacious sofa fronted by a coffee table topped with white ebony.

The sitting room perfectly illustrates Hugh’s talents: he thinks of his work as interior architecture rather than simply interior decoration and the term is fitting as, like so many architects of the 18th and early 19th centuries, he also designs much of the furniture. When Hugh was training as an interior designer in New Zealand in the Eighties, furniture design was part of the course and it has become a large element of his work today. ‘Every piece is made in this country by craftsmen and I use traditional materials that work with both the period of the building and the owners’ style,’ explains Hugh. ‘Obviously there is a practical reason for each piece, but I also love the fact that there’s such a wealth of materials to draw upon. You can be much more specific when you

design furniture and every project is different – being able to tailor-make each piece is a delight.’

Beyond the open-plan room is the calm main bedroom. An antique Japanese paper screen hangs above the bed and, on the other side of the room, there is an inviting chaise longue in toffee-coloured corduroy, emphasising the vibrant tones of the Alan Davie painting behind it. Another Sandy Jones rug, which looks like water flowing on sand, ripples over the oak floor. The bedside tables, chest of drawers and bookcase table were all designed by Hugh specifically for the room – again balancing the practical and the sophisticated. The main bathroom is equally considered, with walls clad in a bespoke mosaic design that echoes the tribal art hung throughout the flat. Hugh is also brilliant at the hidden, behind-the-scenes details: doors seem to disappear into walls; and awkward corners have been transformed into storage. This is what design is about and it is unsurprising he is so good at it as, before starting his own business in the early 2000s, he worked with three of the best designers in Britain: John Stefanidis, from whom he learned ‘to be bold and courageous’; David Mlinaric (‘who taught me to appreciate the historical sense of every project’); and Chester Jones (‘who showed me that you can never put too much effort into a project, nor is there such a thing as overthinking’). Little wonder the owner is so happy with the results: ‘Whenever I come into the flat, it puts a smile on my face,’ she says, contentedly m

Hugh Leslie: hughleslie.com

An 18th-century Japanese paper screen from Gregg Baker hangs above the bed and bedside tables, which are paired with Penny Morrison lamps. Curtains in ‘Pienza Lince’ linen in acquamarine/natural from C&C Milano pick up on the Sandy Jones rug. Flexform’s ‘Evergreen’ chaise longue in Etro corduroy sets off the Alan Davie painting on the far wall

MAIN BEDROOM (both pages)

capsule

Though over 300 years old, this Northamptonshire house had lost much of its character until its owners enlisted the help of trusted decorator Robert Young, who restored a sense of its past with a mix of antiques, folk art and rich distemper walls

SITTING ROOM The blue chalk-based distemper walls were created by DKT Artworks to complement the antique corner cupboard, found for the owners’ previous house in London by Robert, who also sourced the primitive Welsh comb-back Windsor armchair, c1790, beside it. An American Windsor rocking chair, c1840, stands to one side of the fireplace, where a pair of cat and dog English folk art dummy boards, c1780, sit on the hearth. The vintage Ziegler carpet adds pattern

Such is the case with this 17th-century dower house in Northamptonshire, where a patchwork of terracotta tiles and wooden boards, rich distemper walls, and an exquisite collection of primitive English furniture and folk art sit together to create an interior that looks as though it has remained largely unchanged for the best part of 400 years. That was all part of the plan, of course. ‘We wanted to make it look like it had always been this way,’ says antique dealer and interior designer Robert Young, who worked on the house just over 20 years ago, in collaboration with the then owners, who were in their seventies at the time. ‘Almost everything that looks original is in fact a new addition,’ explains Robert, gesturing to the uneven-width reclaimed floorboards in the entrance hall. ‘Over the years, the character had been lost, so the house was really quite ordinary. One of the only things we retained was a built-in cupboard in the dining room, which we had dry-scraped to reveal the original paint.’

The house no longer exists in the form seen here: shortly after the House & Garden photo shoot, it was sold by the owners’ two daughters, following their parents’ deaths. These pictures, therefore, are a record of a house that was the culmination of a 35-year relationship between Robert and his clients. ‘I first met them in the Eighties when I was painting murals,’ he recalls. ‘They were living in London at the time and asked me to do some painting in their house. One day, the man said to me, “I like you; I like your colour palettes.” I wondered what he was talking about, because there wasn’t that much on the walls at that point, but he meant the flecks of paint on my ladder.’

Although Robert was yet to set up Rivière, the interior design studio he co-founded with his wife Josyane in 1983, he started to advise the couple on interior decoration. They became regular customers at the antiques shop he opened in Battersea, too, indulging their love for vernacular English furniture. The pair bought this house in 2000, having sold a sprawling Queen Anne house in Bedfordshire. While relatively humble by comparison, this house provided them with an opportunity to bring together treasured pieces and create exactly the interiors they wanted. ‘From the word go, it was very much a place where they could welcome their grandchildren and live with their favourite things,’ explains their youngest daughter. Spread across two floors, with a further attic bedroom, the house is mostly one room deep, with six bedrooms on the upper floors and a modest kitchen on the ground floor leading onto a dining room, an entrance room and two sitting rooms.

THE HALL (top) An English Naive School painting of a sheldrake duck hangs above a 1780 West Country elm settle, paired with a 17th-century walnut gate-leg table KITCHEN (above and opposite) Antique wood treen and china pieces are displayed above cupboards designed by Robert, in a custom ‘Buttermilk’ paint. Beside them is an 18th-century English ladderback armchair and Welsh sycamore cricket table. English gothic lace-back Windsor chairs, c1830, partner a table adapted by Robert to incorporate a marble slab. Reclaimed French terracotta floor tiles add to the rustic look

Some of the most enchanting houses are those where any alterations are inconspicuous: the type where you would be hard pushed to distinguish old from new and would struggle to detect the hand of an interior designer...

DINING ROOM (both pages) The broken-colour walls, built up in layers with chalkbased distemper then varnished for added depth and patina, are the backdrop to 19th-century paintings from the English Naive School. A 17th-century English oak love seat, with 18th-century antique verdure tapestry upholstery, stands on the floor created from reclaimed wooden boards and terracotta tiles, arranged diagonally to make the room feel larger. The French sheet-metal stylised cockerel weathervane, c1840, sourced by Robert, contrasts with a 19th-century American rooster weathervane, from dealer Andras Kalman, displayed on the windowsill

‘Though it required an enormous amount of work, they felt the skeleton was beautiful enough,’ adds the eldest daughter.

Robert was called onto the project at the start, as were a trusted builder and a carpenter who had worked for the owners on previous projects. Garden designer Arne Maynard was tasked with reconfiguring the grounds to help bed the house into its surroundings. At the front, a tired kitchen garden was replaced by a series of box balls, while the rear underwent the most significant transformation with the addition of a cobbled driveway and a small stream, which now connect the house to a string of outbuildings, including a home office.

When it came to the interior, the layout remained largely the same upstairs, but changes were made downstairs. In the kitchen, Robert added a door, which opens out onto the courtyard and became the main entrance to the house. A chimney breast was removed to make way for an Aga and –at the husband’s request – a deep fat fryer. ‘They had big demands for a small space, so it was a case of squeezing it all in,’ explains Robert, gesturing to a half-wood, half-marble table at its centre. ‘He wanted to make pastry, so we chose this lovely piece of marble and had the table adapted.’ The former entrance hall at the front of the house was opened up to create a space generous enough to accommodate a remarkably large 1780 West Country elm settle, which the owners had bought almost 20 years previously. ‘It’s a rare piece and I’m so pleased that they pushed to include it here,’ Robert enthuses.

Much of the furniture and art came with the owners, including a stellar collection of vernacular antique comb-back and Windsor chairs acquired from Robert, as well as dealers such as Andras Kalman. ‘Some of what they had was not suited to the scale of this house, so we edited it down to their favourite things and bought some bits specifically for the space.’ The colour and finish of the blue walls of the main sitting room were created to complement a blue painted corner cupboard, which had originally been sourced by Robert for the owners’ London house. ‘The wall colour was based on a Georgian blue reference,’ explains Robert. ‘It was achieved with layers of chalk-based distemper by DKT Artworks. It was built up gradually from an orangey-red ground and it was a real lesson in colour for me.’ The wall colours throughout were all mixed by hand: the dining room, for instance, is an inviting red, while the husband’s dressing room upstairs – ‘actually somewhere he’d go for a smoke’, Robert says, with a smile – is a richer red distemper. Although much of the furniture and the artworks are rare examples of their type, the owners were not precious. ‘Dad would love sitting with his grandchildren, explaining how a primitive lantern worked, and nothing was ever off limits or behind glass,’ explains the youngest daughter. Many of the pieces have now been passed on to them and on to the grandchildren, who were able to choose one piece each. One granddaughter chose the huge settle, while a grandson picked a handsome 18th-century upright hall chair. In a case of serendipity, he later discovered that at some point in its history, someone had graffitied a set of initials – the same as his own –under the seat. ‘This was such a happy house and the pieces we have remind us of that,’ says the eldest daughter m

Robert Young Antiques: robertyoungantiques.com

BATHROOM Pigmented and aged distemper was used to create the look of limewashed walls by DKT Artworks, which blended the colour on the panelling to match a Georgian sample. The chair is Swedish, c1800. MAIN BEDROOM (above) Chintz curtains frame wooden decoy pigeons, c1900, sourced by Robert, as was the 19th-century Alsatian bedcover NURSERY (opposite) Walls in fabric from Pierre Frey’s ‘Comoglio Collection’ and a bespoke bed were chosen with grandchildren in mind. The primitive stick and comb-back chair in ash and oak came from Csaky Antiques

Sculptural appropriation

A glorious showcase for the elemental works by its namesake and other artists, the garden at The Hepworth Wakefield gallery was devised by Tom Stuart-Smith as a vibrant yet tranquil space with distinctive plantings that captivate visitors throughout the year

A changing display of four large outdoor sculptures – works from Wakefield’s own collection, specially commissioned pieces and loans from other organisations – extends the art from the gallery into the garden. Three works by Barbara Hepworth are seen here amid perennials including mauve Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’ and yellow rudbeckia and coreopsis, with plumes of Stipa calamagrostis and dark seed heads of achillea and phlomis adding structural interest

Sculptural beech hedges form a repeating motif across the space, where meandering concrete paths harmonise with the gallery building. A high concrete wall screens the garden from a busy road, along with several large pin oaks (Quercus palustris), and picks up on the pale tones of Barbara Hepworth’s Contrapuntal Forms (left) and her Turning Forms (right). In the foreground, her bronze Ascending Form (Gloria) is softened by the arching, fluffy heads of Pennisetum ‘Fairy Tails’ at its base

ABOVE LEFT The feathery flower panicles of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Ferner Osten’ provide a textural and tonal contrast with Barbara Hepworth’s Turning Forms in white-painted concrete on steel.

ABOVE RIGHT Her bronze Ascending Form (Gloria) emerges from a sea of Pennisetum ‘Fairy Tails’, its distinctive shape showcased by small trees behind, including Malus ‘Evereste’ and Styrax japonicus

‘Kyushu’ behind.

BELOW LEFT Barbara Hepworth’s Contrapuntal Forms in Irish blue limestone is set off by the fresh greens of Pennisetum orientale ‘Karley Rose’, with Prunus × yedoensis and Hydrangea paniculata

BELOW RIGHT Pitchfork (Yellow) by Michael Craig-Martin stands out from Hakonechloa macra, pink persicaria and mauve perovskia against the backdrop of the Rutland Mills

Most gardens, even public ones, have a lockable gate. The garden at The Hepworth Wakefield contemporary art gallery emphatically does not. It was created in 2019, on a piece of land between a Victorian mill and the modernist concrete-grey contemporary art gallery that showcases the work of artists from the 20th century to the present day, including Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), the gallery’s namesake.

Designed by renowned landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith, who refreshingly describes it as ‘anti-minimalist’, it is something revolutionary – a garden free to all, open day and night.

The blank space could so easily have been developed, a tick in the economic regeneration box that all post-industrial towns need but, instead, The Hepworth Wakefield decided that what it needed was a garden. And in the long, silent lockdown months of 2020/21, it became the essence of freedom, a place to walk for the government-prescribed hour, or to sit in contemplation and watch the plants in their slow seasonal trajectory, when everything in the human world seemed mired in death and disease.

It is right an artist such as Hepworth should be celebrated by such a garden, especially as she preferred her work to be shown outside, in the changing light. Born in Wakefield, she lived through two World Wars, working throughout the strictures of rationing and constraints on liberty, and was a lifelong advocate of peace and disarmament. Her monumental sculpture Single Form stands in United Nations Plaza in New York. She absorbed the elemental landscape as a child, taking early inspiration from the weathered clints and grykes of the limestone pavement that honeycombs Yorkshire.

The gallery that bears her name and artistic vision opened in 2011 and was designed by David Chipperfield Architects, its construction reflecting Hepworth’s obsessions with form and light. But how to incorporate that and create a garden that would be as compelling as the impressive buildings that flank it and celebrate the gallery’s presiding spirit? Her 1932 figurative sculpture, Kneeling Figure, with its synthesis between the physical and the elemental worlds, was Tom’s inspiration for the garden’s overall shape: the sinuous asymmetric paths, the chunky planting of rich colours that glow under the northern sky, the way the garden holds our attention.

‘It had to have year-round interest, too, which means I had to consider how plants look when they die,’ says Tom, only half joking, as the clipped beech hedge, the outline of the trees and the seed heads of grasses and tough sculptural plants, such as

yarrow (achillea), Russian sage (perovskia) and coneflower (echinacea), all have to work as hard in winter as they do for the few months they are en fête. ‘It’s not a naturalistic garden, it is more punchy and patterned than that,’ says Tom of his design. ‘I wanted all the spaces within to have as wide a range of public use as possible.’ How prescient this now seems.

‘I spent three years fundraising for the garden and, when it was just about complete, the only way I could experience it was virtually,’ recalls Olivia Colling, The Hepworth Wakefield’s director of communications and development. She remembers trying to fathom a way through the first seismic shock of March 2020 and being captivated by the small daily changes in the garden on her screen. ‘When everything else stopped, the garden came alive that spring and gave us uplifting stories to share digitally with our audiences. For local residents, many of whom don’t have gardens, it offered a hopeful space, full of life.’

In the late autumn of 2019, following the completion of its first phase, the head gardener Katy Merrington and her volunteers planted 60,000 spring bulbs. When the plants started to emerge in that unsettling, rumour-filled spring of 2020, local people enthusiastically embraced the garden. And as she worked right through those lockdown months, Katy became a confidant, social contact and protector of many who used the space daily – from the man who took his wheelchair-bound daughter there, to the teenage girl who spent an entire day reading a book under the trees and the young mother settling her restless baby. ‘If your only experience of public spaces is a council worker mowing the grass on a machine, or a load of bedding plants, seeing this garden full of sculptural seed heads, grasses and world-class art is something worth stopping for,’ says Katy. ‘Prior to the lockdown, when people passing through the garden saw me, they would say, “What are you here every day for?” They couldn’t understand what took so long. Now no one asks me that, because they’ve witnessed the garden’s slow unfolding with their own eyes and appreciate the work that goes into it. Now they say, “You weren’t here this morning when I walked through.”’

I first visited on a bone-freezing day in February 2022 and, even in the wind, rain and low light, people were sitting or standing, lost in themselves, looking at the sculptures. The pewter seed heads on the grasses and stalky perennials were almost ready to be cut down, but snowdrops and hellebores were already out and the garden felt full of spring’s explosive energy. It is not a big garden and, in the hands of a lesser designer and gardener, it could just be an out-andthrough from one place to another. But something about the garden’s genius compels you to stop. One woman told me, rain lashing in her face, that she came here every day because she felt that it was her garden ‘without the weeds and hard work’. Others mentioned the jewelled colours of the summer flowers, the complexity of the autumn seed heads, like sculpture themselves, and the tranquillity of the garden. Dame Barbara would surely have recognised their delight in their new ways of seeing, and applauded the garden’s ambition m

The Hepworth Wakefield Garden, Yorkshire WF1 5JN, is free to visit and open daily: hepworthwakefield.org

ABOVE A concrete bench, designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, stands on granite setts edged by a tapestry of herbaceous perennials, including (from left) purple aster ‘Violetta’, Sanguisorba officinalis ‘Red Thunder’, pale spires of Heuchera villosa and mauve Eurybia × herveyi, punctuated by the grasses Stipa calamagrostis and silvery Miscanthus sinensis ‘Starlight’, and multi-stemmed Rhus typhina

BELOW Michael Craig-Martin’s 2013 work, Pitchfork (Yellow), in powder-coated steel, is seen against the south side of the gallery, between Rhus typhina and Malus ‘Evereste’, with plantings of wispy silvery Stipa lessingiana, dark seed heads of Echinacea pallida, lime green umbels of Cenolophium denudatum and the bright foliage of Amsonia hubrichtii enclosed by beech hedges

ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

Tantalising vistas draw you in all directions in this Chiltern Hills garden, where Gavin McWilliam and Andrew Wilson have used walls, apertures and clever planting to transform a disjointed plot into a series of interconnected spaces

OPPOSITE TOP Pink flowerheads of Hydrangea paniculata ‘Phantom’ pick up on the colour of the Boston ivy covering one side of the house. The block shape of a pleached hornbeam appears to echo the form of the drystone wall beside the house. BOTTOM A bronze ammonite by Hamish Mackie on the sculpture terrace is set off by contemporary drystone walling, which was left uncapped to attract lichens and mosses – an effect used by Sir Edwin Lutyens. THIS PAGE ABOVE A sea of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’ and Macleaya microcarpa ‘Spetchley Ruby’ encloses the lawn at the heart of the garden. BELOW A Malus ‘Winter Gold’, underplanted with yellow rudbeckia, blue Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and grasses, anchors the scheme where the lawn meets the terrace

ABOVE The path through the grass walk is flanked by Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, its pale inflorescences contrasting with the foliage of the hornbeams above, while Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’ and R. ‘Herbstsonne’ brighten the bases of the trunks. Purplish flowerheads of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Grosse Fontäne’ catch the light in the background. BELOW Pleached hornbeams frame the garden studio, creating a dark backdrop for a warmtoned planting of yellow Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’, coppery Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’ and apricot Rosa ‘Lady of Shallot’. Vertical Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ adds height, complemented by the tactile heads of C. brachytricha and russet plumes of Macleaya microcarpa ‘Spetchley Ruby’

g

ames of hide-and-seek were not specifically a requirement in the brief for this garden on the edge of the Chiltern Hills, but space for family fun most certainly was. The owners of the handsome Arts and Crafts former rectory have two children and like to entertain, so a large, level lawn, a dining area and vegetable beds were all top of their list when they commissioned Gavin McWilliam and his long-term collaborator Andrew Wilson back in 2016. At the time, much of the 3,500-squaremetre space was taken up with shrubberies and sloping lawns (there is a six-metre change of level across the site). ‘The property had been added to over the years and the garden had developed haphazardly,’ says Gavin. ‘As a result, it was disjointed, with no real link between the house and the pool house, for example, and no sense of flow.’

To address this, Gavin and Andrew have imposed a striking new geometry upon the site, terracing the garden with a series of steps and retaining walls that run north to south, and building crisp, contemporary drystone walls east to west. These provide a dual function: acting as structural ribs to define the spaces and, through both their screening qualities and their Corten-lined apertures, adding a sense of surprise and intrigue that the duo felt fitting. ‘The house has a lot of doors – you can go in one and appear somewhere else entirely,’ says Gavin. ‘We wanted to bring that sense of playfulness to the garden.’

It would have been easier perhaps to realise this concept through the use of traditional hedge-bound garden rooms – a defining feature of the Arts and Crafts garden. But Gavin and Andrew’s treatment has moved the concept on, resulting in spaces that feel private without being completely enclosed. While it includes large, open areas, the design manages to conceal not only the clients’ prerequisites, but also a nuttery, a wild garden, a sculpture terrace and a children’s play area. And throughout, beautiful walks and deep borders brim with interest.

The planting plays a role in the trompe l’oeil, too. In the parking court at the front, a double row of pleached hornbeams shields most of the garden from view, save for a gap where, in late summer and early autumn, a wall of plants, including the dusky tones of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Grosse Fontäne’, Hydrangea paniculata ‘Phantom’ and mauve Vernonia arkansana ‘Mammuth’, leads the eye up and into the trees beyond. Ascending the limestone steps (a nod to the area’s chalky bedrock) to the main lawn, it becomes clear these trees are in fact in a neighbouring garden and one of several borrowed views.

The lawn is the heart of the new garden and the point around which all other spaces flow. At one end, a sculpture terrace provides a focus for views from the house, while artfully distracting from the trampoline beyond. At the other, the path branches, leading up to the pool house, vegetable beds and hazel coppice in one direction, and to a generous dining terrace off the kitchen in the other. Here, the enfilade of drystone walls, some of them set in cascade-fed pools, provides a tantalising vista that just begs to be explored. Those who do will discover a line of multi-stemmed Malus ‘Winter Gold’, which Gavin chose for their clouds of white blossom in spring and amber fruits in autumn, underplanting them with Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’ and Deschampsia cespitosa for maximum effect.

From the pool house level, a gravelled path leads round the perimeter of the lawn, through the sculpture terrace and to the lower garden with its copper-clad swing seat. At times, it feels enclosed, cloistered by the hornbeams and tall, vertical grasses such as Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ and Miscanthus x giganteus. But, from its elevated position, this path also offers breathtaking views of the house and of the landscape beyond, which appears and disappears through the breaks in the walls and the planting. Now you see it, now you don’t… Who could resist a game of hide-and-seek in a garden like this? m

ABOVE Thin terracotta ‘creasing’ tiles – a typical Arts and Crafts detail – were used on the risers of the steps on either side of a Malus ‘Winter Gold’ underplanted with Japanese anemones and grasses. BELOW Drystone walls are softened by ‘Winter Gold’ crab apples, striking seed heads of Phlomis russeliana and Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’

FOOD & TRAVEL

Game on

MARK KEMPSON, head chef of London restaurant Kitchen W8, suggests new ways to use the best of autumn’s wild game with recipes that are rich in flavour and make perfect comfort food. All recipes serve 6

As the leaves turn golden and autumn takes hold, our larder of ingredients changes once again. Cooking becomes heartier and heavier, as we look for some soul-nourishing richness. In Britain, we are gifted with a wonderful array of furred and feathered game species found up and down the country, feeding on the countryside’s bountiful resources. Being wild, these animals are naturally free-range and sustainable – something that should be at the forefront of our minds when choosing what to eat. Game has a unique flavour and is a healthy alternative to the more commonly eaten meats. Mid-autumn is when all species are at their best, having had time to plump up. And with respectful and careful cooking, these can produce glorious dishes. While classic game recipes, of course, have a place, I find these meats can be used in a host of different ways – marinated in spices, or cooked in combinations for a greater spectrum of flavour – and choosing cuts makes them easier to prepare. e

FOOD & DRINKS EDITOR BLANCHE VAUGHAN | PHOTOGRAPHS NASSIMA ROTHACKER | WINE NOTES ANNE TUPKER, MW

WILD BOAR HOT DOGS WITH ONION RELISH AND AUTUMN SLAW

the

For the autumn slaw

For the hot dogs

The deeply rich flavour of wild boar sausages is perfectly offset by the zingy onion relish and moreish autumn slaw.

1 For the relish, place a large heavy-based pan over a medium heat, add the rapeseed oil and onions, and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir well, reduce the heat and cover with a lid. Cook for 10 minutes or until soft.

2 Add the remaining relish ingredients, with 75ml water, and bring to the boil. Simmer for around 30 minutes, until the liquid has reduced to a glaze. Check the seasoning to taste and set aside.

3 For the slaw, finely shred the vegetables into a bowl. Season and allow to sit for 5 minutes before squeezing out any juice. Add the vinegar, truffle oil and mayonnaise, and then mix well. Check the seasoning and set aside.

4 Heat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/mark 4. Place a pan

with a heavy base over a medium heat and brown the sausages. Transfer to an ovenproof dish and cook in the oven to your liking. 5 Toast the hot dog buns, place a sausage in each and top with the relish. Place on warmed plates, spoon a generous pile of slaw on top of each. Serve immediately, with extra slaw on the side.

To drink

The rich, savoury character of this dish calls for a robust red wine such as the Guigal 2018 Côtes du Rhône. A blend of 50 per cent Syrah, 45 per cent Grenache Noir and five per cent Mourvèdre grapes, it has full-bodied, spicy, peppery, blackberry and plum flavours that make it the perfect match (£12.79; waitrosecellar.com).

For

recipes

TANDOORI SPICED PARTRIDGE, WITH MINTED YOGURT AND GOLDEN RAISIN BASMATI RICE

An unusual but effective use of this bird, this dish is bursting with bold flavours. It is easy to put together but is sure to impress.

1 For the marinade, whizz together the ingredients in a blender, pour over the partridge breasts and marinate for 1 hour in the fridge. Turn them over and leave to marinate for a further hour.

2 For the yogurt, place the chopped mint in a bowl, add a pinch of sea salt and the sugar, stir in the yogurt and set aside.

3 Heat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/mark 4. For the rice, place an ovenproof pan over a medium heat, add the rapeseed oil, onion, garlic and spices. Season then sweat for 5 minutes, until the onion is tender. Add raisins and stock, and bring to the boil.

Stir in the rice, bring back to boil, cover with lid and put in the oven for 8 minutes. Remove, but keep lid on. Stand for 12 minutes.

4 Turn the oven down to 160°C/fan oven 140°C/mark 3. Place a

heavy-based griddle pan over a high heat until smoking hot. Season the partridge with salt and drizzle with 20ml rapeseed oil. Griddle for 2 minutes on each side. Place in an ovenproof dish and cook uncovered in oven for 4 minutes. Remove and rest for 5 minutes.

5 To serve, divide the rice on to six plates, top with the partridge and drizzle over the yogurt. Scatter with the reserved mint leaves.

To drink

Crozes-Hermitage

‘Les Blasons’ 2019, a lightly oaked, Syrah red from the Cave de Tain cooperative, has the right balance of black fruit flavours, fresh acidity and fine-grained tannins for this dish and the pheasant casserole over the page (£14.99; majestic.co.uk). e

For the casserole

40ml rapeseed oil

6 skin-on pheasant thighs

6 skin-on pheasant breasts

medium onion, peeled and diced

medium carrot, peeled and diced

small turnip, peeled and diced

3 field mushrooms, diced

leek, finely sliced

swede, peeled and diced

2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

50g smoked pancetta lardons

2 bay leaves

20g dried porcini mushrooms, rehydrated in 300ml warm water

400ml red wine

3tbsp plain flour

500ml good chicken stock

For the dumplings

50g smoked pancetta lardons

100g self-raising flour

50g beef suet

To serve

Mashed potato

Thyme sprigs (optional)

WILD MUSHROOM AND RED WINE CASSEROLE WITH PANCETTA DUMPLINGS

People often complain of pheasant drying out during cooking. This method works a treat, so it remains as succulent as it is delicious.

1 Heat the oven to 140°C/fan oven 120°C/mark 1. Add 20ml of the oil to a large, heavy-based, ovenproof, lidded pan over a high heat.

Season the thighs with salt and black pepper. Add to pan, skin side down, to brown; remove and set aside. Repeat with breasts.

2 Add the vegetables to the pan with garlic, 20ml rapeseed oil and seasoning. Sweat for 10 minutes until softened, add the pancetta, bay and porcini (reserving its liquor) and sweat for another minute.

3 Add the red wine and reduce until just coating the vegetables. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.

4 Add the stock and porcini liquor, and bring to the boil. Add the thighs, cover with a tight lid and place in oven for 45 minutes.

5 Meanwhile, for the dumplings, cook the pancetta lardons for

5 minutes in another pan on medium heat. Add to a bowl with the other dumpling ingredients, mix together with 6tbsp water and season. Cover and rest in fridge for 20 minutes.

6 When chilled, divide the mix into six and shape into balls. Remove the heavy-based pan from the oven and put the dumplings on top; return to the oven and cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes.

7 Remove from oven and spoon out the dumplings into the pan used for lardons, cover with a lid and leave to sit in a warm place. Place the pheasant breasts into the heavy-based pan, ensuring they are fully submerged and return to the oven for 10 minutes.

8 Serve topped with dumplings and a few sprigs of thyme, with mashed potato on the side.

PEPPERED VENISON FILLET, MEDJOOL DATE AND BACON SKEWERS

The unparalleled tenderness and heavenly gamey flavour of the venison pairs brilliantly with the smoky bacon and sweet dates.

1 Pit the medjool dates using a skewer and then wrap each with a rasher of bacon. Cut each venison fillet into six and roll in the mignonette pepper.

2 Place the honey and the lime juice in a small pan and simmer until it has reduced to a glaze (around 10 minutes), then set aside until ready to serve.

3 Heat the oven to 140°C/fan oven 120°C/mark 1. Skewer alternate pieces of fillet and dates on to 12 skewers. Season each with sea salt and drizzle with the oil.

4 Place a heavy-based griddle pan over a high heat until smoking hot. Griddle the skewers for 1 minute on each side, then place in an ovenproof dish. Cook uncovered in the oven for 2 minutes.

Remove from the oven, drizzle over the honey glaze and allow to rest for a few minutes.

5 Place the skewers on six warmed plates with a very generous spoonful of soured cream on each, and some garlic and rosemary roasted new potatoes on the side

To drink

The powerful peppery gaminess of the venison needs an equally boldly flavoured wine such as the Domaine la Soumade Rasteau 2019. Its concentrated, spicy, ripe dark cherry and plum fruitiness and velvety, chocolatey texture marry beautifully with this dish and with the ragu on the next page (£19.70; tanners-wine.co.uk). e

GAME RAGU WITH PAPPARDELLE

This is comfort food at its best and can be made well in advance – in fact, I would suggest making it at least the day before. It also freezes well.

1 Heat the oven to 140°C/fan oven 120°C/mark 1. Place a large heavy-based, ovenproof, lidded pan over a high heat and add a dessertspoon of the rapeseed oil. Season the boar with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, add to the pan and brown on all sides. Remove and set aside. Repeat the process with the venison and the duck.

2 Peel and finely dice all the vegetables before adding to the pan with the garlic, the remaining rapeseed oil and some seasoning. Sweat for 5 minutes until tender, then add the ground cloves and sweat for a further minute.

3 Add the red wine and reduce until it just coats the vegetables.

Add the tomato passata and cook for a further 5 minutes.

4 Add the pancetta, bay leaves, thyme and mushroom stock, and bring to the boil. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and place in the oven for 2½ hours, or until the meat is very tender.

5 Break up the meat using a fork and stir in the chocolate, adjusting the seasoning as necessary.

6 Meanwhile, cook the pappardelle in salted boiling water according to the instructions on the packet.

7 Add the cooked pasta to the ragu, with 200ml of the starchy pasta water and cook, stirring, on a low heat until the sauce clings to the pasta. Divide into six bowls and serve immediately m

FOOD & TRAVEL taste

Ingredients of the month

PARSNIPS

They are sadly not as popular as they once were, so for those who need persuading, it’s worth thinking of them as a type of sweet carrot (which is indeed a relation). Young parsnips are firm and crunchy, so you can have them raw, shaved or grated in salad. Their natural sweetness intensifies when they are cooked, added to stews or soups or – even better – roasted in batons with crunchy pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Or thinly slice them on a mandolin and then bake with oil and salt to make parsnip crisps.

PURPLE SPROUTING BROCCOLI

Deep-coloured and leafy, it likes to grow in low temperatures. Unlike the ubiquitous Calabrese broccoli, purple sprouting broccoli has long, juicy stems and fewer florets. When fresh, it tastes sweet and vegetal. I think of it as a winter version of asparagus and you can serve it in a similar way – steamed and drenched in melted butter or hollandaise sauce. It also pairs well with salty anchovies and garlic, either in pasta, or baked with breadcrumbs as a type of gratin.

LEEKS

Although you can grow leeks all year round, they particularly thrive in a cooler climate, so winter leeks tend to be some of the best. They have a delicate allium flavour and it is easy to coax sweetness from their cooking. If you can find baby leeks, these are especially good – sweet and tender. Soak them in water to remove any sandy grit and roast or grill them whole sprinkled with chilli flakes, to serve with yogurt and caramelised butter. I also like them poached and served with a mustardy, shallot vinaigrette. Leeks go well with cheese and cream: in a quiche or tart, with pasta, or as savoury muffins or scones.

WINTER GREENS

When the winter green leaves are in season, I just cannot get enough of them. The beautiful shapes, textures and colours of frilly kale, deep green cavolo nero and appealing rainbow chard constantly find a way into my cooking. The tougher leaves of kale need more cooking – they work well shredded in stews, or roasted with oil and salt to make crisp vegetable chips. One of my favourite pasta sauces is

made with boiled, puréed cavolo nero mixed with new season’s olive oil and pecorino. It is possible to substitute chard for spinach in most recipes. I particularly like serving it tossed with cooked white beans or chickpeas as a side dish. Finely chop cooked leaves of chard and kale, then mix them with bechamel and top with breadcrumbs to make the most superb gratin.

MUSSELS

Like other types of shellfish, mussels are traditionally best to eat in winter, when they are not spawning. They are abundant in British waters, inexpensive and easy to buy and prepare. Like most fish, they should be cooked and eaten as fresh as possible. To prepare, scrub them under running water and pull off any green beard; tap any open shells and, if they do not close, discard them. Simply cooked with sweated onions, chopped parsley and white wine, they make a quick, cheap and easy meal, or add to fish stews right at the end. Cooked, shelled mussels are excellent in pasta with butter and parsley. Or for something fancier, you can remove the empty half of the shell, sprinkle with garlic breadcrumbs and bake in a hot oven for five minutes m

TAKE OFF AND SMELL THE COFFEE

CATHERINE FAIRWEATHER savours the slow life in Costa Rica as she weaves through breathtaking scenery in her quest for the best caffeinated shot the country has to offer

Have you seen the snow in Costa Rica?’ asks my host, cafetalero Gustavo Vargas Cordoba, urging me up the hillside to his tiered coffee cultivation patch. Under the shade of a towering poró tree, the glossy green of the coffee shrub is indeed stippled in white – the scented blossom of early spring. He invites me to inhale the jasmine top notes, taste his coffee and shoot the breeze.

I am glad I do. For Café Viñas, with its chickens running rampant and hummingbirds hoovering up the hibiscus, is the loveliest of roadside rests, vividly conjuring the ‘pura vida’ mantra that is blazoned across Gustavo’s heirloom wooden oxcart. This phrase perfectly encapsulates the spirit and culture of Costa Rica. It is, above all, about taking your time, so I slow my pace to meet the drip-drip of the filtering coffee in the traditional chorreador and savour the drink in my enamel cup.

My trail through Costa Rica is an informal mission to source the best caffeinated shot, which leads me through the most beautiful, under-visited corners of the country. Within a 20-minute drive from San José’s airport, I find myself in a pastoral idyll at the inspiring coffee-farm-cum-hotel Finca Rosa Blanca, in the Heredia Highlands. Here, the American artist, accidental hotelier and conservationist Glenn Jampol has dreamed up an exuberant confection of Gaudíesque grandeur: turreted cottages overlooking the forest canopy and a 30-acre estate that produces some of the best organic arabica in the country.

My pitstop at Gustavo’s Café Viñas, days later, has taken me deeper into the coffee heartlands of the Central Valley. At 1,200 metres, where mist-wreathed and rain-rinsed valleys rise to greet the smoking volcanoes of Irazú and Turrialba, conditions are perfect for the crop. The patchwork of pastures and smallholdings, where campesinos graze their horses and regal Brahman cattle roam with egrets in courtly attendance, is the soul and spirit of Costa Rica. And yet, sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, the unsung beauty that is the Central Valley is invariably overlooked in favour of the beach.

My journey is a collision of climates and landscapes as I travel from the near-alpine serenity of Café Viñas, weaving steadily downhill into the hot wet jaws of the Río Pacuare rainforest reserve. This jungle fastness was all but impenetrable before the construction of the Jungle Train in the late 1800s, which transported the golden bean, the Grano de Oro, to the coast and onwards to Europe. The railway carved through the Cordillera Central mountain range among, as Victorian author Anthony Trollope put it, ‘The grandest scenery I have met with in the Western world.’

Since the decommissioning of the railroad in the Nineties, the most scenic route through the jungle today is by raft on the wild Río Pacuare. After tumbling through the white water and narrow gorges for the best part of half a day, the river breaks into the bright sunlight of an open meadow, shimmering with blue morpho butterflies, where the luxurious Pacuare Lodge lies waiting.

Only a handful of guests opt to travel to one of the country’s remotest lodges by 4x4, accompanying the luggage – most take the waterway, rafting in from outside Turrialba. We spend days languishing in the hotel’s spring-fed swimming pools; we breakfast in the trees on a platform only accessible by zipline; and we immerse ourselves in jungle life before, days later, the same scenic waterway spits us out at Siquirres on the Caribbean coast, where plantations of banana replace coffee as the main crop.

Raking the palm-fringed beaches of this seaboard, the surf draws small crowds. Salsa Brava is the legendary break that has helped turn the small town of Puerto Viejo from a sleepy backwater into a hive. It hums softly to a gentle Rasta beat, thanks to its mainly West Indian community. The relaxed vibe and sense of inclusiveness and pacifism runs deep in a country that abolished its army in 1948. Rustic, beaded-curtain beach shacks and lowimpact treehouse inns provide an experience of simplicity and hospitality on a human scale – a world away from the manicured golf courses, marinas and sanitised big-name resorts of the Papagayo Peninsula in Costa Rica’s northwest. But a handful of sophisticated hideaways have sprung up on the still underdeveloped stretch that is beyond Puerto Viejo.

On Playa Cocles, artist-owned Hotel Aguas Claras is a cluster of salvaged clapboard beach cabanas, where themed suppers, complimentary bicycles and yoga classes give the feel of a clubhouse. Wedged between the Talamanca Mountains and the surf, the hotel’s architecture brings a sense of the outside in, with outdoor shower rooms and hammock-festooned verandas. In a country that offers greater biodiversity than almost anywhere else on earth, the most immediate wildlife-watching arena can turn out to be your hotel’s front yard. A scarlet macaw eyeballs us from a mango tree, neon-coloured parrots weave through the jacaranda, and a sloth greets us upside down at the porch like a bell-pull. But the last surprise takes place in the walled garden of nearby La Pecora Nera, one of the 10 best restaurants in the country. When the Italian chef produces a peerless caffeine-soaked tiramisu, followed by an espresso that rivals those served at Sant’Eustachio in Rome, I know that my mission is complete m

WAYS AND MEANS

Catherine Fairweather travelled with Cazenove + Loyd (020 7384 2332; cazloyd.com), which offers a nine-night mid-season itinerary from £3,700, with accommodation at Finca Rosa Blanca (fincarosablanca.com) and Hotel Aguas Claras (hotelaguasclaras.com), both B&B, and Pacuare Lodge (pacuarelodge.com), full board with tours, and including transfers but excluding international flights.

OPPOSITE TOP ROW FROM LEFT Hotel Aguas Claras. Laidback Puerto Viejo. Coffee grows well at altitude. MIDDLE ROW Finca Rosa Blanca. Pacuare Lodge is accessible by river. Surfboards at Puerto Viejo. ROW Pacuare Lodge. Playa Cocles. The beach is two miles south of Puerto Viejo

NASHVILLE

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT The city is a mecca for country music fans, thanks to venues such as Nashville Crossroads. A modern take on the general store, White’s Mercantile is based in a converted gas station. Denim brand Imogene + Willie hosts live music events at its store. The Johnny Cash Museum contains the world’s biggest collection of memorabilia on the country singer

Shopping

Nashville may be having a moment – the Tennessee capital’s Southern charm and seductive small-city feel comingling irresistibly with an ever-growing new creative energy. Many of the best shops are centred around the 12 South neighbourhood. Stroll amid flower trucks, secondhand street stalls and vintage vans selling shaved ice. Check out: White’s Mercantile, a converted gas station selling a mishmash of cookware, coffee-table books and cult beauty products; Imogene + Willie for denim; Emerson Grace for designer clothing; and Draper James, Reese Witherspoon’s prairie-style fashion and homeware label. E.Allen in The Gulch has great accessories and, over the road, the Rustler Hat Co custom-makes Southern-style felt hats similar to Pharrell Williams’ Buffalo. Wilder in Germantown is best for design, a three-storey furniture and gallery space, while by-appointment Eneby sources vintage items and antiques.

Restaurants

Emanuel

Breakfast calls for biscuits – a Southern staple similar to a savoury scone – at Biscuit Love, a fun diner in The Gulch; if there is a queue, brunch-only Milk & Honey nearby has a buttermilk version. Where Southern cooking is skewed towards the fried and heavy, new-gen Nashville cuisine is full of creative zing. Great lunch spots on 12 South include Locust for dumplings; Bartaco (excellent margaritas and ceviche); and Epice (Lebanese with an industrial feel). Leafy, historic Germantown is chock-full of cool new places to eat. Hot-ticket seafood place The Optimist shares the limelight with its equally lively cocktail lounge, Le Loup. Henrietta Red – light-filled at lunchtime, low-lit and romantic in the evening – serves snapper crudo and woodfired oysters. An evening in Wedgewood-Houston could begin with nachos and margaritas at Bastion. In East Nashville, the powder-pink-and-marble Cafe Roze and Thirties-house-turned-bistro Lou both attract a local set. A hankering for hot chicken is best sated at Prince’s, a taste of Nashville history doused in fiery cayenne pepper.

Music, art and culture

Art, whether sung, strummed, written or visual, has been the city’s life force for decades. Dive in with some live music. The Grand Ole Opry began life as a radio show –broadcast from the Ryman Auditorium for 30 years – and regular appearances by Johnny Cash, Elvis, Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton, among others, has cemented Nashville as the capital of country music. Today, both the Ryman and the newer Opry House host country and bluegrass shows. Broadway’s tourist-trap honky-tonks are best avoided, but Station Inn in The Gulch has a honky-tonk feel with a more discerning crowd. For blues or burlesque with a side of bourbon, Skull’s Rainbow Room in Printers Alley is a speakeasy where Etta James and Jimi Hendrix took to the stage. The Basement and Basement East draw a home crowd to hear all kinds of music.

The Johnny Cash Museum and National Museum of African American Music are both excellent, while the Frist Art Museum, in an art deco former post office, has rotating exhibitions. In hip Wedgewood-Houston, an art crawl (fuelled by coffee from Falcon and a croissant from Dozen Bakery) might encompass modern galleries Zeitgeist and David Lusk, experimental Cëcret by Cë Gallery and The Packing Plant – a series of small studios in one space.

Hotel

Art Deco 224-room Noelle hotel is two blocks back from Broadway’s clamour, but is still within walking distance of the city’s best museums. Having opened as a hotel in 1930, and counting Clark Gable and Eleanor Roosevelt among its former guests, the building became a bank in the Seventies before its restoration and rebirth as Noelle in 2017. The Trade Room bar bags all the attention, with its terrazzo floors (in the same Tennessee pink marble as at New York’s Grand Central Terminal), soaring ornamental ceilings and arched windows. The Rare Bird rooftop bar has open fires and views of the skyline and Cumberland River. And below, a hidden door in the basement leads to a tiny speakeasy, open until the small hours. Morning recovery comes from Drug Store, the coffee shop with a cult following. Rooms from around $336. (noelle-nashville.com) m

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT The mixologist at Bastion, in the Wedgewood-Houston neighbourhood, makes a mean margarita. Henrietta Red serves snapper crudo and wood-fired oysters in a light and airy dining room. Huge arched windows tower over velvet sofas in the Trade Room bar at Art Deco bank-turned-hotel Noelle. White’s Mercantile sells everything from cookbooks to homeware, as well as blooms from a flower truck parked outside

ALAMY; JAMES ATKINSON/GETTY; LISA DIEDERICH; LESLEE MITCHELL

Travel compass

From a Nile cruise to a Slovenian walking tour, NONI WARE

the latest itineraries and launches round the world

Superstar Supetar

Located between the Adriatic and the cobbled streets of the historic Croatian town of Cavtat near Dubrovnik, the recently refurbished Hotel Supetar has 16 stylish rooms. There is a glorious pool (above), an elegant bar that serves a huge selection of local and international wines, and a restaurant with a menu that focuses on the best local produce. Rooms cost from £350.

Egypt explored

Viking has launched a new ship, Viking Osiris, which offers a Pharaohs & Pyramids 12-day itinerary. Hosting 82 guests in 41 staterooms, Osiris has the elegant Scandinavian interiors for which the cruise line is known. The launch coincides with the planned autumn opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum, outside Cairo near the Great Pyramid of Giza (above), plus the 100th anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb by Howard Carter and the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. Viking is also supporting an exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia, Visions of Ancient Egypt, which explores the enduring appeal of Egypt in art and design (until January 1; sainsburycentre.ac.uk). During the Nile cruise, guests will visit the tombs of Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens and of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, as well as other attractions such as the Dendera Temple complex. Pharaohs & Pyramids costs from £4,915 per person for selected departures in 2023, including flights and transfers in Egypt.

458 6900;

WALKING THE BALKANS

Caribbean dream

If you are planning a tropical getaway, Onefinestay has new villas across the Caribbean, including on St Barths, Anguilla, Barbados and the Turks and Caicos Islands. A colonial-style beach villa surrounded by lush greenery, the fivebedroom Fleur de Mer on St Barths has a large terrace with breathtaking views over the ocean, an infinity pool (above) and manicured gardens. Fleur de Mer costs from £7,758 a night for up to 10 guests.

808 5830; onefinestay.com

Often overlooked, Slovenia sits quietly among its glitzier neighbours, but its spectacular scenery – from mountain ranges to lakes – medieval villages and vineyards have timeless appeal. Slotrips has an eight-day Best Walks in Slovenia trip, starting in Ljubljana and exploring the trails of the Velika Planina and the Soča Valley, renowned for its extraordinary turquoise waters. The trip continues through vineyards, where you can taste organic wines, and ends in the charming coastal town of Piran, known for its Venetian architecture and seafood restaurants. Best Walks in Slovenia costs from £1,450 per person for a small group tour, excluding flights. slovenia-trips.com m

Calling all devotees of design, interiors, gardens, art and food. Founded as an exclusive members’ club for House&Gardenreaders, The Calico Club offers privileged access to the fascinating people and places featured in the pages of the magazine and on our website. Sign up to take part in special events ranging from dinners and talks to glorious garden visits.

Apply to become a member at calicoclub.co.uk

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HAPPY RETIREMENT

London has never been such a fashionable place to retire to, as a new breed of development r independence, like-minded communities and amenities to rival a five-star hotel

RIVERSTONE FULHAM, SW6

Overlooking the RiverThames, this stylish new over-65s development has plenty of amenities for you to enjoy with friends and family, from a private cinema to a riverside bar. Apartments are bright and airy, with floor-toceiling windows, open-plan living areas and private terraces. Prices start from £860,000.

There has been something of a revolution in retirement schemes in the last few years. Instead of occupying sleepy provincial towns, there are a collection of newer, sleeker schemes in some of London’s smartest postcodes, designed to appeal to cosmopolitan people who want to enjoy all the benefits that city living has to offer.

Situated on the north bank of the

River Thames, a short distance from the Hurlingham Club, Riverstone Fulham is a brand-new development in a prime location. The popular Thames Path runs alongside the building, ring scenic walks from the door, and there are a wealthof amenitiesavailabletoresidents, including an indoor pool, a restaurant and a cinema. It’s designed for those who wanttolivetheir own independent lives, but there’s the security of knowing that there’s fantastic support and care facilities on hand should you ever need them, ranging from on-site GP visits to

round-the-clock specialist care options.

Riverstone also has a sister site in Kensington, which similarly brings a touch of glamour to over-65s living –the grand opening in June was presided over by Joanna Lumley, a fitting choice given that the development had been pronounced “absolutely fabulous” by early visitors. As with Fulham, there’s the option of excellent care and medical support to provide peace of mind, but it also sounds like a rather fun place to live. There’s an independent Italian restaurant on site, which is also open to

BATTERSEA PLACE, SW11

Battersea Place was one of the pioneers of luxury retirement living when it opened six years ago, with views across nearby Battersea Park and a 15-minute stroll to the King’s Road. Currently available for sale is a one-bedroom apartment with a private patio. £995,000.

Battersea Place: 020 7924 8641

FITZJOHN’S HAMPSTEAD, NW3

With high ceilings, generous proportions and floor-to-ceiling windows, the 29 apartments at Fitzjohn’s provide a stylish retirement option for over-60s, with excellent spa and wellness offerings including a hydrotherapy pool, a sauna and a steam room. From £2.22 million.

Lifestory Group: 020 7980 8741

AURIENS, SW3

Auriens has a fantastic range of amenities –a restaurant, several bars, a wine room, gym, medispa, indoor pool and sauna, as well as landscaped courtyard gardens.The staff have worked in some of the world’s top hotels, ensuring top-notch service. Apartments are available to lease from £13,750 a month.

Auriens: 020 4549 8000

the public, as well as a stylish bar. Last but certainly not least, well-behaved pets are welcome, which is surely an enormous relief to anyone with a muchloved animal companion.

Over in Chelsea, Auriens, just off the King’sRoad,isacollectionof retirement properties that feel like a cross between a five-star hotel and a private members’ club. Apartments are elegant and spacious, the amenities outstanding, and the barman from Annabel’s was recently in residence, so you can always be sure of an excellent cocktail.

RIVERSTONE KENSINGTON,W14

Close to Holland Park and Kensington High Street is a collection of contemporary and elegant apartments that range from one to three bedrooms.There are lots of communal spaces to enjoy, including an orangery, a library and a snug, as well as all the amenities you’d expect from a five-star hotel. Prices start from £1.15 million.

Riverstone Kensington: 020 8189 7244

ESCAPE TO THE COUNTRY

If you’re dreaming of a rural bolthole, then discover these bucolic cottages set in some of the UK’s finest locations, from the Cotswold Hills to the Cornish coast

FORD, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

This tranquil country cottage

away

There is nothing quite so quintessentially English as a cosy country cottage –the older and the more charming,thebetter.They epitomise the dream of rural bliss, of retreating to a simpler way of life, far away from the crowds and bustle. It’s not surprising that such properties tend to be snapped up quickly, whatever the climate, so if a cottage is on your wish list, it’s prudent to move fast once you’ve spotted your perfect match.

Take the cottage above, for example – located in the small hamlet of Ford, a short drive from Kingham and

with

road, set

Originally built as the gatehouse to the Trelowarren Estate near Helston, it sits close by the head of the Helford River, within walking distance of the popular village of Gweek.

Moreton-in-Marsh, this 18th-century property is Grade II listed and has a wealth of period features, including stone mullioned windows, exposed beams and an inglenook fireplace. It’s surrounded by gardens, which include two ponds and a stream.

In Cornwall, Gweek Lodge looks as if it had sprung straight out of the pages of a fairy tale, with its thatched roof and arched doors and windows.

There’s another thatched cottage currently on the market in Dorset, in the village of Farnham. Farnham is located in Cranborne Chase, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the cottage is as beautiful as the surrounding area, with its striped walls of brick and flint. It enjoys a peaceful atmosphere, situated on a quiet lane leading up to the village church – truly a perfect getaway.

MANOR COTTAGE, SURREY

Parts of this property are thought to date back to the 16th century, imbuing the interior with a tremendous sense of history.There’s an open-plan reception hall and dining room, as well as a sitting room, kitchen and office on the ground floor, while upstairs are four bedrooms. £1.35 million.

Knight Frank: 01483 617919

GWEEK LODGE, CORNWALL

On the edge of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, close to the head of the Helford River, this property is truly unique. Currently used as a holiday let, this former gate lodge has a stone-flagged kitchen, a sitting room and an upstairs bedroom. £295,000.

Lillicrap Chilcott: 01872 273473

TOFT MONKS, SUFFOLK

Although technically a converted barn as opposed to a country cottage, this home is full of character nonetheless. Close to the Norfolk Broads and the Georgian market town of Beccles, this house has a generous master suite on the second floor and a dramatic, triple-height living room. £710,000.

Winkworth: 01502 723007

ST LAURENCE COTTAGE, DORSET

This Grade II-listed thatched cottage in the sought-after village of Farnham has been recently redecorated to a high standard – amenities include underfloor heating and an Aga. The west-facing garden looks out across open farmland.

£1.15 million.

Savills: 01202 856861

NOTEBOOK

A monthly round-up of the latest property news, at home and abroad

BESPOKE APPROACH

LUXURY LIVING IN PARADISE

Surrounded by rainforest on the pristine island of Dominica, the award-winning Secret Bay Resort and Residences is notable for its stunning, treehouse-style properties. Perched high on the cliffs overlooking the sea, each villa has been built with the environment in mind, using sustainable materials to create stylish contemporary interiors. Owners have access to Secret Bay’s six-star service and fantastic facilities – the resort’s most recent additions include a beachfront pool, an architecturally stunning welcome house, and a stylish new lounge at the no-menu Zing Zing restaurant. From $1.49 million for whole ownership; shared ownership options also available. For more information, visit secretbay.dm/residences

AN EYE FOR THE EXCEPTIONAL

Often, the best property developers are those who can spot the potential in the most challenging of sites, such as former industrial and commercial units, and have the vision and ability to transform them into desirable homes. Sam Panteli of Nomad Stone has spent 30 years working in this industry, and has plenty of experience working with landowners to make the most of their assets.‘I am always interested to hear from owners with underused or unwanted buildings, or investors who are looking for exciting projects to make their money work for them,’ she says. ‘It’s what we do best; seeing the potential and adding value.’ For more information, visit nomad-stone.com

Five years ago, Simon Rose set out to create a refreshing new style of estate agency that put clients first. His vision came to fruition – Rose & Partners is now well established with a reputation for a bespoke and efficient approach to achieving clients’ requirements, be that in sales, acquisition, rental or property management.Working with only a few clients at any given time, Rose & Partners’ 24/7 availability – alongside their experience, out-of-the-box thinking and a well-integrated network of contacts – gives them the edge when it comes to making things happen. For more information, visit roseandpartners.co.uk

PICTURE PERFECT

Estate agent Sara Batting has been dealing in distinctive properties for the past 30 years, focusing on the Thames Valley area, and honing an excellent level of service. Among the properties currently on her books is this 16th-century, Grade II-listed farmhouse, which sits adjacent to the picturesque Hosehill Lake Nature Reserve just west of Reading.With six bedrooms, several reception rooms and an indoor swimming pool, the house sits on 33 acres of land, which includes mature gardens, a tennis court, and a detached stable apartment for guests. £2.75 million.

For more information, visit sarabatting.co.uk

Sophie Dahl

Notes from Home On laying about

ones in the alley and took the subway up to Lexington Avenue smart-ish, thanking my lucky stars.

A functional family house offers a total oasis when you are a young person who’s been travelling or staying with other young people. For a grubby youth, to be greeted by a fridge heaving with food, clean sheets, a bathroom with bath salts and bleach is a balm of civilisation.

I was met by my friend Raffy, the air full of the scent of Manuel Canovas candles and beeswax floor polish. He handed me a glass of wine and pointed me towards the chintziest, squashiest, most all-embracing sofas, ever. Those sofas became ever after the template for comfort. I spent a lot of time on them, as I developed pneumonia within 24 hours of arrival and was ministered to by the charming family doctor, who prescribed antibiotics, chicken soup and rest, rest, rest.

Being ill somewhere that is not home is a discombobulating experience. I remember dappled trees on the wall, classical music and hushed voices: the apartment a peaceful, fragrant tomb. The city felt far away. Raffy, his girlfriend, his sister and I lay on the sofas and worked through the classics: Casablanca, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, ET – we sobbed our way through, eating pints of ice cream and takeout noodles.

W hen I was 20, my American model agency, Ford, asked me to come to New York for a month in order to build my portfolio. I learnt how to navigate both Manhattan and the myriad editors, photographers and stylists to whom I was sent on ‘go-sees’ – around 10 a day, in rickety walk-ups, pristine corporate buildings, wisteria-clad brownstones and ornate lofts in SoHo with tin ceilings.

I stayed with a girlfriend on Christopher Street, in a dot of a ground floor apartment that had a shower in the kitchen. Our shared bed was within spitting distance of an alleyway behind a bar. I soon realised why she gave me the window side.

I woke, one early morning, to what could best be described as a group carnal situation in the alley outside, happening inches away from the open window and my nightie-clad form. It was quite surprising. The participants and I had a brief, agonising eye lock, and then we all politely looked away. They got on with the task at hand. I hid under the covers. My friend, inured to such activity after six months in the apartment, slept on. The alley cacophony was our nightly sonata and I was thus overjoyed when another friend, whose parents lived uptown by Central Park and were away, invited me to come and stay with him.

I kissed my old friend, waved goodbye to the new

And then, one morning, I woke, a bit peaky looking – as my granny would say – but human once more. I unfurled from a nest of blankets and the welcoming sofa. Apologising for being the worst house guest ever, I hugged my hosts and left, pallid but grateful.

I’ve been looking for the sofas ever since. They were deep and squashy, but with a firmness that meant you could exit them with ease. Their pillows were plump and feathered. I hunted high, I hunted low, I bought without sitting on them, based just on a tantalising picture: a newbie error. Gustavian, modular, fringed, kilim clad, the sofas arrived in procession over the decades. Often, they were the wrong size and, like a philistine, I chopped their feet off to get them through a door.

I learnt through this trial and error that I admire a sofa that looks like a finely upholstered Edwardian matron. But what use posh upholstery, if the bones are made from MDF? A sofa to my mind needs to have a hardwood base to be the unsinkable Molly Brown of the sitting room. You must be prepared for animals to do potentially unspeakable things on it, or for visiting children to upend their drinks in its vicinity and for the sofa to emerge, victorious. It’s imperative to that end that it has a pattern or washable upholstery, or is covered by a throw. It can’t be precious; it has a job to do. After 25 years, my own pin-up sofa has arrived, courtesy of Nick Plant Furniture. Bespoke, it is all the things I’ve yearned for. Soft, shapely, neat of foot. It fits.

No one is more grateful than the dog. She lies splayed in the middle of it, snout reverently pointing to heaven. As Nancy Mitford wrote in The Pursuit of Love, ‘Life is sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them’ m