COTSWOLD HOUSE
Florist and designer Willow Crossley celebrates the season by filling her beautiful 16th-century country cottage with flowers and foliage
FEATURE AMY MOOREA WONG STYLING MARY WEAVER
Floral stylist Willow Crossley’s Grade II-listed extended cottage is awonderful ‘mishmash’, she laughs. ‘It’s very higgledy-piggledy and wonky. The walls and doors are anything but straight, but it has so much character.’
Willow and her husband, Charlie, relocated to the Cotswold stone building near Woodstock in Oxfordshire 12 years ago, moving from aone-upone-down in London. As she was heavily pregnant with her first son, Wolf, at the time, Willow admits, ` ‘I just wanted everything done, so redecorated with lots of greys and bland colours. We lived with that for about eight years, and it has only been recently that Ihave been going through the house, bit by bit, adding more colour and print. My aim is to keep going and bring in more pattern, as that is what I really love and I feel adds more life to interiors.’
One of the first rooms to be given her colourful treatment was the kitchen. ‘It was formerly very farmhouse-like with big wooden cupboards and wooden floors, so we saved up for this punchy black and white Arabescato marble for the worktops and splashback, and have aledge above for displaying pictures and paintings. This is the room that we live in and where we spend most of our time,’ Willow adds. She commissioned her friend, artist Fiona McAlpine, to paint afloral mural in the bathroom, ‘and she has now also painted the downstairs in pale apple green and lilac handpainted checks, which is so joyful and uplifting.’
As afirm believer in ‘bringing the outside in’, greenery fills every room of Willow’s home. For Christmas, this means plumes of Living so close to nature has proved to be agreat source of inspiration for Willow in other ways, too, as she has collaborated on producing anumber of interiors ranges since moving to the country. She created afour-piece rug collection with designer Amy Kent, adorned with flowers from each season, reflecting her natural, local approach to floristry. Meanwhile, her collaboration with wallpaper brand Barneby Gates features floral, whimsical designs that she has used in rooms around her home.
The feel of the house is one of intimacy and character. ‘The cottage is very much an extension of us,’ Willow smiles. ‘We’ve really made our mark on it –making and mending things creates ahomely atmosphere; it’s so loved.’ Alongside the flora, natural materials, antique furniture and vintage fabrics define the space, creating an air of informality –this isn’t ahouse that minds if you spill som
