A place of many parts

Nick and Zoe Bullen moved here from London 16 years ago. The building is a pair of 16th-century cottages that were added to in the 18th and 20th centuries. It is surrounded by 55 acres of paddocks and woodland.

Nick Bullen’s house is furnished with beautiful antique furniture because his parents had no interest in it. ‘I grew up surrounded by bent chrome, smoked glass and plastic,’ he smiles, explaining that his parents commissioned a modern house in 1970, with an interior that could have come from the set of a 1960s Bond film. Although they had inherited lots of furniture via family connected to 19th-century Liverpool business people, his parents placed it all in storage.

Some years later, when Nick and his three brothers wanted to furnish their new homes, they discovered a treasure trove of beautiful 18th- and 19th-century mahogany rosewood furniture and artefacts, including sets of Victorian dinner plates and large brass lamps. ‘My brothers and I loved what we found; none of us went for the mid-century style,’ he reflects.

Nick and his wife, Zoe, moved to Suffolk because they felt it was close enough to London but still a working county: not a place full of dormitory towns for commuters. The house was originally two cottages one room deep, built in the late 16th century with a Georgian façade tacked on the front and a 1930s addition on one side. A friend remarked that it would take them 10 years to get the place how they wanted it. ‘Sixteen years later, there is still work that needs doing,’ laughs Nick, who has worked closely with builders to make the different parts of the house cohere. It was a priority to bring in light. Beams from the cottage part were sanded in Zoe’s study and limewashed in the kitchen. Some needed replacing and were sourced from Suffolk Reclamation, which is just an hour’s drive away.

Views were important too, both within the house and across the garden and parkland. From the bath you can now look one way to the garden and the paddocks and parkland Nick has created for his horses, and the other way towards a warming log fire. The Bullens acknowledge that their careers in television might have given them an ability to tell a story. They are both keen travellers and very often came back with treasures, which they would then research.

Zoe decided it would be fun to create a mini museum o