Blousy florals and vintage finds combine to create a relaxed feel in an 18th-century farmworker’s cottage
FEATURE SARA EMSLIE PHOTOGRAPHS RACHEL WHITING
We have only ever lived in old houses,’ says Ruth Taylor, explaining the move from National Trust property Hinton Ampner, which came with her husband James’s job as an estate manager, to the Wiltshire cottage that is now their home. ‘While it was fun living in a grand house, we really needed a place of our own, and it was important to us to find somewhere with immense old age, character and style.’
This Grade II-listed, 18th-century thatched farmworker’s cottage fitted the bill exactly. With much of its original character intact, the couple could embrace their naturally custodial attitude, while also having the freedom to put their own stamp on the place. They handled changes with a light touch, says Ruth, apart from the hall, where they felt they had to rip up ‘an awful wooden block and tiled floor’. The travertine flags they installed look as if they have always been there, she says.
At the time of their search, Ruth was also working for the National Trust. But these days she runs a locations business, Peagreen Locations, specialising in contemporary, country-style houses for photography and film – properties not unlike her own, in fact.
As soon as the renovations were complete, she gave her love of sourcing and styling full rein. Inspiration for the interior came in part from the pretty garden, which comes into its own in spring, with apple blossom and vintage pots filled with flowering bulbs. Throughout the year, the cottage itself is cloaked in pale yellow roses and there is also a little vegetable patch to tend.
Once inside the pretty thatched cottage, a sense of the outdoors is reflected in the colours used in the house – dusky pinks, duck-egg blues and soft sage greens in luxurious velvets and slubby linens and on lime-rendered walls. This calming backdrop is enlivened with cottage-garden florals that appear on cushions, curtains, lampshades and wallpaper: ‘I love how florals add life to old properties,’ says Ruth. ‘Large-scale rose patterns and blousy floral designs bring a relaxed informality to a space.’
This is most notable in the sitting room, where a formal arrangement of two Chesterfield sofas, either side of a large inglenook fireplace, is softened by cushions and curtains in a vintage-style cabbage-rose print. This comb
