Medieval Essex made modern

By Fred Redwood
Posted: 2010/02/24

Historic homes still command a premium over modern houses, reports FRED REDWOOD, but only if they are loved and nurtured inside and out

IT IS ALWAYS the first question an estate agent asks: "Are you looking for a modern home or period property?" Most of us are ambivalent but when Louise Pollock is house hunting the agents may as well throw away their brochures for art deco masterpieces or glass and steel modernism. Only houses of real antiquity will do. When it comes to creating an interior to enhance the beauty of a centuries-old property, Louise is an expert.

"There is so much more character to a period property, " she argues, w eaving her way through to the kitchen of her home, Hoe Street Farmhouse in the village of Roxwell, Essex. "It has a back story, people have lived within these walls for centuries."

Louise's interest in antique properties began years earlier when she was married to her late husband Charlie, a solicitor, and they lived in two classic examples of Victorian architecture on Clapham Common West Side, south London.

Then, when it was time for their twin sons, Fred and Harry, 21, to go to school, the family moved to Brook House, near Great Dunmow, Essex, an amalgam of two 16th-century hall houses joined by a converted barn.

THEN, in 2003, they bought their present home, a partially moated, timber-framed house dating from the early 16th century. James I slept here in 1606, an occasion celebrated in a painted crest.

Louise, 58, says: "It is a converted hall house and they usually have low ceilings but this one has high ceilings and lots of big windows."

Louise, who trained in art and design in the Seventies, has always had a good eye. However, it was only two years ago, mourning the loss of Charlie, who died just before the family moved into the farmhouse, that she decided to enrol on an interior design course at the Inchbald School of Design in London.

"I learned about the importance of texture, " she says. "How many times have you been in a room where a designer has balanced a palette of colours yet still it feels bland?

That's because the surfaces are textured too evenly."

In the kitchen Louise has chosen rusty check-patterned curtains to pick out the reddish brown of the wood surfaces. On the walls there are paintings by Reg Gammon, whose Gauguin-esque scenes of peasant women tilling the fields sit perfectly in the room.

The three reception rooms are spread in a line across the front of the house but the space that creates the most dramatic effect is the dining room. With high ceilings and heavy oak panels, its dark shades are offset by cream curtains and green chair covers. The faces of family ancestors peer hauntingly from portraits on the walls.

Next door there is the sitting room and this has a completely different feel. Two modern sofas on a lovely Persian rug sit in the centre and modern paintings by Salman Malik are spot-lit on the walls. "Modern art and furnishings can work in a period property, " says Louise. "The trick is not to detract from the room's own features."

Finally, there is the drawing room where the green of the lawn, which runs up to the windows, is picked out in several items of furniture.
Upstairs a bathroom has recently been installed, which is always a problem in a period house. "It meant building a platform covering half the floor to hide the pipes, squeezing a shower into a tiny space and buying a short but deep bath, " she adds.

Perhaps the most interesting feature upstairs, apart from the James I crest, is a rough-hewn door dating from the 15th century hung on the wall of the landing as an ornament, a reminder of generations of farming folk.

Louise has carried out interior design projects for neighbours.

However, her most ambitious work will probably be undertaken at her next home: an elegant Georgian house in Long Melford, Suffolk, dating from the 18th century.

Schuyler Pratt of Jackson-Stops & Staff, says: "There is a shortage of period properties, which is why prices are being sustained."

HE ADDS: "Essex is a variable county with the most expensive properties being close to links to London.

You can buy a period cottage for as little as £175,000 in Bradwell-on-Sea, which is a delightful coastal town but not easy to get to. The same cottage would cost £375,000 in Epping, which is at the north-eastern end of the London Underground's Central line."

However, historic houses are not for everyone. "You need deep pockets to maintain them, " warns Schuyler. "Yet they command a premium, especially if they are modernised sensitively."

MORE INFORMATION:

Hoe Street Farmhouse, Roxwell, Essex, is for sale with Jackson-Stops & Staff (01245 467 468), priced at £1,500,000.