Maintaining a quintessential English country home
With its formal box hedging and limestone walls swaddled in wisteria and roses, this old Northamptonshire property is the archetypal English country cottage. Bought by the current owner to perform guest duties alongside the main house, the renovations carried out some four years ago were fundamental ones: plumbing, heating, electrics and bathrooms.
Structurally, the house was sound, and it was decided not to disturb the mature climbing plants in order to carry out any external cosmetic work on the walls. Internally, the old flagstone and quarry tiled floors were retained, but plastering and paintwork were addressed, the exposed beams spruced, and the cabinetry and Aga were stripped and reconditioned to facilitate a cost-effective facelift.
Indicative of this Grade II listed property’s mixed heritage, the window styles hail from the seventieth, eighteenth, and late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Some of them feature stone mullions, whilst others are casements under wood lintels, but the overall effect is charming. The old leaded lights are sound – there’s no sign of the horizontal cames sagging or bowing – but they are certainly a challenge to paint.
More recently the owner commissioned a brand new Collyweston slate roof.
