Is there anything better than walking through London on a sunny day? Not a scorcher — just one of those quietly golden afternoons we've been graced with lately. Even my scruffy corner of Shepherd’s Bush takes on a sort of accidental glamour in the right light. So, when I set off across town, I already had that familiar London lurch of joy in my chest.

I was heading to Walthamstow, spring in my step, with only the faintest idea of what I’d find. A few days earlier, Helen had messaged me on Instagram. Her house — the one she shares with her husband Mark, both lifelong collectors — was going on the market. She sent over the estate agent photos, and of course I was intrigued. But estate agents’ photos are like online dating profiles: they rarely tell the truth, and when they do, it’s by accident. What Helen had built was one of those rare homes that makes your shoulders drop the moment you step inside.

It’s becoming less common, isn’t it? This kind of house. In a market that increasingly treats the history of a building as an obstacle to be plastered over, where interiors are being flattened into a Pinterest-friendly blur, Helen’s home is something else. We’re not just losing beautiful things — we’re bulldozing care. Throwing centuries of craftsmanship into skips because it doesn’t fit the mood board.

This house needs someone with heart. They don’t have to be Helen — one of the leading minds in the world of Arts and Crafts — or Mark, the Medals & Militaria expert from the Antiques Roadshow. But they will need a sensitivity to history, and a willingness to live with it — to fold it into their own vision, rather than strip it back because a stained glass window doesn’t suit the colour scheme.

The house is now on the market, and if you’re looking, it’s most certainly worth a visit.

To See The House Click Here

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Helen Dunstan-Smith

Helen Dunstan-Smith is a freelance art historian and antiques dealer specialising in 19th-century British decorative arts. From 1994 to 2011, she managed Haslam and Whiteway on Kensington Church Street, a leading gallery in the field, selling to major museums and collections worldwide.

She has curated several international touring exhibitions, including The Pre-Raphaelites and William Morris (2010–11) and The Arts and Crafts Movement in the UK and the USA (2008–09). Her writing includes Tiles by William De Morgan: the John Catleugh Collection and contributions to The Victorian and The Journal of Stained Glass.

Helen was a trustee of the William Morris Gallery and the De Morgan Foundation, and now runs two businesses: @antiquesforthehome and @eco_antique_teacup_candles.

We’ve lived in our beautiful Walthamstow home for 27 years this year, which I realised the other day is exactly half my life. We bought it just a few months before we got married in 1998 and it is now home to myself, my hubby Mark and our two gorgeous dogs Molly and Tilly.

We quite literally wrestled our house from the hands of a developer who was in the process of returning it into a single dwelling from a series of flats. We managed to purchase it just as the false walls were being removed before any serious work had been done and over the last 27 years we have set about restoring it as best we could. We were very fortunate that during the 1960s when original features were either boxed in or ripped out most of ours had been boxed in: we have uncovered, restored and if necessary replaced, where missing, as many as we could.

Unbelievably we uncovered 3 working intact Victorian fireplaces. During the winter months we simply shut the living room door, light the fire and are toasty in just minutes, there is absolutely no need to put the heating on for the majority of the time, the Victorians really did know what they were doing! We took down the false ceiling in the living room to uncover a completely perfect original ceiling rose, and almost perfect cornice moulding - an artists friend cast the missing section for us.

I am passionate about beautiful things, both natural and man made and am an Art Historian and antique dealer specialising in the Arts and Crafts Movement: throughout the house you will find elements of our travels and this era built in.

In the living room and in the loft room are cupboards the doors of which are original oak doors from the Palace of Westminster. They was removed from the Houses of Parliament after WW2 when the building suffered extensive bomb damage and are designed by the great Gothic Revival architect August Welby Northmore Pugin circa 1854, both with the original brass hardware.

The tiles on the floor in the hall are a Gothic Revival design by the architect George Gilbert Scott, they were reproduced for the 150th anniversary of Kings Cross St Pancras, for which they were originally designed….sadly the company that made them went bankrupt and a friend and I bought a pallet of the tiles from the liquidators sale….almost broke the suspension on my car that day!

In the dining room and the library alcove shelves have been made from pieces of wood cut from pew seats salvaged from old Victorian and earlier churches. The tiles behind the cooker in the kitchen are 18th century Spanish picked up in a flea market in Barcelona.

The Shower room on the ground floor is fitted with hand made tiles from Fired Earth based on the pallet of the Arts and Crafts designer William De Morgan, in fact there is one original De Morgan tile hiding amongst the scheme!

The stair banisters were unfortunately missing when we moved in but when we did our loft conversion we had original banisters from a neighbouring house copied by a Walthamstow based wood turner and fitted throughout the three floors. The stair runner was hand woven to my design in Marrakech in Morocco. It took 18 months to complete and runs the entire height of the house.

In all the halls and bedrooms are wall papers made by Sandersons, Bradbury and Bradbury and Osborne and Little to William Morris designs. I buy when I see, the old adage ‘I will use it one day’ is definitely one of my mottos…and it works the wallpaper in the living room I picked up at an end of line sale when Osborne and Little discontinued their Arts and Crafts range…it went up 8 years later…

I am a passionate scourer of salvage yards and as you make your way up to the final floor, which is part of our loft conversion, you will see at the top of the stairs we built in a beautiful original Arts and Crafts stained glass window c 1890, the doors as you enter the loft room are reclaimed panels from a Victorian porch with original stained glass. The floor in this room is a recycled ships floor. I removed all the nails by hand, then scrubbed and waxed the wood to maintain the stunning original patina. The rest of the floors throughout the house are original, some sanded and refinished, some scrubbed and waxed.

My hubby is a military historian, the ‘Medal Man’ from the Antiques Roadshow so we are both collectors who can therefore never say no to each other! As a consequence our house is stuffed to the gunnels with our treasures, and we just love them. Now, we are really looking forward to our next adventure and finding them and us a new home to love…

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