New English Interiors

Elizabeth and I met in 2015 when we worked together at House & Garden. We were both at the bottom of the totem pole, finding our feet in the world of editorial. Unlike me, Elizabeth always had a good head on her shoulders. She manages her work seamlessly, writing one terrific article after another, all while juggling mounting deadlines and constant features—with a smile. I’ve always found her impressive, but never more so than when she told me about this book. Like everything Elizabeth does, it’s filled with joyfully thought-out work; showcasing homes, you’ll never see twice. These are the spaces of some of the finest eyes in interiors. It’s a bountiful addition to any interiors library, and I’m sure it will be enjoyed by many. She was kind enough to let me publish this extract featuring Mark Homewood's Somerset home.

New English Interiors: At Home with Today's Creatives

by Elizabeth Metcalfe with photography by Deane Hearne

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MARK HOMEWOOD 

Buyer, Somerset

Mark Homewood

Mark Homewood is one of those people whose taste manages to be both incredibly broad and just so. As illustrated at his sixteenth-century red sandstone farmhouse in Somerset, his is a world where exuberant royal icing-esque plasterwork, folk art chairs, a Calder-esque mobile and a contemporary modular sofa coalesce in happy harmony. ‘I’ve always loved that mix of contemporary and vintage, probably because it’s what I’ve done for years at work,’ explains Mark, who as head of buying and retail at Designers Guild has spent the best part of three decades sourcing products. ‘We could have gone down the minimal or the traditional route here, but I guess what we’ve tried to do is bridge the two,’ explains Mark, who bought the house with his partner, the costume designer Michael Sharp, in 2018. ‘I’m too much of a hoarder for it ever to have been minimal, so what we have tried to do is make it look like it had evolved over a long time. I wanted it to feel a bit eccentric.’ 

Before they moved to Gaulden Manor, Mark and Michael had been living in a Georgian house about an hour away. ‘I put off coming to see this house for a while, because I knew what would happen once I did,’ recalls Mark, with a knowing grin. It is not hard to see why the couple fell for the farmhouse: it has charm in spades and is tucked away from everything, surrounded by gardens and fields. ‘You don’t know you are here until you are right on top of it,’ Mark explains. The house itself is laced with history: a dwelling has been recorded on the site since the twelfth century, but this farmhouse dates back to the sixteenth century, with some seventeenth-century additions, including the remarkable plasterwork in the Great Hall and the smaller Chapel off it, which was dreamed up by its then owner James Turbeville, the Bishop of Exeter – a Catholic in hiding from Protestant Queen Elizabeth I – as a way to celebrate his life. ‘I love that this daft plasterwork was added to jazz up what started out as a modest farmhouse,’ says Mark, pointing out motifs ranging from James Turbeville’s coat of arms to pomegranates and, at the more macabre end of the spectrum, skeletons. 

Aside from the fairly precise plasterwork, the house is full of wonky charm, which Mark and Michael were keen to embrace. ‘I can’t bear old places when they’ve been given sharp edges,’ Mark admits. ‘I never understand why houses that have been through hundreds of years of use are given facelifts that rip out all of their softness and romance.’ The layout stayed largely the same too, mainly because the house is Grade II* listed, but also because it worked well – with a small kitchen, dining room, study, and larger Great Hall and Chapel on the ground floor, and five bedrooms and three bathrooms upstairs. The only real change was to swap the dining room and kitchen around.

Although unintentional, the newly positioned kitchen has something of Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex about it, with an inglenook fireplace and cupboards pieced together from an old haberdashery unit that Mark found in the south of France. ‘It wasn’t a conscious reference, but I guess Charleston was a big influence on the house, and this room has a sort of crafted feel,’ he explains. The pink and black walls – in fact, some of the very few in the house to be painted a colour – add to this feeling. ‘I’ve used this pink – it’s ‘Cinder Rose’ by Farrow & Ball – a lot over the years, and it just really works,’ explains Mark. ‘Pinks, purples and greens worked really well in this house,’ he adds, pointing out the green and white hallway, which the couple have clad in reclaimed tongue-and-groove. What did not sit so well was blue. ‘It’s one of my favourite colours, but I just couldn’t make it work in the countryside,’ he explains. As such, the navy blue Great Hall walls that they inherited soon became white. ‘Every colour we considered for this room just distracted the eye away from the plasterwork above, so in the end we went with white,’ he says. 

Blue may not have worked for the walls, but it certainly comes in through things – the embroidered quilt on Mark and Michael’s bed, the blue and white floral wallpaper that enlivens one of their bathrooms, and the Delft tiles that provide a charming splashback for the Aga in the kitchen. In fact, most of the colour in the house comes in through the pieces furnishing it. The white walls of the Great Hall provide a foil to colourful pieces, including a pair of 1940s armchairs by Otto Shultz in a yellow cotton from Designers Guild, a green modular ‘Mags’ Hay sofa, a vintage rag rug and a multicoloured mid-century metal floor lamp. ‘I love colour, but I liked the idea of adding it through pieces that we could swap in and out,’ Mark explains. ‘We never wanted to create a house that was fixed in aspic.’ That, of course, and the fact that a flexible approach allows for the fruits of sourcing trips to continue to find their way into the space. 

What makes the farmhouse feel exciting is the way pieces are combined. There might be a nostalgic floral, but then there is also a vivid green Marni side table made from PVC cord. ‘I like the juxtaposition of something traditional that has been around for years, with a hit of something modern,’ explains Mark. The curtains in his bedroom illustrate this point well: they are made mainly from a vintage fabric adorned with pheasants, with a neon-green strip of Designers Guild linen forming the outer edge. ‘The vintage curtains came from a house we used to have in France but weren’t quite big enough, so we added the linen,’ explains Mark, who continued the green theme with a vintage chest of drawers and pillows on the bed. ‘I love how the linen gives the curtains a contemporary shot.’ It is a recurring combination in the house, also playing out in the Chapel, where an old Chesterfield sofa – upholstered in a botanical print from John Derian – and a traditional Georgian console are paired with a green floral 1970s rug, a zingy pink Marni chair and a Calder-esque kinetic mobile that gently sways overhead. ‘For me, this kind of mix is what gives rooms energy,’ Mark explains. 

What Mark and Michael have conjured up through their thoughtful decoration is the feeling of a house that has developed over a much longer period than the five years they have been there. Did it all just naturally come together or did they plan out the rooms? ‘It all started in quite a calculated way, but that discipline fell off the edge of a cliff quite quickly,’ admits Mark who often rents the space out as a location house and runs his own online shop selling vintage and antique finds. ‘I’m just always getting seduced by things.’ This also accounts for why Mark, at one point, was moving house every couple of years, living in spaces as diverse as Shoreditch loft conversions, Georgian houses and everything in between. ‘I was always getting new ideas through work and always wanting to do something different,’ he explains. ‘But this place feels like a synthesis of all of that and I’m happier here than anywhere we’ve ever lived, both in terms of the setting and also what we’ve ended up with visually.’ Long may it last. Although, I suspect this one may continue to happily evolve, as all good interiors should.

In the Great Hall, seventeenth century royal icing-esque plasterwork provides a backdrop to Hay’s green modular ‘Mags’ sofa, a green PVC cord side table by Marni and a multi-coloured mid-century metal floor lamp.

At the other end of the Great Hall, an MDF Italia table contrasts with a pair of painted antique folk chairs and ceramic vessels by Dutch industrial designer Hella Jongerius. The chapel is just off the Great Hall, and features an old Chesterfield sofa, upholstered in a botanical print from John Derian, a Calderesque kinetic mobile and a 1970s floral rug.

Mark Homewood, New English Interiors

The kitchen is painted in ‘Cinder Rose’ by Farrow & Ball, which is one of Mark’s favourite pinks. Mark had the kitchen made from an old haberdashery unit he found in the south of France, while the splashback is made from antique Delft tiles.

Mark Homewood, New English Interiors

A Victorian English four-poster bed takes centre stage in Mark’s bedroom, with curtains made from a vintage patterned fabric and a neon green strip of Designers Guild fabric. A woven chair by Moroso adds a contemporary flourish and picks up the green. The painting of the jug came from the south of France.

Mark Homewood

Mark Homewood

In the otherwise white bathroom, a splash of colour comes from the Designers Guild wallpaper, the boucherouite rug and antique Swedish seaweed print. The house itself is a sixteenth-century red sandstone farmhouse, which has been added to over the years.

Mark Homewood, New English Interiors

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