ROYALLY ICED
Frozen out by Elizabeth I for his obdurate Catholicism, James Turbeville found himself banished to the backwaters of Somerset. But, in his otherwise modest farmhouse there, the exiled bishop sprinkled some towny glamour in the form of sumptuous strapwork and plasterwork mouldings. The toothsome Tudor confections work surprisingly well alongside modern furnishings, the new owners tell Grace McCloud. Photography: Simon Upton
Opposite: the front door to this conventional cross-passage Somerset house is a Tudor original. Reclaimed panelling lines the hall. Top: Mark and Michael found cobbles beneath the tarmacked former farmyard in front, and with the help of garden designer Daniel Back, they reimagined the area, bringing in mature topiary yew, beech and maple and incorporating a rough parterre with osmanthus
the kitchen used to have a concrete chequerboard floor, but Mark and
preferred the softness of brick, which would have originally been there. Top: in winter, the kitchen hearth –‘a place of congregation for the dogs’ – is almost permanently lit. Above: on the dining table stands an old grey goose, rescued (albeit already stuffed) from a restaurant in the south of France
Left:
Michael
In the Great Hall, with its magnificent plasterwork, art by Hugo Guinness and Ronan Bouroullec rubs shoulders with ceramics by Bruce McLean and Hella Jongerius, while a ‘Mags’ sofa by Hay, covered in a Designers Guild fabric, chimes with a 1950s Hans Wegner ‘Papa Bear’ chair and a c 1700 one, upholstered in verdure tapestry
ONE SUPPOSES
that Christopher Hussey must have been feeling rather bilious on his visit to Gaulden Manor in 1933. Hussey, an expert on domestic architecture and a columnist for Country Life , was on assignment in west Somerset when he wrote that this blushing red-sandstone building, with its striking gabled porch, was ‘nothing to look at outside’. ‘It’s rather unfair, isn’t it?’ Mark Homewood, head of buying and retail at Designers Guild and the house’s current custodian, says with a laugh. ‘But then I suppose it was 1930s Country Life. He was probably more used to grander houses.’ Still, it seems a little unjust, for Gaulden – also known as Golden, Gavelden or Gaveldene – is, in fact, really rather handsome.
That it has so many recorded names is a robust testament to both its age and its history. There’s been a settlement in this quiet corner of the county, sandwiched in a twisting valley between the Brendon Hills and the Quantocks, since the mid-13th century. It belonged to Taunton priory for many years, before Henry VIII got his hands on it in 1539 and turned it over to a succession of landed gentry. Things started to get exciting in the reign of Elizabeth I. On her accession, James Turbeville, Bishop of Exeter (and, incidentally, of the same family as the ancestors of Thomas Hardy’s tragic Tess), refused to bow to the Protestant queen and found himself in the Tower. On release in 1563, it seems he struck a sensible deal, leaving London for deepest, darkest Somerset in exchange for keeping his head. ‘This part
of the world is remote now,’ Mark says. ‘That’s why we love it. But imagine how remote it must have been then.’
That said, it wasn’t so isolated that Turbeville didn’t manage to hire some exceptional artisans to work on the sumptuous souping-up of his Somerset farmhouse. It’s pertinent to point out that, in his article of 1933, Hussey was referring only to the exterior of Gaulden. For inside the house is some of the most remarkable plasterwork in a residence of this size in the country.
This royal-icing resplendence is thought to be no later than 1570, the handiwork of master craftsmen from Exeter. At the time, the city was a centre for the applied arts, thanks to its sea links with the lowlands. This might explain the relatively restrained strapwork on the ceiling in the so-called Chapel, a parlour presumably used by Turbeville for mass, which is notably Flemish in style. Elsewhere, however, the spirit of the bishop reigns supreme, his coat of arms emblazoned dramatically across numerous fireplaces. He might have been gone, but he didn’t want to be forgotten.
When Mark and his partner, costume designer Michael Sharp, bought Gaulden in 2018, not much had been done to it for about 60 years. But ‘rather bizarrely, the plasterwork was absolutely brilliant, if a little soot-smudged,’ says a wry Mark. He began to wash off the years of woodsmoke himself, before redoing the distemper. ‘It was something of a labour of love,’ he continues. ‘There comes a point, when you’re fiddling around with a toothbrush on yet
Top: Staffordshire figures huddle on a windowsill, on the same level as a Tudor carved-oak panel. Above: by this dog-leg staircase leading from the Great Hall stands a vintage floor lamp from Camden Market’s Stables, the first piece Mark and Michael bought together. Opposite: beneath a strapwork ceiling in the Chapel, a gold-painted plaster nude and a framed folk-art frieze are both Swedish
Top: in the couple’s bedroom, a woven chair by Moroso makes a visual rhyme with Turbeville’s coat of arms. Above: the curtains in the main bathroom were made using lemongrass ‘Saraille’, a hand-dyed shaded linen from Designers Guild. Right: studio ceramics by Edmund de Waal and others soak up the sunlight, while below the Regency fret mirror sits a Duncan Grant sketch
another pomegranate, that such a task becomes a little, er, tedious.’ It took months, he says cheerfully, ‘but it was worth it’.
Elsewhere, there was more work to do. While the starred listing restrictions meant nobody had fiddled around with the bones of the place, ‘it was in a relatively rough state’. On ripping up loads of olive carpet, Mark, who comes down at weekends, and Michael, who is here full-time, discovered that the original floorboards were, at least in part, extant. Mark says he liked the bits that weren’t quite perfect. ‘What I really wanted to preserve were the scars. The marks left over centuries.’ He’s particularly fond of certain details, he explains. ‘We wanted to keep the softness that uneven walls give. I can’t bear it when it’s all sharp corners and edges. That’s fine in a modern house, but in somewhere so old, straight lines can bleach character.’ There is, he says, just the right amount of skewiff here, ‘though I admit the lintel above the sitting-room window did look worryingly wonky at one point. But I checked, and it was the same in the Country Life pictures. If it hasn’t moved in nearly 100 years I reckon we’re all right.’
Mark’s respect for the fabric of Gaulden is apparent. ‘It’s clear that something has been here for a hell of a long time. It feels very safe. Settled and rooted.’ For a house with rather ancient – and therefore rather small – windows, it gets lovely limpid light. And what of the rumour that it’s haunted?
‘Neither Michael nor I have ever seen anyone,’ says Mark with a laugh. ‘Disappointing, really. I wouldn’t mind a benign spirit
– though heads-off is less attractive.’ Ghosts or none, there is a certain aura here, thanks in part to its considered decoration. Mark’s is an honest approach to an old house, carefully attentive to its age, while not shying away from newer things. Spot a red Calder-type mobile here, a bright – and recognisably Designers Guild – curtain with a neon blaze there. In the main, and especially downstairs, colour comes not from walls but from things – upholstered furniture, mid-century metal lighting, glazed ceramics – save for the kitchen, painted pink and black. Elsewhere, Mark was conscious of avoiding competition; ‘I didn’t want to negate the plasterwork, which needed to feel part of the room, rather than this separate thing, hovering above it.’
It seems remarkable that a house with such a relatively modest floorplan should sequester such splendidness. ‘I secretly rather like that it’s a bit showy-offy. It just makes me think of Turbeville, under house arrest, surrounding himself with beauty.’ Mark himself is hardly incarcerated here, dashing up to town as he does, but the beauty endures. His love of the place, and his desire to make its past liveable in the present, again brings that Country Life article to mind. ‘It is to be hoped,’ Hussey wrote in closing, ‘that the property will be taken up by someone prepared to preserve [this] historic house.’ He would surely approve of Mark’s stewardship – even if he still didn’t think it much to look at from the outside $
Gaulden Manor is available for location hire. Visit gauldenmanor.co.uk
Top: the rightmost of these Edwardian photographs of Gaulden’s interior shows the Great Hall with darkish plasterwork, likely a result of soot from the hearth. Above: Designers Guild’s ‘Bamboo’ wallpaper lines the guest bedroom, with its carved chinoiserie bed from the 1930s. Opposite: vintage pieces brighten the guest bathroom, among them a Swedish seaweed print and a boucherouite rug
