There’s nothing to match the beauty of the glow of candlelight against the rich patina of OAK.

'The first piece of old oak and I mean really old oak I ever owned was described by the auctioneer as a tool chest. True enough, it contained sawdust and rusty nails, but that was where the similarity ended, except perhaps for the fact that it was probably made by a carpenter.

No, mine dated from the late 15th or early 16th century and at £100, it was the finest and oldest ‘tool chest’ of all time...'

GEORGIAN & REGENCY: 1714 to 1830 saw two distinctive periods of gracious living – innovative at the time and wonderfully classical now.

'One summer’s day in 1956 I went to tea with a friend who lived in an elegant town house overlooking a private park, one of 15 such houses set out in three blocks of five. At the time I lived with my parents in our newsagents shop and had only seen such houses within the covers of glossy magazines. At a stroke I entered a world where Oriental rugs graced polished oak floorboards, famille-rose porcelain played host to exuberant displays of delphiniums and larkspur, and tea – from a polished silver pot – was served on a veranda accessed from the drawing room via floor to ceiling sash windows. It was at that moment I fell in love...'

ARTS & CRAFTS: A reaction to mass production this distinctive, revolutionary movement gave free reign to the individual hand-crafted look.

'Arts and Crafts Style embraces a very wide range from the simple ‘honest’ style, to the splendid and luxurious, and offers a rich palette of mood and colour for the interior designer. Styles vary from the arched and craggy lines of Gothic, to the colour and pageant of medieval revival, the purity of handcrafted Cotswold furniture, the ‘Artistic’ furniture and Decorative arts in Liberty style incorporating swirling designs in Art Nouveau and the dramatic ‘modern’ lines of Rene Mackintosh. Looking back on the English revival in Decorative Art in 1911 Walter Crane, a pioneer of the movement said, “The great advantage and charm of the Morrisian method is that it lends itself to simplicity or splendour...'

Originating from a rich melting pot of cultural influences and
post-war depression, ART DECO dominated the scene throughout the 1920s and 30s.

'The world of interior design had been ticking along very nicely – the occasional peak causing a few ripples of excitement, the occasional trough where it got stuck in a stylistic rut, but then Art Deco burst onto the scene and turned the accepted status quo completely topsy-turvy. Sandwiched between two bleak periods, the aftermath of WWI and the grey Depression years, Art Deco was an explosion of life and warmth and colour that refused to be contained. Bold and controversial, this was a style that would muscle its way to the centre of the design stage, an effervescent inspiration for countless artists and designers ever since...'

Perhaps the most challenging style of all. The MID 20TH CENTURY  look is set to become a design classic of the future. 

'As early as 1941 it had become apparent that the combination of a severe lack of raw materials and the increased demand for new furniture due to the loss of housing caused by the Luftwaffe, had created a severe furniture shortage. The British Governments answer to this problem was the formation of The Utility Furniture Committee founded in 1942, and chaired by Gordon Russell, in order to assure that the scarce available resources were used in a sensible way...'

Stow-on-the-Wold, Wiltshire

'The Cotswolds is arguably one of the most beautiful and interesting areas of southern England, with towns, which have remained mostly unchanged for more than 250 years. One such town is Stow-on-the-Wold, which is nearly 800ft above sea level, making it the highest of the Cotswold towns approached uphill from all directions...'

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