A restored 14th-century hall house

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Daniela Chandler and Paul Mason moved to the Suffolk countryside where they fell in love with an expertly restored 14th-century hall house.

When you’re house-hunting, it can sometimes be hard to know whether you should have a detailed list of must-haves or whether to keep an open mind and let your heart lead the way. Your estate agents may prefer you to set them a specific brief, but the home of your dreams may take you on a less direct path. That proved to be the case for Daniela Chandler and her partner Paul Mason, who moved into this 700-year-old hall house six years ago.

‘We found this house through word of mouth,’ Daniela explains. ‘After moving our skincare business (pevonia.co.uk) from Essex to Suffolk, we rented a house in the area and made it known we were looking for somewhere to buy. We knew we wanted an old property, but didn’t mind what period. We’d lived in Victorian and Georgian houses before, but weren’t necessarily looking to stick within those eras.

‘Just as our rental contract was coming to an end,’ she recalls, ‘our landlord told us about this place and he put us in touch with the owners. As soon as we stepped into the hall I could feel the warmth and the character; sometimes you walk into a house and just imagine yourself living there, doing the things that you do in it; I could very easily see myself cooking and entertaining in the kitchen, and curling up with a book on the sofa by the huge sitting room fire.’

Daniela and Paul had wanted their own renovation project, but given perhaps their hectic work schedule – which takes them travelling to meet people all over the world – luck and fate were on their side and the property had been restored just as they would have done it themselves. ‘Derelict barns or old houses with land are few and far between,’ says Daniela, ‘so when we saw this and learned about how it had been restored so sympathetically, it just felt right.’

When the previous owners had bought the house in 1990 it was in a state of complete disrepair and hadn’t been lived in for 15 years, so they knew it would take many years to restore. Along with making all the usual updates most renovators face, such as new plumbing and electrics, they had the much more meticulous task of restoring the ancient house using traditional methods that were in keeping with the original construction. For example, brick floors have been relaid; chimneys rebuilt; leaded windows restored; and as many of the old timbers as possible were kept and preserved. Walls were rebuilt using wattle and daub – clay, chopped straw and horsehair, all of which had to be manually shredded, and applied by hand to hazel sticks between the timbers. It’s a very long and slow process compared to modern methods, but luckily there was a team of four men working at it to keep the project moving and get the house ready for lime plastering and traditional paints.

‘If you want to take on the renovation of a house this old, you’ve got to dedicate a lot of time and money to doing that,’ Daniela admits, ‘and you have to be prepared to live with it unfinished for five, 10, maybe even 15 years before you ever get close to feeling it’s just so. We thought this house had been done beautifully: everything was entirely in keeping with the period; I haven’t felt the need to change anything, not even the colours: the terracotta, russet and ochre shades work really well here. A lot of love went into this place, and you can definitely feel that; I’m not sure Paul and I would have been able to commit that much time to a renovation – running your own business takes plenty out of you.’

With their spare time very limited, then, Daniela is taking a thoughtful approach to the furnishings. ‘I’m trying to find antiques and fabrics that suit the architecture,’ she says. ‘It’s important to understand a building’s age and how it would have been decorated at that time, what would have been fashionable, the kinds of upholstery they would have used; for me, it’s about maintaining that character and bringing it back to life. Some of our furniture may not be appropriate to the age of the house, but we have brought most of it with us from our previous homes. Much of it doesn’t work, but it’s not about deciding what you want and going out to buy it, it’s about stumbling across it one day, and thinking “that’s perfect”. I might not find something for years, but that’s fine, we’ll make do until we can find suitable replacements – it’s just a case of waiting until then.’

Adopting such a careful attitude, one might think Daniela is trying to recreate an era from the past; but, no. ‘A house is not a museum,’ she says, ‘it’s for living in, so everything has to be practical, too. We absolutely live in every part of this house, we mostly dine at the kitchen table, but we often use the formal dining room too; and I like to read in the snug if Paul is watching television in the sitting room.

‘Our garden’s a great pleasure, too,’ she continues. ‘I try to inspect the vegetable patch every day, twice a day, to see if anything’s grown, and feed the chickens every morning; I find it’s a really enjoyable way to start the day before going to work.’

The move seems a success, but does this ambitious businesswoman miss being so close to the capital? Daniela says: ‘I sometimes wonder whether, if we could, would I swap lifestyles? At one point, probably, yes; but not anymore – I appreciate the countryside too much to give it all up now and we’d struggle to find a house like this near London. Every time we get back from a work trip, it’s such a pleasure to come home and be surrounded by so much history.’

The history of the hall
‘The main part of the house was built in 1360; it was one storey, open to the rafters,‘ says Daniela. ‘In the middle of the floor, where the kitchen/breakfast area is now, they used to light a fire and the smoke went through a vent in the roof, where our bedroom is, and that is why we have blackened timbers there. The local council requires owners to maintain and preserve these, but where some of the timbers had rotted at the ends, carpenters had to splice new oak in with the original.

‘In 1500, the second wing was added, creating the sitting room and formal dining area; a ceiling was inserted in the kitchen, and it was at this time that the fireplaces were built. This is why the fireplace in the breakfast room and snug – and the chimney for them in the bedroom – blocks the main front windows.

‘During the recent restoration, the chimneys were rebuilt using Tudor bricks from the site, but sadly there weren’t enough, so additional ones were handmade to the same design. Some of the original bricks had been painted black, and a local historian believes that these have a religious significance. Inside the chimney, meanwhile, ballet shoes and the bones of a cat were discovered – these were thought to ward off witches.’

FEATURE NAOMI JONES STYLING SIAN WILLIAMS PHOTOGRAPHS BRENT DARBY
Featured in the February 2010 issue of Period Living