Jenna in the courtyard of the gallery with some of her staff: (from left) specialist Camilla Trefgarne; registrar Galina Valvani; operations manager Anna Vilcek; Modern British specialist Lydia Wingfield Digby; and gallery director Nathan Barker.

Dean Hearne

Art does, of course, exist outside the capital. Nonetheless, the art market is decidedly London-centric, which makes Kingsclere in Hampshire – an ancient village at the foot of chalk hills that were immortalised in Watership Down – a surprising site for a commercial gallery that offsets superb examples of Modern British art (a broad term for artworks that were produced primarily in the first part of the 20th century) with wallpaper from Brunschwig & Fils.

The first thing you see as you walk through the front door of Jenna Burlingham Gallery is a charming 1927 Chilterns landscape by surrealist Paul Nash; look right, and there is a delicately tinted 1937 still life by Mary Potter, whose works were collected by Beniamin Britten and Peter Pears. Another room holds a large and luminous postwar abstract canvas by St Ives artist William Scott – and a generous sofa ideal for lengthy contemplation.

A range of prints, works on paper and ceramics make the gallery a consistently exciting source for those with tighter purse strings too, and it has long been a favourite with art advisors and interior designers when shopping for clients, as well as themselves. Established 15 years ago, its success is the result of Jenna and her team’s ingenuity – its manner of operating being just as remarkable as its location.

Jenna adjusts Chilterns Landscape (1927) by the artist Paul Nash in the entrance area of the gallery.

Dean Hearne

The path to its creation began in the aftermath of a move. Jenna, her husband Adam, who now teaches at Winchester College, and their children Isla and Robin (then six and three) had recently relocated from a two-bedroom flat in Hammersmith, W6, to Silchester. It was chosen because it was close to where Jenna grew up and also near a train station for easy access to London.

Jenna, an ex-Phillips auction house Modern British specialist, was working for London-based gallery Offer Waterman, which deals in Modern British art. ‘I relate to the period,’ she explains. ‘I love the mix of subject matter and it is tangible, because it is so recent. It’s a world where you are often dealing with the children or grandchildren of great artists, and the places they lived and painted are still there and are recognisable.

‘I soon realised conclusively that commuting wasn’t doable for me,’ she continues. ‘I had to make something work locally.’ Equipped with impressive determination, knowledge, £15,000 of stock and an intention to offer ‘entry-level as well as museum-quality Modern British art’, Jenna opened on Kingsclere’s Georgian high street in 2010. ‘It is far prettier than the local towns, but big enough for a nice coffee shop and just over an hour from London. And you can walk straight onto the Downs,’ she says. The business grew slowly. ‘I had a small inventory, people consigned things and I started to do art fairs – London Art Fair, the British Art Fair, The Decorative Fair in Battersea.’ Within a few years, the ‘I’ had become a ‘we’ (her team is now seven strong), and they were running out of space.