‘There is something about a wooden house that creates a sense of quietness and stillness,’ says interiors consultant Carrie Dunlop of the home she shares with her husband James. ‘We deliberately kept it quite low-tech – I didn’t want a house that hisses and fizzes.’ With one of the UK’s most biodiverse and rare freshwater systems on their doorstep, the couple wanted to ensure that their new home sat lightly on the edge of the River Test in Hampshire. But when they purchased the plot in 2020, it had planning consent for a dwelling that didn’t make the most of its extraordinary setting. The site is a verdant meadow, circumnavigated on two sides by the Test, a crystal-clear chalk stream that loops through the end of the garden and past the house, bringing with it trout, kingfishers, rare butterflies and a host of wildlife.
The site is a verdant meadow, circumnavigated on two sides by the Test, while the house was inspired by Nordic barns, with their distinctive, sturdy wooden cladding.
Astrid Templier
As the founder of an eponymous design studio and having lived locally since the age of 12, Carrie knew exactly what she wanted – a single-storey dwelling that would provide a contemporary take on the local vernacular. She enlisted the help of Andrew Wells, a director and co-founder of 3W Architects, to help realise the vision. ‘The approach was to create a house that responded to its context, place and orientation,’ he says. ‘It needed an integrity that would make it feel anchored to the site.’ Inspired by Nordic barns, with their distinctive, sturdy wooden cladding and functional pitched roofs, they sought to create something honest, considered and versatile.
Together they came up with an L-shaped design for the building, which was conceived as two interlocking barns with a connecting entrance hall. The open-plan kitchen, sitting room and dining space is in the longer part, along with the main bedroom and bathroom, and there are two bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms in the other, with a south-facing, sheltered entrance courtyard.
Handmade clay tiles from Marlborough Tiles showcase an antique bench in Guy Goodfellow Collection’s gold ‘Persian Vine’.
Astrid Templier