‘I love old houses. They give off this amazing sense of all of the people that have lived and died there before,’ says Emma Pocock, one half of interior design studio Turner Pocock. If indeed these houses tell a story, then this one’s has several chapters: the first sees it established as a 17th-century farmstead, the next finds it owned and rented out by St John’s College, Oxford. It was bought in the early 1900s by a family who lived in it for over 100 years, until eventually, in 2024, it was sold once again to its current owners: a creative, art-collecting couple with two children and plenty of imagination. They have, alongside Emma and her co-founder Bunny Turner, gently modernised the house while injecting a riot of colour, global influences and bags of personality.
Tucked away behind a church on a lane in rural Oxfordshire, the house is surrounded by gardens, stables and outbuildings. ‘The previous owners had lived here for as long as anyone could remember and so the house needed a big refurbishment,’ explains Emma. The first port of call was to create an open-plan kitchen, dining and sitting room where the family could hang out together. The house is Grade II* listed, and architectural additions need to be distinctly contemporary so there‘s no confusion between the old and the new. Thus, a modern, glass structure inspired by Salvador Dali’s house in Cadaqués was dreamed up by OEB Architects.
Christopher Horwood
This space now takes up the back of the house, with large glass doors overlooking a bright and colourful garden by designer John Hill. The oldest spaces at the front, meanwhile, play host to a boot room, drawing room, sitting room, playroom and downstairs loo, while the two floors above house six bedrooms and a dormitory (the owners are keen hosts), all linked by a network of stairs on either side of the house and corridors winding their way around them.
When it came to decorating, Turner Pocock was an obvious choice: over the years Bunny and Emma have firmly established themselves as designers who can carefully layer surprising and playful elements with grown-up and sophisticated ones. For the travel-loving owners, it felt natural that the houses’ spaces should reflect their favourite places: from the rich, pink sitting room decorated with masks collected from Sri Lanka, the Italianesque children’s bedroom upstairs or the large open-plan extension, which feels like stepping into Ibiza.
The thread that runs throughout each of these spaces is colour – something Bunny and Emma do very well, and luckily the owner was prepared to be daring with it. ‘She loves art and is hugely inspired by Mexico, Spain and Sri Lanka, where the palettes are bold and bright. Pastels were out of the question, and so was anything too muted,’ explains Emma. ‘We’d show her a yellow and she’d say “yes but make it more acidic”. It really pushed us to be as bold as possible at every turn, and to establish a running thread throughout the house.’
The wall lights are from Porta Romana, topped with its ‘Bongo’ shades in ‘Cumin Cotton’.
Christopher Horwood
The yellow in question is a suitably punchy archive colour from Farrow & Ball, which has been used on bespoke woodwork and cabinets in the pantry and larder. Here, the colour borders walls clad in hand-painted Spanish tiles. It forms a playful contrast to the kitchen, dining and sitting area in front, which are airy and white, more classically Spanish in feel. This space acts as a backdrop to the owner’s collection of art – some by her and others by her friends. Apparently holding the whole room up is a large stone pillar made of the same stone from which London Bridge is constructed. At the far end, a tactile plaster wall filled with curved nooks nods to the architectural style of Lanzaroteño designer Cézar Manrique. It holds ceramic objects and makes a feature of the television. ‘She didn’t want it to be completely bare in here; we introduced neon colours on the upholstery and cushions, so that even when it is English winter outside it can feel like European summer inside,’ says Emma.