The Hill family’s Victorian manor in Warwickshire, rescued from dereliction and filled with wallpaper, craft and good food.

Hampton Manor

Hampton Manor is a Victorian house with a clock tower in the village of Hampton-in-Arden. The Hill family found it derelict, and James Hill’s parents, Jan and Derrick, did the hard work that turned it back into a hotel. James and Fjona Hill now run it as a family estate with three restaurants, a bakery and a walled kitchen garden.

Fjona leads the design across the estate, and the rooms show her appetite for colour. Bedrooms mix strong patterned wallpapers with tiled fireplaces, freestanding baths and Windsor chairs, while the library and whisky snug keep to deep reds and leather. Open shelves of handmade ceramics carry the same craft thread that runs through Grace & Savour, so the house reads as lived in rather than finished.

Owner: Fjona Hill, James Hill
Interior design: Fjona Hill
Photography: Fjona Hill
Photography: Laura Edwards
Photography: Fjona Hill, Laura Edwards

Fallen out of time

Ryan Todd
Creative Director, Makers Yard

Creative Director Ryan Todd is drawn to places that feel lived in rather than styled.

KID

The Newman

The Emory

The West End, Hawarden Castle

Glen Dye

Cowley Manor Experimental

Gleneagles

Bob Bob Ricard

A house on the north Wales coast, renovated by its owners with a small team of local makers.

Ty Coch

Ty Coch sits at Clynnog Fawr in Gwynedd, where the Llŷn Peninsula begins. Miles and Julie renovated the house themselves with a small team of local makers, and it reads as one couple’s taste carried through every room, down to the jellyfish wallpaper Miles designed.

Much of the effort goes outside. An outdoor kitchen is the newest addition, and the beach hut and weathervane get the same attention as anything indoors. Most of the furniture and details come with a story, and the house is better for being furnished by the people who live in it.

Owner: Julie Falkingham
Interior design: Julie Falkingham
Photography: Adam Firman
Photography: Adam Firman

People make a space

Charlie Gladstone
Entrepreneur

Charlie Gladstone judges a space by the people in it, and by the confidence of its taste.

A wing of William Gladstone’s family home, opened to guests by his descendants and filled with the family’s art.

The West End, Hawarden Castle

Hawarden Castle in Flintshire was William Gladstone’s home, and the family still lives there. Charlie and Caroline Gladstone have turned its west wing into a five-bedroom house for guests, looking out over the gardens, the lake and the ruins of the 13th-century castle.

They designed it themselves, and it feels lived in. Walls are painted in deep, rich colours and hung with family portraits, clocks and art from David Shrigley and Julian Opie to Turner, with a vast 18th-century Don Quixote painting filling one bedroom. There are Welsh wool cushions, a bust of Gladstone in the sitting room and no televisions. Outside there’s a private woodland garden with a wood-fired tub and a pizza oven, and Gladstone’s own library is on the floor below.

Interior design: Charlie Gladstone
Interior design: Caroline Gladstone
Photography: Fran Mart
Photography: Fran Mart

Crossing the threshold

James Hill
Owner, Hampton Manor

James Hill wants hospitality that engages every sense and tells the story of its place, not status-driven luxury.

Interviews

Lotti BruceMarketing Director, THE PIGLotti Bruce has spent years as marketing director at THE PIG, learning from Robin and Judy Hutson how a building should be lived in before it’s changed.

Lotti Bruce, marketing director at THE PIG

Ryan ToddCreative Director, Makers YardCreative Director Ryan Todd is drawn to places that feel lived in rather than styled.

Jo BerrymanFounder, Jo Berryman StudioJo Berryman plays with scale and keeps the traces a house’s past leaves behind.

Elizaveta SlyvaCreative director, Lita MaryleboneElizaveta Slyva judges a room over a whole evening rather than the first five minutes, and listens to a space as closely as she looks at it.

Knut WyldeFounder, Wylde HospitalityKnut Wylde looks for the invisible layers of a space: sound, scent and, above all, light.

Charlie GladstoneEntrepreneurCharlie Gladstone judges a space by the people in it, and by the confidence of its taste.

Anthony BurrillGraphic artistAnthony Burrill looks at a building the way he looks at a poster, for what’s essential and what’s just noise.

James HillOwner, Hampton ManorJames Hill wants hospitality that engages every sense and tells the story of its place, not status-driven luxury.

People make a space

Charlie GladstoneEntrepreneur

Charlie Gladstone judges a space by the people in it, and by the confidence of its taste.

What’s a space that felt right the moment you walked in, and why?

in New York blew my mind when I first stayed there in 2000. It was a combination of colour (purple), smell (fig), confident minimalism and the people on the front desk who were so engaged and human. I then stayed there fifty-ish more times, but slowly the people got less good, and in 2024 they asked me if it was my first stay. At that moment I realised it was my last.

The moral of this story is an important one: people make a space more than anything else.

What’s your favourite space, and why?

My sitting room in Wales is a perfect space. It was two rooms with a low ceiling and we stripped it all out and made one huge room. There is something about the transformation that makes it so special; a feeling of giving space life and confidence.

Sitting room with dark walls, blue sofas, a marble bust and green lamps — The West End, Hawarden CastleAston, UKPhoto by Fran Mart

What makes a space work, in your view?

Confidence of taste. I have an idea that there is not really such a thing as good or bad taste, but just confidence in what you are doing. With taste, the worst crime is to have no taste.

With taste, the worst crime is to have no taste.

What’s one detail people often overlook in a space?

Humanness. A little mess, a little eccentricity, a bit of texture and definitely some humour. Space has to feel inhabitable, or it feels cold.

Sitting room with green walls and red curtains framing a big window onto the glen — Glen DyeUKPhoto by Kym Grimshaw

Is there a moment in a place that has stayed with you?

I absolutely love in New York. Exiting the lift on a high floor to see the art in front of you just blows my mind.

What’s a place you think more people should know about?

A new hotel in Nairobi called . It’s beautiful, and a bit chaotic, but the people are amazing. I am writing this from their terrace.

Where’s at the top of your list to visit next?

We are going back to Florence for the first time in a decade to see the Rothko show.

Mentioned in this interview

The MercerStay, New York, USANot in Spaces

Whitney Museum of American ArtMuseum, New York, USANot in Spaces

Céline & LoloStay, Nairobi, KenyaNot in Spaces

Links

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