NANNY BROW

The lounge at NannyBrow has been

furnished with amixture of Arts

and Crafts furnitureand pieces from

other periods

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Sue and Peter Robinson have breathed new lifeinto a unique Arts and Crafts house near

Ambleside. Michaela Robinson-Tate finds out howthey’ve put their own spin on the décor

Photography by Phil Rigby

SimplybeautifulSimply

beautiful

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Nanny Brow, an imposing LakeDistrict house with a wealth oforiginal Arts and Crafts features, wasshut up for several years, with many

of its architectural treasures papered over orobscured by layers of paint and varnish.

Its owners Sue and Peter Robinson havechanged all that. After buying the house threeyears ago they undertook a completerefurbishment last year.

Over a few months, they stripped the houseback to a shell, removed partition walls anddiscovered three fireplaces which had beenpapered over. Paint was painstakingly removedfrom delicate plaster friezes to reveal their fullbeauty and wood panelling was cleaned so thatits lustre could shine through.

Sue and Peter are now running NannyBrow, at Clappersgate near Ambleside, asluxury B&B accommodation. Therefurbishment reduced the number of roomsfrom 10 to eight but Sue says that, despite thepotential impact on their income, it was theright decision.

“Sometimes you’ve got to go with yourfeelings; it’s just lovely having it back as it was.”

The Arts and Crafts movement, whichflourished in the late 19th and early 20thcentury, was a reaction against increasingmechanisation and incorporated simplicity ofdesign, beauty and craftsmanship.

There are a number of Arts and Crafts

properties in the Lake District, includingBlackwell near Bowness-on-Windermere,which has been restored and opened to thepublic.

However, Nanny Brow has remainedrelatively unknown and has not been made alisted building.

Sue says: “It’s a hidden gem; it’s the housethat time’s forgotten.”

The house was built in 1904 by thedistinguished architect Francis Whitwell, as afamily home, after he had decided to set up hisown practice in Ambleside.

Built on a crag on the steep fellside ofLoughrigg, the Arts and Crafts features beginon the house’s exterior, where the initials FW,for Francis Whitwell and DW, for his wifeDaphne, are found on two gable ends.

The house’s elevated position gives it abreathtaking view of the River Brathaysnaking through the countryside, the hillsbehind Tarn Hows, Wrynose Pass and theLangdales.

Whitwell sold the building in the Forties,after first giving about 100 acres of land to theNational Trust, and it was then run as a hoteluntil about 2002. Today Nanny Brow hasabout seven acres of its own land.

The front door, with leaded glass panels,still appears as Whitwell first designed it. Theairy entrance hall has the original woodenflooring, incorporating an unusual borderaround the walls.

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The façade is typically Artsand Crafts in style

Sue Robinson, who chose all the fittings and fixturesfor Nanny Brow; below: work to restore a rare animal-themed frieze in the lounge has been so successful

that even the tips of the snails’ antennae can be seen

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Original lead windows frame the views fromthe house; below: a missing fireplace in the

dining room has been replaced with aperiod example by Shapland and Petter

The guests’ lounge has been the site of a number ofdiscoveries for Sue and Peter and their contractors.

There is a triple plaster frieze running around the topof the room. Two of the friezes are of typical Arts andCrafts motifs of flowers and fruit. The third frieze,however, is much rarer and features animals includingrabbits, snails, frogs and birds, all in intricate detail.Even the tiny tips of the snails’ antennae can be clearly seen.

Sue has spoken to Arts and Crafts specialists who have speculated that the animals wereincorporated because of the presence of Francisand Daphne’s children in the house.

Similar plasterwork at the bottom of the stairs, whichdepicts a baby bird through different stages until it’s fullygrown, might also have been designed to appeal to thechildren.

The plasterwork in the lounge has been the focus ofmeticulous restoration work. Sue and Peter’s foremanspent an entire weekend patiently chipping away with apallet knife to remove Artex which had been appliedaround the delicate designs.

A poultice-type preparation was then applied to theplaster and left for several days. When it was peeled off,it removed layers of paint, revealing the detail of theflowers, fruit and animals beneath.

They did a test first to ensure that it wouldn’t damagethe plaster.

Sue says: “That was what we had to do; when you’vegot the room stripped back to its bare bones it’s the onlytime you can do that.”

The plasterwork continues from the frieze down the ➨

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chimney breast, and the original stone fireplacehas two Elterwater slate borders. The originalpicture rails, which are in sections rather thanone continuous length, are still in place.

The oak panelling and the window frameswere so dark from years of accumulated dirtand varnish that Sue and Peter thought theywere mahogany. After specialist cleaning therich oak wood was revealed.

Sue and Peter have incorporated as manyenvironmentally friendly features as possible at Nanny Brow, including black-out thermalblinds for the single-glazed windows whichwork to keep the heat in.

A number of windows in the house featurestained glass details. A stained glass panel of achild’s face is in one of the lounge windowsand there are rumours that it was a child whowas killed nearby.

However, Sue believes the truth is lessdramatic and that it was probablysourced from the Continent, alongwith stained glass panels elsewhere

in the house which have been identified asFrench.

“I think he [Whitwell] probably picked upglass on his travels and incorporated it into thehouse, which is the sort of thing people dowhen you’re building your own house.”

Sue has furnished the lounge with a numberof Arts and Crafts pieces but has incorporatedother styles of furniture, along with gold wallcovering and floral curtains.

After speaking to experts at Blackwell and aspecialist furniture supplier, Sue realised thatthis approach is in keeping with how the housewould have been furnished originally.

“Even when it was built, this housewouldn’t have been filled with purely Arts andCrafts furniture because any home is a

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The original wooden floor in the entrance hall has an unusual border; below: geometric patterned wallpaper in the Skelwith room ties in with the Arts and Crafts style

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collection of furniture you’ve gathered over theyears or you’ve inherited, or you’ve been onholiday and seen something and bought it.

“It’s an eclectic combination and that’swhat we’ve tried to do here.”

The dining room features further originalplasterwork. Sue and Peter have bought Artsand Crafts dressers and chairs which sitalongside contemporary tables. A missingfireplace has been replaced with a periodexample by the makers Shapland and Petter.

Upstairs Sue has forgone classic Artsand Crafts bedroom furnishings,which she says she finds quite stark,in favour of French antique furniture

including armoires and large empire beds. Each room has an en-suite bathroom and a

flatscreen digital TV and radio.Whitwell built an extension to the house in

1915 where he had his own bedroom. Thatroom has now been turned into the WhitwellSuite, with a wealth of period features,including a plaster frieze of a grapevine,original fitted wardrobes complete with theirbrass door knobs, a fireplace with decorativetiles and an oriel bay window.

Sue wanted to remember Whitwell in thedécor, without making it too dark andmasculine, and so has used a fresh green colour scheme.

During the refurbishment, the room now

known as Skelwith contained one of thebuilding’s biggest surprises. As they wereworking, Sue and Peter uncovered a concealedfireplace with all of its original Delft blue andwhite tiles undamaged and still in place.

“My husband and I started to strip off thewallpaper and saw a flash of blue and strippedaway,” she says. “We thought we might findone or two tiles.”

They had the missing fireplace surroundmade to match one from another bedroom. To finish off the room, Sue used contemporarygeometric wallpaper, which she feels fits in wellwith Arts and Crafts styling.

There was another concealed fireplace, thistime with Oriental-style tiles, in the BrathaySuite.

Sue and Peter own another holidayaccommodation business in the Cotswoldswhich includes an Arts and Crafts B&B.However, their passion for the architecturalstyle dates back even earlier to when they werehaving a property built on the south coast.Although it was a modern building, it had Artsand Crafts characteristics.

Sue says it was then “love at first sight”when they found Nanny Brow.

They have been able to research more aboutthe building because a neighbour in theCotswolds turned out to be Francis Whitwell’sgranddaughter. She has lent Sue and Peter someold family albums and framed copies ofphotographs of the Whitwells at Nanny Broware on display in the house.

Their manager, Mark Jones, first workedat Nanny Brow 10 years ago when it was asuccessful hotel and restaurant and has beenfascinated to see period details emerge duringthe refurbishment.

Sue, who says they want guests to feel they are staying in “a nice family home”, isadamant that they are custodians of NannyBrow.

“We have done it so that futuregenerations can enjoy this place.”

She and Peter have plans to refurbish alarge modern extension at the rear of NannyBrow for holiday accommodation. It willhave a different feel and style to the mainhouse, says Sue.

In the meantime, although she is completelyimmersed in Arts and Crafts design, she stillenjoys it as much as ever.

“I like the simplicity, I like the straight lines;the workmanship.

“It’s just simple and it goes with anything.”■ www.nannybrow.co.uk

Clockwise from above: the Whitwell Suite; detail from an Oriental-style tile in the Brathay Suite; the Skelwith room with Delft tiles on the fireplace uncovered during renovation; French antique pieces

in one of the bedrooms; the initials of Daphne, the architect Francis Whitwell’s wife, on the façade

Life

‘I like the simplicity, I like the straight lines;

the workmanship’

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