Words by Jen Harrison Bunning & Photographs by Tom Bunning
Think of a self-catering holiday and where does your imagination take you? Perhaps it’s to a shepherd’s hut, pod or luxury yurt? All very appealing prospects, but if you’re fortunate enough to be acquainted with the Landmark Trust, then your thoughts might head for more ancient dwellings. You may find yourself torn between a 19th century railway station in Staffordshire, a water tower in Norfolk or one of the few Jacobean houses in Spitalfields that survived the Great Fire of London. Maybe a converted pigsty in Yorkshire or a castle keep in the Devon estuary will take your fancy. Or you may settle on the great hall of a vanished manor house in a honey-stoned Somerset village.
The Landmark Trust is an architectural conservation charity with a simple mission: to rescue ‘historic buildings that are at risk and give them a new and secure future.’ Founded in 1965, in the midst of Beeching’s decimation of the railways and the country-wide demolition of crumbling great houses, the Trust began when Sir John Smith, a young London MP with a passion for architecture, and his wife, Christian, came up with what was, at the time, a fairly madcap plan. One to save buildings of domestic or industrial heritage that were too difficult, too remote, too small or not historically significant enough for the National Trust or the Ministry of Works to take on. The couple’s aim was to preserve these properties, in their words, “not as museum pieces, to be peeked at over a rope, but as living places which people could inhabit as their own for short spells.”
And that is what the Landmark Trust has been steadily doing for the last 50-odd years. From its first mission to save a Victorian cottage in Cardiganshire, there are now some 200 properties in the Landmark collection (mostly in the UK but with a handful on the continent), each sensitively restored to reflect its unique and fascinating past. It was one of their most challenging restoration projects that we were off to experience for ourselves; The Old Hall in Croscombe, deep in the heart of Somerset.
The village of Croscombe lies betwixt Wells and Shepton Mallet where the River Sheppey slices through the Mendip Hills. It looks wonderfully sleepy with its abundance of pretty stone cottages and houses dating back to Jacobean, Tudor and medieval times, their gardens teeming with scented jasmine, roses and wisteria.
The Old Hall can be found tucked away behind the church, up a lane bound for the hills. Originally part of a baronial house built in around 1420, what remains stands in a tranquil walled garden with clambering roses, apple trees and a tumbledown graveyard. Once part of a home built for newly-weds, the vagaries of succession meant it passed between various wealthy families over several centuries, slowly falling into disrepair. A wing was lost, a chamber collapsed, but the Hall itself continued to be used as a meeting room for manorial business and later by a congregation of Baptists, who can be credited with first saving the building when they bought it in around 1730. Whilst they made permanent alterations to accommodate the chapel, they also took care of the property, re-plastering, painting and repairing the walls and ceiling. After the Second World War the congregation dwindled and the chapel passed into the hands of the church’s District Association before being rescued by the Trust in the 70s and undergoing a huge restoration which involved unblocking doors, relaying floors, uncovering plasterwork, salvaging medieval windows and even covering over a baptismal well.
At the heart of the building is the hall itself, with its show-stopper of a Victorian roof. Creak open the door and your eyes are immediately drawn up to marvel at the five oak arched brace trusses vaulting overhead. Covered by a false ceiling for hundreds of years, the oak has never been stained and its natural rich tones combine with ochre-tinted rough plaster walls, a red quarry tiled floor and late summer light streaming in through giant windows to give a wonderfully warm and welcoming effect.
At the east end of the hall, you step through to what has, in its various incarnations, been a buttery, vestry and perhaps once a stable and school house too. It is now a simple but well-equipped kitchen with a pale grey flagstone floor and handsome furniture. At its centre is a hearth with an ancient, blackened stove that no longer fires but looks most pleasing - and there’s a modern galley with all the essentials tucked around it.
Up the winding staircase are two modest bedrooms, a deliciously dark double tucked at the back and a triple with a sweet shuttered window and views of the church to the front, both with original fireplaces, hand-printed curtains and charming lamps converted from old stoneware.
Despite the historic nature of the Hall and its delicate restoration, its spaces are designed for living in and, whilst the furnishings are attractive and of high quality, nothing here is too good for daily use. This is interior design that will never go out of style, all fashioned to complement the glorious old bones of the building. And this home-from-home appeal is no accident. As Landmark’s Furnishing Manager John Evetts wrote for an issue of Listed Heritage magazine, “I hope that visitors bring something of their own to the buildings for the few days in which they inhabit [them] ... so I like to leave empty spaces in which they can position them.” Pegs await shopping bags, garments and dog leads, jugs await flowers and racks await boots.
It’s true that The Old Hall lacks what some might consider to be modern-day essentials: there’s no WiFi or television and little reception, but most fun and relaxation usually happens when you cut yourself off from technology for a short while and appreciate what’s right in front of you. If you were desperate you could easily walk up the hill or down to the pub to get a signal, but why would you? (Unless it’s just an excuse to have a top-notch basket of scampi at The George Inn.)
On our last evening, carrying cameras, notebooks and a bottle of rosé, we tramped up the hill to toast the end of a dreamy long weekend. Settling on a ridge overlooking the village, we watched the day fade into silvery dusk and agreed that this was England at her most seductive - wondering, not for the first time, just why we were heading back to London in the morning.
Given the enormous range of self-catering properties available, why choose a Landmark? Well, there’s not enough space within these pages for a full rhapsody, but you’re unlikely to find such a range of quirky and interesting places to stay on offer anywhere else. And every stay makes a difference to the Trust, so you’ll have an added feel-good glow from knowing you’re helping to rescue historical buildings for future generations.
Go with family or friends to a castle or manor house and spend a week feasting at long tables, stomping about in the mud and playing furious games of Scrabble. Go and explore a town or city with a weaver’s cottage or parsonage as your base. Go à deux to a bolthole for a romantic weekend or, given how reasonable the rates are, venture alone to a medieval chapel for a dose of solitude.
John and Christian’s original aim was to rescue what they called “unfashionable” properties, but as we gallop through the 21st century with all of its bells and whistles and throw-away consumables, the sort of pared-back, comfortable stay you’ll experience at a Landmark has unwittingly become on trend. At least to those of us who seek simplicity, appreciate well-made things, and take pleasure in the unchanging nature and quiet beauty of ancient buildings and their surroundings.
This story first appeared in our England magazine, which you can purchase here.
