King of the bastle
Published on 27/09/2007
WOULD you dress a battle-scarred warrior in
candy pink, or drape an old war horse with frills of canary yellow? OK, perhaps
one should keep an open mind on these things... but Keith Pepperdine definitely
would not!
Keith owns a macho veteran of countless skirmishes – his
house, Greenhaugh Bastle near Slaggyford.
The 400-year-old farmhouse has
been a home for most of its existence, and has been repeatedly renovated after a
fashion...hence its vibrant pastel walls. But Keith has explored the history of
his house since buying it nearly eight years ago, and discovered it was once a
base for a notorious reiver clan – the Bells.
The Bell family was among
the Devil’s Dozen, the 13 names which most terrorised the English/Scottish
border throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. Bells were allies of the Black
Douglas, and Bells were among the war party which rode into Carlisle Castle in
1596 to free Kinmont Willie Armstrong from an English dungeon and earn grudging
admiration from Elizabeth I.
Mind you, this good deed didn’t stop the
Bells disembowelling the Armstrongs when the urge came upon them, or the
Musgraves, the Irvines, the Grahams...
It’s likely that Greenhaugh Bastle
was built towards the end of the Bells’ reign of terror. Their great chief
Willie “Red Cloak” Bell died in 1628 and the headless clan began to
disintegrate. Greenhaugh Bastle, so cunningly sited in a fold of Knarsdale fells
that it is invisible from 100 yards away, was an ideal secret refuge for a
warrior clan.
Knowing all this, Keith felt honour bound to restore the
true spirit of the house. Away with the sherbet pinks and lemons, down with the
frilly curtains and off with the fussy Axminster. This bastle was all man! But
how to go about the transformation? Keith decided to call a woman in to create
his masculine world – interior designer Rachel Poad.
Rachel runs her own
company, Creative Interior Design, from a base near Hexham. Among her most
recent revamp projects are a shabby-chic Georgian B&B in Ovington, a former
Victorian music school and a “romantic” National Trust ruin in Yorkshire. Being
offered the makeover of a misunderstood bastle was meat and drink to Rachel.
Among her first decisions had to be the colour scheme. The wrong hues,
as her client Keith found, can send all the wrong messages.
Rachel’s
website has a handy guide to the language of colour. Pink for “softness,
sweetness, health and innocence”, and yellow for “sociability, goodwill and
warmth”, she knew she could dispense with. Sociable reivers indeed!
After deep discussion with Keith, Rachel opted for a palette including
the red of a sword slash, the bronze of an ancestral claymore, the grey/green of
the concealing heather...
The dining room – once a byre where cattle
sheltered when trouble brewed outside and the family climbed to the first floor
and pulled up the ladders – had been painted in the despised pastels to try and
lighten a dark, low-ceilinged room with small windows. But Rachel turned
disadvantage upside down, making the dimness an atmospheric asset and recreating
a mini great hall where you can almost see the Bells feasting.
She had
the walls painted in deep sanguine (actually Farrow and Ball’s Blazer Red) and
replaced pale furniture with massive, gleaming oak.
On the long table
she set pewter platters, goblets and suchlike medieval utensils – many found at
Hexham’s Finishing Touch antiques store.
Prissy curtains were switched
for custom-made muted plaid with a rustic unfinished hem. Acrylic twist carpet
was replaced by a woven seagrass mat edged with a flowers-of-the-forest border.
The tiny windows – one a genuine arrow slit – were accentuated with
macho curios such as a two-foot high Knights Templar.
A finishing touch
was an ancient pewter potty under the chief’s seat at the head of the table –
handy for those long reivers’ binges...
In the sitting room with its
11ft-wide inglenook, more big boys’ bric-a-brac had been sourced from the
internet and a variety of local outlets including Dyvels of Corbridge. The walls
were hung with battle axes and gargoyles, a reproduction Greek helmet stood on a
cabinet and Aragorn’s favourite long sword rested against the frame of the
massive arched window which once was the barn door.
But the sitting
room’s literal pièce de résistance must be Sir Poacher Lad. This life-size suit
of armour, found on a website called medievalweapons.com, is named in honour of
designer Rachel Poad. His name is an anagram of hers.
More medieval
mimicry has been employed upstairs. The minstrels’ gallery type landing has been
painted with original murals featuring Keith and his grandsons in historic mode.
Rachel found Hexham artist Sabina Rose to paint the wall scenes. Sabina
placed Keith – easily recognisable with his white moustache – at the head of a
Hot Trod.
Whenever the Bells and their like had their livestock pinched,
the law allowed them to cross the Border in Hot Trod pursuit of the thieves.
Each Bell would carry a lance tipped with burning peat, following the trail with
“hew and cry, and hound and horn!”. Heading the pack in his steel bonnet, Keith
looks quite the vengeful reiver.
So convincing are these murals that
Keith remembers when decorator Brian Long from Wark – who carried out the more
orthodox wall painting – tried to rest his arm on the mural’s “window frame” and
nearly came a cropper!
And Sabina has also made something very special
out of the corridor to the bedrooms. No flower prints or dusty corn dollies deck
these walls. Instead they are covered with trompe l’oeil wood panels, bronze
lions rampant, and red roundels containing the initials of the bastle’s lord,
“KP”.
The bedrooms set Rachel almost her only deadline in the six-month
project. She had to prepare the guest bedroom in time for Keith’s 60th birthday
celebrations.
Again, chi chi colours had to be concealed under the new
theme of bronze and red. Rachel chose a flamboyant dull-gold figured wallpaper
by Zoffany – with a matching fancy price tag of £50 a roll.
But she made
up for the extravagance by discovering an opulent red and gold brocade material
for curtains and bedspread on special offer at £5 per metre. A quaint
needlepoint-covered chair and some Victorian prints found at Alston Antiques
completed the look.
The master bedroom was almost simple in comparison –
muted sage and cream was selected for walls, plaid curtains and bed hangings to
make the room a calming refuge (remember Rachel’s language of colours guide...
green for relaxation and harmony, beige, ecru and the like as neutral,
non-warring shades...?).
The four-poster bed was bespoke and exclusive,
while the metallic lamps were bargains from Ikea.
Part of Rachel’s skill
is sourcing the right product for “the look” and if it fits, she’s not proud
about where she finds it.
“There’s nothing wrong with Ikea, though I do
try to buy things in Tynedale and use local tradesmen,” said
Rachel.
She’s both happy and sad to have come to the end of this long
project. “It’s been fascinating – fun rather than a chore – trying to breathe
life back into this old property,” said Rachel.
Luckily her working
relationship with Keith was a meeting of minds. They agreed on almost
everything. Keith can’t remember one dispute.
“Bringing Rachel in as
interior designer was a great idea,” he said.
“I could have lived in this
house as it was, just about, but I felt it looked all wrong. And I was keen to
make my own mark, and bring out the true character of the building. I just
didn’t know how to go about it.
“Rachel helped focus my vague schemes,
and when I look round the house now, I’m proud. We’ve brought out its natural
beauty. The ghosts of the Bells should be delighted!”
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