Having lived in the Old Vicarage for 21 years, Janey Saunders still looks at her Gloucestershire home as an ongoing project
Janey Saunders’ heart sank when she first saw the Old Vicarage in Gloucestershire in 1991. Although dating back to at least 1760, it now needed major work but luckily had escaped listing.
“My husband Charlie wanted it because, of all things, he could see the old coach house had been made into a great workshop,” she says. “Especially as it had a long Victorian work bench. Oh, and the house had tall ceilings too which he liked as being very tall himself he kept bumping his head on the ceilings of our old stone cottage.”
The family had just returned from a four-year stint in Japan but Janey could still recall the nightmarish job that renovating their cottage had been before they left England. Renovating the Old Vicarage was an even bigger project and Janey says that even though 21 years have passed since they began, it still isn’t finished.
“There was a mint-green Aga set against 1960s bottle green tiles,” she recalls. “The whole kitchen was dreary. There was a modern grate in the drawing room, loud 1960s wallpaper in the dining room, lovely old cobblestones trapped in concrete and doors stripped back to show poor quality wood. Worst was when it rained for then we had to put buckets in the attic to catch the many leaks, and when we went to fetch wine from the cellars not only were they flooded but newts were swimming about there too! They came in through the old coal chute.”
And Charlie adds, “That Aga was a filthy beast, fuelled by anthracite which meant we had to keep painting the walls because the ash left a film of grime on them. Not only that but the ash was getting into the food chain so at last we sent the Aga off to be converted to oil-fuel and had it re-enamelled black.”
However, their first jobs were to remove all the slates and tiles from the roof, put in insulation and then relay the roofing adding some extra reclaimed tiles where needed. Then they had land drains dug – using Janey’s savings she had put aside for a longed-for grand piano. (“But I did get it eventually,” she says.) This last job involved levelling the sloping back garden so, as most of their two acres resembled pasture, they went on to plant hedges, build steps and terracing, cut down an old monkey puzzle tree and create new paths.
“We were held back from doing a grand renovation because we had a young family, busy careers, a lack of money and because Charlie’s career took him abroad a great deal,” says Janey. “It seems the last time the house had been renovated was in 1853 using the Queen Anne’s Bounty as the original architect’s drawings for that date still exist in diocesan records. Although the Church owned it until the 1950s no further money was forthcoming and when they sold it at auction to a farmer we heard he had kept cows in the Drawing Room.”
However Charlie was able to do a lot of work himself such as creating a loft bedroom for their son Ed at his request by splitting an unwanted family bathroom into Ed’s new bedroom and a new shower room.
“He also stripped the paint from the Georgian Painswick stone fireplace in the Dining Room and then panelled the walls using marine plywood as this doesn’t move with time in the way real wood does,” says Janey.
Later the Saunders employed Sue Tallents who designed both an oval and a croquet lawn, moved and repainted a summer house then added more steps, gate-posts and a decorative obelisk all in Haddon stone.
Meanwhile inside the house the family were living on one side of it while working on the other.
“It wasn’t just a case of installing new central heating, rewiring and replastering - which we did,” says Janey. “The ceilings were so bowed they had to come down too. All the window frames were rotten so had to be replaced with oak frames and we had to lower the bay window in our bedroom as no-one could see the lovely views over the fields.”
Luckily many of the original Georgian fireplaces were still in place although boarded over and they were able to buy a replacement for the modern one in the Drawing Room as well as several original cast iron inserts.
The second side of the house presented an even bigger challenge as they had a new kitchen and scullery put in by Woodchester Cabinet Makers and this involved removing a wall in the hall to allow in more natural light. They also laid a damp proof membrane after excavating the floors in the hall, kitchen, music room and scullery and in some cases had under-floor heating installed as well as new flooring.
“Even the old staircase had to go,” says Janey. “The original was very narrow and so uneven you daren’t run down it. I studied the Georgian Society’s Handbook of Staircases to check the correct details and then added polished mahogany banisters and handrails.”
The worst moment of the whole project was one wet evening when she came home tired from a long day’s work and found a mini-digger in the Georgian hallway with the floor up. “There was that awful graveyard smell of wet cold earth,” she says. “The only lighting came from inspection lamps as the ceiling was missing and I could see right up to the roof. It was then I really did wonder if we would ever get the house straight.”
But they were almost finished. Four years ago the couple had a new garden room built on to the kitchen and Janey acquired her long-wanted study in which she had floor-to-ceiling library shelves built by Woodchester Cabinet Makers. At the same time she had them refresh the kitchen.
And now the house exudes calm and tranquillity thanks to the soothing Farrow & Ball paint shades she has chosen for each room. “The Italians call them misery colours because they are subtle shades such as Old White and French Grey,” she says.
The furniture is mainly Georgian or Regency and even the couple’s four-poster Regency-style bed was made by a company in Suffolk after Janey had sent them a picture. “I wanted a soothing, simple but not stark look,” she says. “I always like plenty of cut flowers everywhere and a neutral background palate so I can change the accessories according to the season.”
So what was the best moment of the makeover? “That’s easy – it’s every time I come home,” she smiles. “But a particular best moment is when we gather with friends and family to cook and eat together in the kitchen.”
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