ROOM TO GROW

For garden designer Ailsa Richards, it’s the outdoor space surrounding this pretty cottage that’s key to its décor inside

- KAREN DARLOW

Exterior

The original two-bedroom cottage was built in the 1700s and has been altered through the years. Recent work, carried out in two phases, added three extra bedrooms and created this front courtyard

Ailsa Richards took a slightly unconventional approach to choosing her family’s home in the country. While most househunters start with how many bedrooms they want, and what the kitchen and living room are like, Ailsa was far more concerned about the type of trees there were in the garden and whether there was scope to encourage everything from pollinators to hedgehogs into the outside space.

AT HOME WITH

Owners Ailsa Richards, a garden designer (ailsarichards.com), lives here with husband Ben, a lawyer, and children Hebe, Cecilie and Kit. The family pet is Teddy, a liver-coloured flat-coat retriever.

House A five-bedroom cottage with parts dating back to the 18th century in an Oxfordshire village. Ailsa and Ben bought the house as a two-bedroom property in 2007.

Ailsa only needed to see the gnarled old apple trees and a 300-year-old yew in the back garden to decide that the little two-bedroom cottage in an Oxfordshire village would be the perfect move out of London. The fact that there wasn’t quite enough indoor space for the growing family faded into insignificance alongside other features, such as the part-walled garden, and yet more green space beyond its boundaries. None of the main rooms looked out onto the back garden, but this was something that Ailsa and her husband Ben knew they could put right once they got to know the house.