CONTEMPORARY CHARACTER

Interior designer Abi Powell brought her 17th-century cottage into the 21st century with a modern palette of rich greens and blues

- JANE CRITTENDEN

Losing a loved one can be a trigger for change, as we look at our lives and wonder what could be different. When Abi Powell’s father sadly passed away in 2017, it encouraged her and husband Ian to re-evaluate what was important in their lives. Abi had grown up on the edge of the Peak District with the moors on her doorstep, and she still felt an affinity with the area, despite living 40 miles away in Nottingham with Ian and their children.

‘We needed a bolthole and it made sense to look for somewhere in the Peaks as we had friends and family there,’ says Abi. ‘I’d spent my teen years scrambling on rocks, watching solar eclipses, going for dawn walks and still loved the peace and freedom of the moors.’

The couple’s main home is a Victorian house and they were keen to find somewhere very different. They liked the idea of retreating to a quintessential Peak District cottage, with gritstone walls and character.

‘In winter, the landscape here can look quite barren. And with many villages built in gritstone, some looked quite grey as we drove through,’ Abi recalls. ‘Then we arrived in Litton with its trees and village green.’

The couple found 17th-century Holborn Cottage down a narrow lane at the end of a higgledy row. Entering the house through a plastic sliding door into a single-storey 1970s extension with a kitchen and bathroom created a disappointing first impression, but then they went into the living room.