Waves Of Inspiration

In a sea pilot’s house on the Suffolk coast, which she recently renovated with her husband David Stillman, architect Vicky Thornton displays her own-design textile pieces and hand-thrown ceramics.

- Alex Reece ​​​​​​​

‘A lot of the things in the house I’ve either made or found,’ says architect Vicky Thornton, whose serene seaside cottage in Felixstowe Ferry is enlivened by the colourful vintage fabrics she’s collected over the years along with the hand thrown ceramics she makes at her home studio in London. The Suffolk bolthole she shares with her husband, engineer David Stillman, is a former sea pilot’s house newly renovated by the couple, with extraordinary views over the North Sea and the River Deben – and it’s a place where Vicky can gain head space for her various creative projects. From their bedroom and living room windows, they might catch sight of anything from container ships and ferries scudding along the horizon to traditional fishing vessels bringing in their catch. ‘It was my dream to have a house on the sea,’ says David, ‘and in the summer, we have the bedroom doors wide open so we can hear the waves – it’s great.’

Their cottage dates back to 1804 and was strategically positioned so its past occupants could direct the boats going in and out of the harbour. The couple were drawn to it after being frustrated in their search for a shoreline property along the south coast, where they struggled to find anything with more than a glimpse of the water or that wasn’t in a crowded setting. Once David switched his focus to Suffolk, and found Rose Cottage online, he could see from the aerial photograph that not only was it close to the sea but the land behind (a golf course) was not built on, either. ‘That end-of-the-line feel was appealing,’ says Vicky of Felixstowe Ferry, a tiny hamlet of around 30 dwellings plus a 15th-century pub, edged on two sides by water. ‘Yet it was just under two hours from London.’

A CONTEMPORARY COTTAGE