OUTDOOR PURSUITS

A country house in the Surrey Hills has been sensitively refreshed by interior design studio Sims Hilditch with soft colours and botanical prints that reference its glorious setting.

- RACHEL LEEDHAM

Fate seemed to be playing a role when the owner of this lakeside house first viewed it. As he looked around, he realised he had visited the place many times as a child, when he had come to play with the previous owners’ offspring. He and his young family were returning to the UK after a number of years in America; they had honed their search to the Surrey Hills because both husband and wife had grown up in the area and still had family living locally. As well as its glorious situation, the house offered everything they wanted, including fantastic entertaining spaces and large grounds for their three children to roam.

The Grade II-listed building is also steeped in history: parts of it date back to Tudor times, with cross-wings added in the 17th century and more alterations made over the past 200 years. As well as the main house, the grounds contain a separate cottage providing guest accommodation – and, on the other side of the building, a pool house – a party barn and a further barn housing an office. Although the interiors were in good decorative shape, the owners were keen to ring the changes with schemes that were sympathetic to the building’s history and its country setting.