Aiming high

The ambitious restoration of a Tudor long barn in Suffolk demonstrates the possibilities of artistry, craft and collaboration, finds Giles Kime

- Giles Kime

WHAT is the future for country estates? To be set in the thickest, most gelatinous aspic? Or something more fluid and constantly evolving? Over the centuries, they have been in a constant state of flux, with Chatsworth, in particular, a shining beacon to the exciting possibilities of not allowing time to stand still. Centuries after the Derbyshire house was first built, it still fizzes with the same creative energy required to build it.

At the Chapel Barn estate, the latest addition to the Wilderness Reserve in Suffolk, the focus has been on the highly creative restoration of cottages and farm buildings. Not only have Moat Cottage, The Grange and the Cider House been brought back to life with a structural integrity that they would never have enjoyed when built, but they have also been lent a pared-back aesthetic that couldn’t be further from cottagey pastiche.

The quality of the craftsmanship—from the oak, hewn with extraordinary precision, to the pargeting (an East Anglian speciality) and the decorative brickwork— puts them in a class of their own. There is also a focus on the landscape, from designs that the 18th-century Capability Brown conceived, but never implemented, to interventions by current landscape architect Kim Wilkie.