When Matt and Emma Goss-Custard decided to move with their business from Surrey to Matt’s home county of Dorset, they had very specific ideas of the kind of property they hoped to find. Their dream of being ‘far from the madding crowd’ hinged around buying an old country house with a history, and a barn which could be converted into a bakery.

Matt and Emma founded their business, Honeybuns, which specialises in gluten-free cakes, in 1998, but had outgrown their rented Surrey premises and were keen to expand. They realised that finding the right property at a ‘budget’ price was rather slim and spent many months searching. However, when they eventually came across Naish Farm, near Sherborne, they knew instantly it was just what they were looking for.

Left: The cosy living room which was originally the ‘hall’ and open to the roof. The inglenook is original. Note the ‘quirky’ furniture and sea-grass natural carpet.

The present ‘front’ of Naish Farm (viewed from the garden) may have

originally been the back of the house.

Situated alongside a former drove lane in a quiet rural location at Holwell, the 15th-century timber-framed hall house came with a range of outbuildings including a 300-year-old stone barn which was barely a cake’s throw from the house and had previously served as a milking parlour.

The Grade II*-listed house had been partly modernised in recent times, but rather than continue to update the property, Matt and Emma realised it was a golden opportunity to strip away its 20th-century additions and sympathetically restore the original character of the old house. Out came all the suspended ceilings and stud walls to reveal its impressive medieval roof timbers and cruck frame which, along with the rest of the house, Matt and Emma prudently treated for woodworm. Off came much of the wallpaper too, taking great care not to damage the plaster beneath. On specialist advice, where there was a real risk of damaging the plaster on the ground floor, the wallpaper was mostly left in situ and painted over. However, where the paper came off without too much difficulty in the first-floor rooms, the walls were lime plastered and then coated with special paint which would allow them to breathe.

Virtually every modern fixture and fitting throughout the house was removed, but Emma had fallen in love with the ‘retro’ look of the 1970s’ upright electric cooker and decided it could stay, temporarily at least, until a suitable replacement was found. The old cooker is still in daily use and now sits alongside an Aga cooker which Emma says not only provides their heating and is invaluable for cooking, but also comes in handy for drying the occasional damp log or two! Their three delightful dogs, Honey, a ginger Rhodesian ridgeback, Peggy, a black-and-white ‘Heinz 57’ and Diesel, a German shepherd who, along with Peggy came from Somerset and Dorset Animal Rescue, obviously appreciate the warmth of the stove and laze contentedly in the kitchen!

Having removed all the modern kitchen units, Emma decided to replace them with something more in keeping with the age and character of the old house which she says, fondly, ‘has no straight lines or edges’. She contacted a local craftsman, Kit Clifford of Rhino Furniture, who she knew made chunky wooden furniture with an individual style. Using elm throughout, Kit created a range of sturdy units with drawer and cupboard fronts left in a rough ‘waney’-edge style complete with hand-forged black iron rings for handles. The thick and beautifully figured elm worktops are complemented by an elderly Belfast sink in which Matt’s mother used to display flowers! So successfully do the elm units suit the period look that one visitor was prompted to ask when they were going to replace the units!

Right: The renovated first floor bathroom with painted floor on which sits a plastic roll-top bath which has been cleverly painted to look like enamelled cast iron. The cruck frame timbers are 15th century.

A genuinely old, but recently installed, feature in the kitchen is a ‘pig table’ which can seat six people and is used for everyday, informal dining. In its day, this seriously heavy and rugged oak table on which pigs were butchered would have been a familiar feature in many a country kitchen. Emma explains that she bought it for Matt as a birthday present to use as a coffee table in their living room, but when it wouldn’t fit through the narrow doorway they fitted it with longer legs and left it in the kitchen. The former pig table is just one of the many old and quirky items of furniture that the Goss-Custards have delighted in finding for their home which, as Emma points out, has an intentional ‘shabby chic’ appearance!

Right: The screens passage which separates the kitchen (on the left) from the living quarters in the rest of the house. The planked door at the end is believed to be the original main, front entrance door.

The dining room to be. Matt and Emma are going to take out the modern

fireplace and put in a woodburner. The new window shutters are made

from reclaimed elm.

On lifting the carpet from the kitchen floor, Matt and Emma found what they initially thought were stone flags beneath, but closer inspection revealed that they were in fact a very realistic alternative; polished concrete slabs. A much older feature was uncovered when they took out a modern stud wall in the kitchen and found the scant, crumbling remains of an original leadlight window still fitted with two of its wooden shutters. Further along the same wall, at one end of the screens passage alongside the kitchen, is a solid elm, planked door which the Goss-Custards believe may have been the original front door to the house until, at some stage, the old back door became the main entrance, as it is today.

Although the property was extended to some degree during the 16th century, the oldest part of the medieval hall house is similar in plan to that of its contemporaries where typically a screens passage linking the front and back doors separated the kitchen from the living quarters. Here, would have been the hall, the main room of the house which would have been open to the roof. Later, a low-beamed ceiling was put in to create a ‘middle room’, the present living room, with an extra bedroom in the roof space above which is now the main bedroom.

The ‘snuggling-up room’, as Emma likes to call the living room, with its large inglenook fireplace, has been made even more welcoming thanks to big, comfy sofas, colourful throws, soft cushions and sea-grass natural carpet on the floor.

All the rooms on the first floor are now open to the roof, and the cruck-frame timbers in the freshly lime-plastered walls are visible once more. So far, Matt and Emma have finished renovating one of the guest bedrooms and the bathroom where there's a roll-top bath with claw feet which is actually made of plastic, but has been cleverly painted to look like enamelled cast iron! Emma points out that a cast-iron bath would have been too heavy for the existing structure.

Right: The now fully renovated guest bedroom with lime plastered walls and exposed timbers.

The solid elm kitchen units and worktops with cupboard fronts

with hand forged black iron rings for handles.