A Private View: restoring a Cotswold Georgian manor to the vibrant family home it was always meant to be

A ten-minute drive but a world away from bustling Stroud, where you can’t throw an artisanal almond croissant without hitting a creative type, sits Painswick. Here, postcard-perfect streets lined with houses built from buttery Cotswold stone weave outwards from the church, famous for the 99 topiary yew trees in the church yard (legend has it the Devil won’t allow a 100th).

In the heart of this tranquil village is Washwell House, a Georgian manor that two incredibly creative types – musician and DJ Tom Ravenscroft and fashion designer Louise Markey (founder of LF Markey) – have transformed into a vibrant family home. After an exhaustive search, they stumbled upon this Grade II-listed house almost by accident – and proceeded to spend two and a half years bringing it back to life while raising four young children. As it comes to market, they reflect on their time in this light-filled family home, before their recent move to Sydney, Australia.

Tom: “We'd looked at maybe 25 houses. We went to see this one without really intending to buy it – we were just being nosy, to be honest. We didn't think we could get it. But one thing led to another, and the next thing we knew, we'd sort of accidentally bought this house.”

Louise: “We had completely different criteria for what we wanted. I’m from the city, so I wanted to be in the middle of a village. Tom’s a country boy – he wanted to be able to kick a football as hard as he could and still have it land in our garden. This was the only house in Painswick where you could walk to the pub and have space like that. It met both our needs.”

Louise: “The house was a complete wreck when we bought it. The original Georgian core had been added to over the years with Victorian flanks on both sides, an extension from the ‘80s, plus all these outhouses. There’s even a massive basement with a hearth in it. You can see how it's just been cobbled together over time.”

Tom: “The first six months was all maintenance – roof, plumbing, rewiring. Very boring stuff. We had four kids, one of them six months old, and no kitchen. We were camping inside, cooking on a camping stove.”

Louise: “We didn’t realise how intense it was going to be, and we couldn’t see any progress for months. It definitely wasn't the romantic renovation we’d imagined.”

Tom: “It wasn’t until six months in that we actually started working on the aesthetics. And then we basically kept working on it until the day we moved out. I finished the bathroom after Louise had already relocated to Australia.”

Louise: “The first time we visited Stroud, we noticed not everyone was wearing shoes! It’s quite a mystical, wizard-y town.”

Tom: “After traveling around the five valleys near Stroud, Painswick seemed like the sweet spot. You get the beauty of the Cotswolds – rolling hills, gorgeous pubs, foggy fields – but then you also get the cool edginess and folklore-ness of Stroud. It’s got a weird amount of really good record shops! But Painswick itself has an amazing energy, too. The community is really special. Everybody looks after each other. It's the only place where you can get both.”

Louise: “Our creative work was a big part of why we needed such a massive house – probably too big for us, really. Tom wanted a music room where he could play records and do radio shows. I wanted a studio for making clothes. With four kids, you need spaces where everyone can separate out and then come back together later.”

Tom: “I had a room filled with records for listening and recording radio shows, then another little studio upstairs. Louise had this huge room with a massive table for cutting cloth and sewing. We had two different industries going on in different parts of the house.”

Louise: “When we first moved in, every single surface was painted one colour. It was a blank canvas where we could experiment not just with what we put in the rooms, but with the walls themselves. The house, the whole area – it massively inspired my work. I even started a romantic clothing brand called Meadows based on the area. The windows are probably the best bit of the house. Floor to ceiling in places, especially in the Georgian parts…”

Tom: “They've got that beautiful old wavy antique glass. When the morning sun hits it, you get these unbelievably beautiful wobbly patterns all over the walls. You just wander around in this sort of magical light.”

Louise: “We painted the frames black in the main dining room to really make them the focus. And the view – all seasons, winter, autumn, spring, summer – it's always beautiful out of those windows. They frame that massive Beech tree in the garden – it must be so old.”

Tom: “I've fallen asleep under that tree many times… The floorboards are also original throughout. I sanded them all down myself, which was an absolute nightmare. But they're really beautiful, wide pitch pine boards.”

Louise: “The windows and the floors were what we kept coming back to. We spent so long just staring out the windows, we didn't actually look at the rest of the house for ages.”

Tom: “There's even a fireplace in the kitchen, which is just amazing. Having a fire in the kitchen while you're cooking – it's like something from Charles Dickens.”

Tom: “We’d moved from London where the kids were going a bit mad, fighting all the time. I grew up in the countryside where you'd leave the house in the morning and not see anyone for the rest of the day. The kids just needed to run around and scream.”

Louise: “The garden is quite enclosed, so you could let them out the door knowing they were safe. They could all do their own things and come back later.”

Tom: “One of the sweetest things that happened was in our first week – a neighbour dropped off a note saying how lovely it was to hear kids running around the garden again. The house hadn’t been lived in properly for a long time. That really stuck with me. I felt like we’d resuscitated it, filled it with love and life again after it had been feeling sorry for itself.”

Louise: “There's an apple orchard, so through the whole summer you don't need to buy apples. We’d go down and pick them straight from the trees, and come back with these piles of apples. Apparently Painswick is known as an apple town.”

Tom: “For me, the best thing was being able to have everyone over at once. Normally you have to say, "Sorry, you can't come that weekend because someone else is." But here, everyone could come. We'd have huge gatherings – you'd look out and there'd be a ten-a-side football match happening in the garden. The walking and cycling around there is some of the best in the whole country. And the pub in Painswick is just brilliant. It's a really, really lovely spot.”

Louise: ”It doesn't feel like a precious home. It feels like a family home where kids can run around and bump into things. That's what it should be.”

Tom: ”I'd just like somebody to continue what we were doing – filling it with people. It had been empty for so long, and I think we brought it back to life. It's such a beautiful family home. I'd just like someone to keep that going, to fill it with love and life again.”