A Collected English Home

Kitchen island with a Taj Mahal Quartzite worktop and orange leather bar stools

Hidden bookcase door in a green-panelled library opening onto a cloakroom with a brass towel radiator and patterned floor tiles

Project Details:

Products Used: Blandford Limestone with Ravenna Cabochons, Taj Mahal Quartzite, Long Island Marble, Folio Marble, Ottoman Marble, Juparana Bordeaux Granite, STUDIO Bobbin Ceramic Holly

Bespoke Details: Cabochon hallway floor, Ottoman marble vanity tops, carved Ottoman marble shower tray, Ottoman marble bath surrounds, Ottoman marble dog wash

Designer: Sean Symington Design

Website

Builder: Stonewood Builders

Photographer: Chris Wakefield

This much-loved Wiltshire family home was restored over sixteen months by interior designer Sean Symington. Symington founded his studio in 2019 and works from Bath, London and Tetbury. His interiors are known for a warm, collected English style that honours a period house while keeping it fresh, with rooms built around the client's own antiques and art, and colour and pattern used with real confidence. Against a scheme as richly layered as this one, natural stone does the quiet work, grounding the rooms and giving a highly decorated house a sense of calm and permanence.

In the hallway our Blandford Limestone is laid as a cabochon floor, its pale flagstones set with small Ravenna cabochons, a classic detail that gives the entrance a sense of age and arrival.

View through the front door across a Blandford Limestone cabochon floor to a skirted table in the hall

Terracotta-panelled hallway and staircase with a striped stair runner, pink armchair and sash window

The kitchen is where stone takes centre stage. Our Taj Mahal Quartzite runs across the worktops and the island, its soft, marble-like movement bringing warmth to the room while standing up to the demands of busy family life. The same quartzite carries through to the pantry, tying the two spaces together in one calm, hard-wearing surface.

Kitchen island with Taj Mahal Quartzite worktop and splashback, brass taps, pleated pendant shades and upholstered bar stools

Brass taps on a Taj Mahal Quartzite island worktop with matching splashback and shelf behind

Kitchen island and worktops in Taj Mahal Quartzite with orange leather bar stools and pleated pendant shades

Brass swing-arm wall light above a Taj Mahal Quartzite mantel with a fig painting and speckled bowl

Coffee station with a Taj Mahal Quartzite worktop, splashback and integrated sink, brass tap and pink cabinetry

Leather and patterned-linen bar stools beneath the moulded edge of the Taj Mahal Quartzite island worktop

Utility room with green cabinetry, a double butler sink and an Ottoman marble worktop with carved drainer grooves

Green-painted pantry with open shelving, labelled drawers and a Taj Mahal Quartzite worktop

It is in the bathrooms that the bespoke craft comes to the fore, and our Ottoman marble is the thread that runs through them. Cut for vanity tops and a bath surround in one room, and worked into a bath surround, wall cladding and a carved shower tray in another, its warm cream and gold veining gives each space a quiet richness. Folio brings the same tactile quality to further vanity tops elsewhere in the house.

Yellow reeded double vanity with an Ottoman marble top and upstand beneath bamboo-framed mirrors

Close-up of gold-veined Ottoman marble vanity top, upstand and shelf with brass wall taps

View through glazed double doors to an Ottoman marble bath surround beneath a sash window

Panelled bath with an Ottoman marble surround and upstand, brass taps and brass towel rail beneath a sash window

Walk-in shower under the eaves with a carved stone shower tray, sage glazed tiles and brass fittings

Stone window ledge in the shower with sage glazed tiles and brass window stay

Cloakroom with scalloped oak vanity, Folio marble top and upstand, and wicker scalloped mirror

Brass cross-head wall taps above a Folio marble vanity top and shaped upstand

That care reaches the hardest-working corners too. The same Ottoman marble shapes a dog wash for muddy paws after a Wiltshire walk, a lovely composition of marble and brass, and continues onto the worktops in the laundry room. Over in the guest house, our Long Island Marble does similar work in the kitchen, understated and easy to live with.