Inside Ampney Park

The indoor pool at Ampney Park, lined in Foundry Porcelain Smeraldo tiles with a Buscot Limestone surround, beneath exposed timber trusses

Bespoke Buscot Limestone pool step meeting green glazed tiles at the water's edge, Ampney Park

Project Details:

Products Used: Portland Limestone Aged Finish, Buscot Limestone Tumbled & Etched Finish

Pool Tiles - Similar to: Foundry Novo Porcelain Turquoise

Bespoke Details: Bespoke Buscot Limestone pool steps, skirting and architraves.

Architect: Simon Morray-Jones Architects

Some houses wear their history lightly. Ampney Park, a Grade II-listed manor near Cirencester with a lineage reaching back to 1628, is one of them. Reimagined for modern living by its owner and Simon Morray-Jones Architects, the house holds Jacobean craftsmanship and a calm contemporary ease in the same breath, and natural stone runs quietly through it as the thread that ties old and new together.

Our Portland Limestone in an aged finish runs through the kitchen and hallways. In the kitchen it is laid in an American pattern, while the hallways follow random length rows, giving these busy spaces an easy, unforced flow. Its soft pale tone and gently worn surface settle the spaces and lend brand new floors the feeling of having always been there.

The kitchen at Ampney Park, with dark navy cabinetry, marble worktops and splashback, and a Portland Limestone floor

The kitchen at Ampney Park seen across the island, with a bubble pendant light, range and Portland Limestone floor

The stair hall at Ampney Park, with a pale pink arched door, panelled walls, oak treads and a Portland Limestone floor

Pink panelling and skirting meeting an oak stair tread and Portland Limestone floor at Ampney Park

Close detail of the Portland Limestone floor at Ampney Park, showing the fine joints and softly fossilled surface

In the boot room the same Portland is set in a parquet format, a considered detail that brings rhythm and warmth to one of the hardest-working corners of the house.

The boot room at Ampney Park, with ochre yellow joinery above a Portland Limestone floor laid in a parquet pattern

The boot room basin at Ampney Park, a white basin on a brass stand against ochre yellow panelling above a Portland Limestone parquet floor

Close detail of the Portland Limestone parquet floor in the boot room at Ampney Park, beside a basin and painted radiator

At the heart of the house is the pool, and it is here that the scheme comes alive. Warm stone walls rise to exposed timber trusses while verdigris sculptures of the Seasons look out across the water, a gallery-like stillness that the materials only deepen. Glazed tiles line the pool in a rich green, their iridescent aged-brick character catching the light as it shifts through the day. The surround is finished in Buscot Limestone in a tumbled and etched finish, the same stone chosen for the neighbouring cloakroom, and a flight of bespoke steps cut and profiled from it leads gently down into the water.

The pool room at Ampney Park, with verdigris sculptures of the Seasons on limestone plinths beside the green tiled pool

Buscot Limestone coping meeting the green glazed tiles at the edge of the pool, Ampney Park

The cloakroom at Ampney Park, with a scalloped marble basin, Venetian mirror and Buscot Limestone floor

The same green glazed tiles reappear in the poolside shower, stacked vertically within a limestone-framed recess and paired with unlacquered brass, a quietly luxurious moment that answers the palette of the pool beyond.

The poolside shower at Ampney Park, green glazed tiles stacked vertically in a Buscot Limestone framed recess with unlacquered brass fittings

The green tiled pool at Ampney Park below mullioned windows and exposed timber trusses, with verdigris sculptures of the Seasons along the far wall

That care for natural material shows up everywhere you look. Sculpted marble worktops and shelves, carried on softly curved brackets, bring quiet drama to the kitchen, while hand-cut marble mosaics pattern the bathrooms in crisp black and white. Details like these are the reward of a scheme that treats stone and tile as things to be shaped, not simply specified.

It is a scheme built on restraint and on materials chosen to last. Limestone underfoot and glazed tile at the water's edge give Ampney Park a sense of permanence wholly in keeping with a house that has stood for nearly four centuries, and looks set to stand for many more.

Beyond the rooms themselves, Ampney Park is made for gathering. Its grand reception rooms and Jacobean Great Hall, long admired as one of the finest early seventeenth-century interiors in the country, lend real occasion to everything from intimate dinners to larger celebrations, with a full complement of staff on hand throughout. Step outside and eighty acres of pastoral Cotswold countryside unfold into ancient trees, trickling streams and quiet lakes, the kind of setting that shapes a stay long before you reach the water's edge.