In 2017, after almost 20 years in Bath, Mel and Tom Calver swapped their five-storey townhouse for this 1850 cottage in the village of Westcombe, Somerset, near to Toms family farm. The couple craved a more rural setting to bring up their two children, and this ticked all the boxes, as well as being close to Westcombe Dairy, where Tom is chief cheesemaker, and also near Mel’s three hair and beauty salons in Bath, Frome and Bradford-on-Avon. Here, the couple talk to us about how they went from five-storey living to two and why they are advocates of no-dig gardening.Mel: “We bought our last house in the centre of Bath in 2010 shortly after we had got married and I had just opened my first salon on Walcot Street. It was the perfect two-minute walk commute. The house was tall and thin, with five storeys, two drawing rooms and the kitchen was in the cellar. It was a big deal to leave because we loved it dearly and had our children, Rupert and Heidi, there.” Tom: “We both grew up in rural settings and we wanted our children to have the same experience. In 2016, I was in the latter stages of finishing a massive underground cheddar cellar at our cheese dairy in Westcombe, and then this house came up for sale next to it with a paddock.
“The location was perfect, and we loved the idea of swinging open the doors and letting the children roam free. It was the opposite of what we had in Bath – a smaller house, but with a large garden. “We bought the house and moved in straight away in 2017. It was originally built for estate workers at Westcombe House and had good bones. We wanted to make some changes and open up the space, as it felt quite cottagey, with small rooms. “We knocked down a few internal walls and removed a porch to create a larger living space. It was basically a building site for six months – we lived in it the whole way through and tried to do as much as possible ourselves. For months, we did our washing up outside in a builder’s bucket!” Mel: “Before we got married, Tom had spent three months building a shepherds hut, so we brought that into the garden and used it for extra space while we were doing the work. It was chaos, so the hut was a good getaway. Now we use it as a studio space or for cooking on a camp stove with grandparents at the weekend.
“We didn’t really have a brief for the house, but we identified the areas that were underused and made the most of them. We turned the boiler room into a larder and decided to add a small extension to square off the L-shaped kitchen, getting rid of a dull corner of the garden in the process. “We added sky frame doors, which make the space very light and give a view of the hill. I was getting more and more into gardening, so I wanted a versatile kitchen where we could prepare and cook the bounty that we were getting from outside, but also entertain and live. “I started the garden about three years ago with one raised bed to grow vegetables and I then experimented with the no-dig technique where you leave the soil undisturbed so that microorganisms can multiply and improve the soil health. I got hooked, so begged Tom to build three more raised beds the following year. “I soon ended up with seed trays all over the kitchen floor and on the windowsills, and Tom finally cracked and ended up building me a polytunnel last Easter. It’s my favourite place to be, especially when everyone follows me out and we are all chatting and tasting herbs. The practical elements of no-dig are so easy and fit in with what Tom is doing at the farm through regenerative agriculture to improve soil health.
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发表于 2020-10-20 16:01:12
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