IMPROVE
From £1 house to a glamorous party pad
This 18th-century beauty with riotous decor has come a long way
Barlaston Hall was bought by the pottery company Wedgwood in 1937
CLAIRE BINGHAM
The Sunday Times
First-time guests are in for a surprise when they come to visit Barlaston Hall in Staffordshire. Not by the architecture — the classical grandeur has been painstakingly restored to its 18th-century original beauty — but by the eclectic interiors.
Horses and swans are everywhere: animals are a theme. The four-way conversation chair in the entrance hall is upholstered in a jazzy leopard print. The piano is shocking pink and, in the maximalist dining room, the walls and ceiling feature filigree plasterwork to rival a scene from Bridgerton. At its crest is a magnificent Thomas Pickering oil painting of the Sir Thomas Mills family, who built the house in the 1700s as a weekend shooting estate.
Claire Gilchrist-Dick
CLAIRE BINGHAM
“I love the combination of the old and new, plus
