Christmas with Luke Edward Hall and Duncan Campbell in their Cotswold cottage
The idea of finding a place in the countryside to retreat to at weekends is one we’re all familiar with, but every so often it happens that the place meant for an escape becomes your main residence. This is precisely the case for Duncan Campbell and Luke Edward Hall, who started out renting a former shepherd’s cottage among the rolling hills of the Cotswolds as a weekend getaway and now find themselves there full time. ‘It’s a super simple little cottage,’ says Duncan. ‘I always think it looks like a kid’s drawing of a house with a door, two windows upstairs and two windows downstairs’. Inside, it’s a jewel box of a house with a charming open plan layout to the living spaces; everything flows naturally and works well for when the couple host guests, something they do often and even more so at Christmas.
Though they rent the cottage, the couple are lucky in that ‘our landlord let us go a bit wild with painting and decorating,’ as Luke explains. ‘ We played around with lots of our favourite colours so we’ve got plenty of green, pink and yellow.’ The decoration happened naturally over time and is still evolving. Nearby antiques shops in Tetbury – such as Lorfords and Brownrigg – as well as Station Mill in Chipping Norton have been a wonderful resource for building up the house. ‘We love finding pieces,’ muses Duncan. ‘One of our favourite things to do is to go and search bits out and you always spot things when you’re not expecting them. I think because of that the house feels quite layered, and it doesn’t feel too designed.’ For two people who both work in the interiors and design worlds and create products, it has been and continues to be a wonderful testing ground for ideas. The living room when we visit has a gold slipper chair that Luke designed, which the couple have adopted, as well as a deep blue ottoman with green fringing and a lacquered red side table which Duncan designed for Campbell Rey, the interior design practice he runs with Charlotte Rey.
The house already has so many layers of wonderful pieces that catch the eye that it’s hard to imagine adding more for Christmas. But the couple love Christmas – every aspect of it – and bring even more colour and life into the space during the festive season. ‘Like most things in our life, we like things to feel abundant, generous, over the top and not too organised. We’re not the kind of people who will have a united colour scheme of decorations or make everything feel super neat and in place. We like to pile it on and see what happens.’ What happens is a rich, ebullient house full of twinkling baubles, soft candlelight, glittery mushrooms that catch the light, and tinsel wherever Luke can sneak it in without Duncan noticing. ‘Duncan’s not so much of a fan,’ says Luke ‘so we have to agree to disagree on that one’. ( One year Luke snuck tinsel onto the tree while Duncan was in the bath.)
‘Even for us, we started planning for Christmas pretty early this year,’ Duncan confesses. ‘I think we started playing carols in mid-November.’ These are not always what you would expect, however; Luke has a well-edited playlist of medieval, renaissance and Elizabethan early Christmas music that sets the tone. ‘I love a lute and a hurdy gurdy,’ he laughs, ‘but also a classic carol and 80s music. When we have a party, I do my playlist in stages so you start with a Christmas lute and end up with George Michael. And a brass band as well, you need a bit of brass band.’ The dulcet tones of renaissance lutes are the backdrop as they set about decorating their tree this year, first adding strings of warm white lights before layering up baubles collected over their 15 years together. ‘Whenever we go travelling in winter we always try to pick something up wherever we are so all the baubles around the house are an amalgamation of all that hoarding from lots of different trips,’ Duncan says. Some of their best finds came from a Christmas market in Venice, while others are picked up from Choosing Keeping and nearby Cutter Brooks. ‘Anything that is a fruit, vegetable or animal gets a look in’, before ribbons are tied on the end of branches in a jaunty array of colours. A star by Luke is the final touch.
‘We love the simple, natural approach of bringing lots in from the outdoors’ says Luke, ‘but also we love Christmas colour and the OTT approach’. This is best seen in their mantlepiece displays, which both have an array of deep green foliage collected by Silka Rittson Thomas, before Luke and Duncan adorned them with some choice baubles and made space for a trio of glittery mushrooms on the dining room mantlepiece, nestled below the elegantly draped foliage. The dining room is a spectacular showstopper, with mushrooms on every available surface, the table dressed with a striped Summerill & Bishop tablecloth, a dramatic array of crab apples in a gold vase and lots of lovely glassware, as you’d expect from one half of Campbell Rey. It’s a focal point of the couple’s celebrations, as Christmas for them is an opportunity to entertain as much as possible. ‘We love being at home, having people over, cooking for people, having drinks parties,’ confirms Luke, ‘and Christmas is all about that. It’s a season of over-indulgence and more-is-more, and that’s our general outlook on life.’
‘For us,’ says Duncan, ‘Christmas food is in many ways the most important part of the whole thing. It should feel celebratory. There’s a lot of expectation around Christmas and people can get quite obsessed with making it run like clockwork but it’s important to remember none of that matters.’ It’s a Christmas message they share, with Luke adding ‘We love all the excess of Christmas and going over the top but actually at the end of the day, it’s about being with the people you love, cooking good food and spending time together.’ The pair have an infectious energy and it's a joyful experience watching them decorate the house. There’s nothing serious, no arguments over which bauble goes where and the breakage of a mere four baubles along the way is laughed off rather than cried over. After all, as Luke says, ‘you can’t be too precious about your baubles’.
Luke Edward Hall: lukeedwardhall.com
Campbell-Rey: campbell-rey.com
D'Ambrosi: dambrosi.co.uk
Mark Fox1/23The dining room is painted in Farrow & Ball's ‘India Yellow’, with a fireplace at one end, framed by two of Luke's original artworks and two gothic chairs he bought at the auction of Sir Roy Strong's pieces.
Mark Fox2/23A giant clam shell is filled with excess baubles. The curtains are vintage Sanderson.
Mark Fox3/23The staircase leads to the first floor. The gold chair is a 19th century Venetian grotto chair, sourced from Twig, while the dining chairs are vintage Magistretti which Luke and Duncan had sprayed green. They sit on a rug from the Campbell Rey x Nordic Knots collection.
Mark Fox4/23A Dutch 19th century cabinet from Brownrigg holds the couple's array of ceramics and glassware. For Christmas, the couple covered it with foliage and added a bird from Choosing Keeping.
Mark Fox5/23Luke bought the two Tess Morley shell vases as a Christmas present for Duncan last year.
Mark Fox6/23The glittery mushrooms are a mix from Choosing Keeping and Cutter Brooks.
Mark Anthony Fox7/23The tablecloth is Summerill & Bishop, the cutlery is Sabre via Cutter Brooks and the marble crackers are from Tavola by Skye McAlpine.
Mark Fox8/23The mantlepiece has been decorated with foliage, hung in such a way to frame the mushrooms beneath it. A selection of antique and collected baubles hang from it.
Mark Fox9/23The sitting room is painted in a green from Leyland (S3560-G50Y), which contrasts with the yellow in the dining room. The mantlepiece is again covered in foliage, designed to have a wreath on either end.
Mark Fox10/23The sofa is from George Sherlock and has been upholstered in Christopher Moore toile. Above it, a collection of Picasso drawings.
Mark Fox11/23The overmantle mirror is a Queen Anne chinoiserie from Ebury Trading while the curtains are made using a fabric from Tinsmiths.
Mark Fox12/23A vintage Colefax & Fowler chair sits in one corner, covered in Colefax's leopard stripe fabric. The chard was picked from the couple's vegetable garden for further festive colour.
Mark Fox13/23The cottage is filled with art. Above the fire are four pictures from a collection of drawings of the regions of Italy. The rest are above a console table in the kitchen.
Mark Anthony Fox14/23Two Venetian grotto stools from Ebury Trading sit across from one another at either end of the room. The Staffordshire figurine dogs are one of the ways in which Luke sneaks tinsel into the Christmas scheme, tying little scarves of gold around them.
Mark Fox15/23The gold slipper chair was a design by Luke, while the red lacquer table is a custom Campbell-Rey piece.
Mark Fox16/23The green colour in the sitting room continues into the kitchen area.
Mark Fox17/23The tree is adorned with baubles from a market in Venice and pieces collected over the couple's relationship. Anything shaped like a fruit or vegetable is always welcome.
Mark Anthony Fox18/23The sitting room features a well-stocked bar area where more of the couple's glassware is housed. It is painted in the same colour as the kitchen cabinets: Little Greene's ‘Delicate Blue’.
Mark Fox19/23The sitting room and dining room are both connected to the kitchen, which runs across one side of the house. The cabinets are in Little Greene's ‘Delicate Blue’ and the breakfast table is a custom marble top on a tulip base.
Mark Fox20/23The front of the house.
Mark Anthony Fox21/23A wreath contrasts against the black metal door of an adjacent barn.
Mark Fox22/23Bushels of rosemary lead up to the front door and are hardy enough to last into winter.
Mark Fox23/23Luke harvesting chard from the vegetable garden.
