‘A gleeful Arcadian slideshow’: how Luke Edward Hall and Duncan Campbell found their cottage
It was a drab day in January 2019 when Duncan and I began hunting for a house in the country. As we trawled the web for cottages, our new lives flashed in my head as a gleeful, Arcadian slide show: garden weeding and village dog shows (we didn’t even own a dog at this point); long walks and longer lunches with friends and brilliant new neighbours. Plus, crucially, we would have an entirely new set of rooms to fill with wonderful things. But most of all, and in a very simple way, I looked forward to spending more time with hills and trees and sky around me. It would be an adventure.
We scoured the map and focused our search on rural pockets we’d visited in the past – towns and villages we liked the idea of. From Somerset to Sussex, Wilton to Winchester, we spent months viewing potential new homes. We pined for a folly – I am a romantic, and I dreamt of bedrooms in towers, Gothic windows and glistening grottoes – and, indeed, we visited several gatehouses and unusual buildings, but every time we drove away unsatisfied and disappointed. Then, one March morning, a house in the Cotswolds popped up on my screen. A child’s drawing of a cottage, really.
I could see from the photographs that it looked out over unblemished, rolling fields, and in no time at all we were there, poking around and rather quickly falling in love. It didn’t have turrets or crenellations, but that view won us over in a heartbeat. We loved many other things, too: I spotted a barn full of cows a bit further down the lane along from the house, but no other buildings as far as the eye could see; the house was situated on the edge of a beautiful, hidden estate; the garden was big and had lots of potential; and, inside, the bathrooms were good and the stone flags to die for. We signed the lease a few days later and began renting in June.
From the off, we laughed a lot. We slept on an air bed for weeks and used a cardboard box for a bedside table. Our oven (a Stanley, much like an Aga) gave up the ghost on our first night, so we decamped to the pub for fish and chips. Friends turned up for a house-warming weekend, piling into the two guest bedrooms and sleeping on more air beds. We went for a walk and ended up clambering over fences to get back to the house, a baby, pushchair and friend with an injured leg and walking stick all in tow.
We both loved London and, at first, continued working in the city on weekdays. The cottage quickly became our sanctuary – a place not only to rest and recharge but to enjoy with friends and family. Long weekends here are spent visiting local beauty spots, talking, snoozing and feasting. We began spending more and more time in the country, and, when the pandemic struck in 2020, we made the big move. These days, the cottage is our base. My studio is on a farm ten minutes up the lane, and we pop to London when we need to. We won’t be here forever, but for now this humble little house more than fits the bill.
A Kind of Magic: The Kaleidoscopic World of Luke Edward Hall by Luke Edward Hall, with photography by Billal Taright is published by Vendome Press on 29 September.
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