A seventeenth-century rectory rebuilt after a devastating fire

It was 2am when the fire started to take hold; Anna Bradstock, alone in the house because her husband Rupert had gone up to London, was woken by the burglar alarm - its emergency peal springing deafeningly into action when the fire cut the electricity supply. Luckily, she managed to escape through a window and raise the alarm.

Several years later, and now back living happily in their restored home, they describe that night in detail. 'The fire was caused by an electrical fault in a lamp,' Rupert explains - memo to self to check all lamps on return to base. 'If you are going to have to have a fire, we were very lucky with ours, as hot air rises, it went through the oak roof rather than destroying all three floors.'

The house is in a fairly remote village and, although the fire brigade arrived within minutes, water was a problem. A borehole proved impossible to access, but fortunately they had a swimming pool from which they pumped 11,000 gallons via a huge machine that fed six or seven fire engines simultaneously. Eventually, the fire was extinguished, although the house was sodden.

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Entering the house the next morning, they thought the ground floor appeared more or less untouched - although the banister of the main staircase was still too hot to handle - but by midday, due to the weight of water, ceilings had begun to fall in everywhere; today almost every ceiling and wall in the house has been replastered. 'It was the smoke, though, that was really disgusting. In some rooms where the windows had not been opened, we were almost physically sick.'

Then came the trial of trying to salvage possessions and deciding which were 'beyond economic repair'. Disaster-recovery specialists Rainbow International spent a week cataloguing everything, sending all redeemable antiques and furniture to restoration specialists Plowden and Smith; much else sadly filled one of the 48 skips that carried away the burnt-out interior.

To dry out the house, a huge waterproof cover was put over the entire building and very noisy dehumidifiers put to work day and night so that, as Rupert says, 'it felt like we living in a wind tunnel'. The process took five months, during which time everything was taken out that had to be replaced. All the timbers in the roof were removed and structural engineers were brought in to ensure it was secure.

At an early stage, they had made a call to interior designer Melissa Wyndham, with whom they had worked previously. 'I remember the call,' explains Melissa. 'Rupert said, "I have bad news and good news. Bad news is the house has burnt down - good news is that means 29 new sets of curtains!'

The house, a seventeenth-century rectory with Georgian additions, stands in 14 acres of woodland and garden, which over the years has become Anna's personal fiefdom. They moved in when their children were tiny and wisely left any decoration until the drawing-on-walls stage had passed. The house was in good condition and they had done little other than knock through the kitchen, so this was the house they worked to re-create.

Together they took a determinedly positive approach to the situation, dividing their responsibilities in two, with Rupert overseeing the building works while Anna organised the interiors. Rupert decided that the tragedy should have a positive outcome, so that in re-creating the previous house, an improved version should be the end result. Anna, understandably apprehensive about moving back in, desperately wanted the house to 'feel the same'.