'I am destined to a life surrounded by books with never quite enough shelves': George Saumarez Smith on his design for Country Life’s stand at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show
George Saumarez Smith’s design draws on his passions for architecture, drawing, books, and his fiancée Jane Kennerley’s love of plants.
'I love interiors that include things handed down over the years, with furniture and pictures that don’t quite go together and slightly clashing colour schemes,’ says George Saumarez Smith (below), a director of Adam Architecture. ‘The defining element of English style is that things are a little bit imperfect.’
The stone
Inspired by the notion of an early-Georgian hall, George has designed a geometric floor in stones from the British Isles, sourced and made by Artorius Faber, a specialist in British stone. The design features hexagons of hard blue-black Crawford limestone from southern Ireland, interspersed with triangles of grey-cream Taddington limestone from Derbyshire, creating a striking star effect. ‘While these stones are a classic choice, it is unusual to use the darker stone for the larger shapes, adding drama to the design,’ notes Edward Smith, director, Artorius Faber.
The fireplace, essentially Palladian in style, is made from mid-grey Morley English limestone, its intricate design requiring more than 50 hours of hand craftsmanship by Artorius Faber’s team of stone masons, based at the company’s workshops in Yeovil, Somerset. Completing the stonework on show is a pair of obelisks to be displayed on the mantelpiece. They are made from Cloam English agglomerate, an eclectic mix of stones formed together naturally. All the stone will be salvaged and re-purposed after the Show. ‘I hope visitors will enjoy discovering the remarkable stones found in the British Isles, which many people don’t realise offer such variety,’ adds Edward.
George envisioned a comfortable room with a view of the garden, filled with plants, books and personal treasures. He is passionate about drawing, as evidenced by his book Sketchbooks: Collected Measured Drawings and Architectural Sketches (Triglyph, £40). ‘I decided to evoke the feeling of a panelled room by drawing it in pencil on paper and having it made into a wallcovering,’ he explains. Watts 1874 stepped in to reproduce his detailed drawing as a bespoke design on linen, its blue-and-white colourway providing the principal palette for the room.
The structure of the room is classical, as is to be expected of one of Britain’s most respected classical architects. Among his ongoing projects is the extensive restoration of the Grade I-listed Tottenham House, near Marlborough in Wiltshire, widely reported to be the most ambitious home renovation in the UK, after more than two decades on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register. He is the author of several books on architecture, and his new book, The Romance of Classicism, will be published by Rizzoli in September.
The walls
The challenge of creating the bespoke wallcovering has fallen to Watts 1874, one of the great enduring names in British design. Founded in 1874 by three Victorian architects, including George Gilbert Scott Jnr (often called ‘Middle Scott’ to differentiate him from his father, Sir George Gilbert Scott), the furniture, fabric, embroidery, and wallpaper company is today run by his great-great-granddaughter Marie-Séverine de Caraman Chimay and her husband, Jean. ‘The company has been involved in creating wallcoverings for 152 years, and we are proud of our expertise,’ she says.
George’s original drawing has been scanned and printed as a panoramic wallcovering, the pencil strokes carefully reproduced in china blue on a pale ground, inspired by the colours of a Delftware pot. Design work takes place in Watts 1874’s studio in London, where its in-house team of five undertakes custom projects, from colour and measurement adaptations to entirely bespoke designs, such as this one.
After studying architecture at the University of Edinburgh, he was taken on as a pupil of architect Quinlan Terry, who had begun his career with George’s grandfather, classical architect Raymond Erith. The latter had worked on the reconstruction of Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street after they were damaged by bombing during the Second World War. ‘Architecture is in my blood,’ he says, ‘but so is a love of books.’ His father, John Saumarez Smith, ran the Heywood Hill bookshop on Curzon Street, London, for more than 30 years, as well as editing book reviews for Country Life in the 1980s and 1990s. ‘I have inherited the disease of the book collector — I am destined to a life surrounded by books with never quite enough shelves,’ he says.
The panoramic wallcovering features drawings of George’s favourite works by an eclectic mix of British artists, including linocuts by Sheila Robinson, drawings by John Aldridge, paintings by Pat Albeck and an early-19th-century engraving of Winchester College, where he was at school, above the fireplace. ‘I like the sense that they have been collected over time,’ he says. The backdrop features a hexagonal design, inspired by a classical coffered ceiling, with a drawing of a large window looking onto a garden pavilion in the distance.
A tented ceiling in blue-and-white striped fabric hangs above a striking hexagonal stone floor and a Palladian-inspired chimneypiece, designed by George and made by the Somerset stone specialist Artorius Faber.
The plants
‘My aim is to evoke a moment in time through a combination of plants I remember from my childhood,’ says gardener Jane Kennerley. Scented pelargoniums tumbling out of pots, succulents, ferns, a spider plant and an aspidistra are among her choices, which she readily agrees are old-fashioned. She attributes her love of aspidistra to memories of her grandmother’s home, where she recalls her grandmother talking to the plant as she gently wiped its leaves with a damp cloth. ‘A house without a spider plant is akin to a house without a piano — they make a home,’ she believes.
She also remembers making potpourri as a child, using scented pelargonium leaves, rose petals and lavender. Favourites for her chosen green, white and pink palette include Attar of Roses for its rose scent and pale mauve flowers, Graveolens Bontrosai for its unusual clustered, ball-shaped foliage that releases a refreshing citrus fragrance and Tomentosum geranium for its lush, velvety peppermint-scented leaves and small clusters of tiny white with pink flowers.
Her affection for ferns stems from time spent with the elderly family gardener. ‘The job of cutting the leaves of ferns in the early spring before the new ones came along was one of my favourites, as I loved watching the new life form and unfurl,’ she says. ‘I like their elegant, architectural fronds.’
Comfortable chairs and an elegant demi-lune table from Munder Skiles are paired with an antique hexagonal table and a small mahogany writing desk. ‘This was made for the ship HMS Orion, which took part in the Battle of Trafalgar and was at one time captained by a distant relative, Admiral James Saumarez,’ he reveals.
To complete the design, a bookcase designed by George for his home some years ago houses a collection of carefully selected gardening books. ‘Given my father’s occupation, trawling bookshops was part of my childhood, so this was a nice excuse to dive right back into doing just that,’ he says. He set himself the goal of only buying books published before 1986. ‘Because they are more than 40 years old, they simply have a different feel,’ he says of the 300-volume collection he has amassed. (After the show, he plans to give them to his fiancée, Jane, as an early wedding present.)
‘By combining antiques with pieces from the 20th century, the 1960s and 1970s and more contemporary elements,’ he concludes, ‘the room is designed to show how Country Life represents both heritage and Englishness.’
The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.
The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.
