What is the secret to choosing colours that are sympathetic to the past?
Natural-paint manufacturer Edward Bulmer has teamed up with Laura Cavendish, Countess of Burlington, to produce 24 new colours inspired by Chatsworth House.
Interior decorator and natural-paint manufacturer Edward Bulmer has teamed up with Laura Cavendish, Countess of Burlington, to produce 24 new colours inspired by Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. They range from Chatsworth Cream, which has long been used throughout the house, to Delft, a nod to the collection commissioned by the 1st Duke of Devonshire.
Having already led renovations of family-owned properties, including Bolton Abbey in North Yorkshire and Lismore Castle in Co Waterford, she was familiar with the paint, which is plastic free and made from natural, plant-based and mineral raw materials.
Edward Bulmer’s Queen of Scots took its cue from a bed at Chatsworth.
‘We started by walking around the house and my heart sank as I couldn’t see any standout wall colours,’ explains Edward. ‘I then spotted a contender on some kitchen joinery and another in a passageway chosen by Deborah, 11th Duchess of Devonshire. What emerged was a palette of colours, some obvious and others less so.’
The colours are evocations of the house, rather than lifted from the state rooms. For example, Enfilade is an earthy chestnut brown, inspired by the oak door cases that lead down the Long Gallery into a royal apartment. Sekhmet, a black, was inspired by a statue of the Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet. ‘There are lots of usable colours, alongside some more special tones that we’ve plucked out of 19th-century flock paper or an amazing cyanotype in the collection.’
A statue of the Egyptian Goddess Sehkmet at Chatsworth has inspired a new paint.
The interior decorator John Fowler was one of the first to focus on historically accurate paint colours. He was familiar with the pigments available in the 18th and 19th centuries and helped precipitate the modern vogue of sensitive restoration.
When decorating a historic country house, there’s a desire not to put a foot wrong by choosing an inappropriate colour, but Edward is adamant that there’s no need to ape the precise shade used when the house was first built. ‘Conservationists are fixated on colour, but when we think of historic colours, they have aged with time. Before the introduction of chemical paints, all oil paints were made with linseed oil, which goes yellow as it ages.’
Historically, the choice of colours was influenced by the cost of the ingredients. Below stairs, paints were typically made with cheaper pigments and the more expensive used in the main entertaining spaces. Over time, these colours have been reimagined. Joa Studholme, Farrow & Ball’s colour curator believes that fashions for colours come and go. ‘Biscuit, a dark cream, is a good example,’ she explains. ‘It was one of Tom Helme’s [a co-founder of the firm] original colours, but over time it became too green and lost favour, so we re-created something with more red in it. Historical colours read a bit green for the modern market, but trying to understand why is like analysing why stonewashed jeans fall in and out of favour or how the mini skirt goes up and down.’
Enduring appeal: Farrow & Ball’s Sudbury Yellow.
Joa says that yellow, another historic colour, is having a moment in the sun. ‘I think it’s something to do with nostalgia after all the grey. First, we had an appetite for warm clay tones, and now it’s yellow again.’ She favours more restrained and muted hues of Hay and Sudbury Yellow for a been-there-forever look. Another colour that has woven in and out of fashion is brown. It was celebrated in the 1960s by David Hicks, who lacquered the walls of his Chelsea home in a deep, glossy brown. ‘I’m seeing a lot of interest in brown, especially in kitchens,’ says Joa. ‘Again, it taps into something nostalgic — it’s not showy and shouty.’
As a rule, she advocates using historic colours, but stops short of slavishly re-creating a historic scheme, lest the results end up being too dreary. Instead, she advises tapping into the spirit of a house. ‘I used to think a lot in terms of Georgian colours or Victorian colours, but, although that might be useful if restoring a Regency palace, it’s all a bit meaningless if you’re working on your own home — use the colours you like instead.’
Patrick Baty, an expert on the history of architectural paint, agrees. ‘For a house that’s open to the public, where the purpose is to tell the story of family history, it’s vital that the right colours are employed.’ Patrick recalls his work on reinstating the state rooms at Stowe House in Buckinghamshire to about 1800 — the time of the 1st Marquess of Buckingham, ‘a heyday, before everything started to unravel’ — as an example where accuracy is fundamental.
The next category is when there’s no specific story to tell, but a house is open to the public. ‘Then it’s wise to follow, albeit loosely, the decorative convention of the time, but only up to a point.’
It can backfire if you are too strict. He cites a time when the Georgian Group decorated their headquarters in a period-correct fashion, but then couldn’t make money renting the space for events — the scheme didn’t appeal to modern tastes. ‘We took a less scholastic approach and decorated it in a more neo-Georgian fashion, suggestive of the late 18th century, but not beholden to it — and it worked.’ When painting a home, however, Patrick believes the interior palette should be up to the owner’s own tastes. ‘It’s the exterior of the house that should be painted in colours that are sympathetic to the setting and the period.’
Many of the paints manufactured by Rose of Jericho reflect the local vernacular and are made from authentic ingredients.
However, Tom Balch, director of Rose of Jericho, which makes a range of heritage paints, is passionate about their relevance, even today. ‘Using authentic historic colours when redecorating historic houses isn’t merely about being “correct” for the sake of it — it fundamentally affects how a building looks, feels, ages and is understood.’
He argues that modern colours lack the subtle tonality and soft beauty of traditional palettes. ‘Modern paint can blur or flatten architectural detail, whereas historic colours were chosen to accentuate mouldings, profiles, separate planes and enhance depth and proportion.’ For those planning a significant restoration programme on a listed house, he adds a practical consideration, too: ‘Listed building consent is easier when the colours are justified and conservation officers tend to respond better to researched schemes.’
This feature originally appeared in the April 8, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
