With its façade of Cotswold stone, old slate roof and mullioned windows, the home of David Moore oozes old world charm before you even step over the threshold. Situated in the historic market town of Corsham, Wiltshire, it is part of a row of honey-coloured buildings, the likes of which will be familiar to any fans of the TV series Rivals, which featured scenes filmed on its pretty high street. Living here, it is not unusual to run into a film crew or, indeed, a wandering peacock, on your way out of the front door, says David.
A house with history
David, a retired antiques dealer, moved into the house, which was built in 1580, with his late partner, Alex, in 2019. They were moving from a five-storey building in Bath which, due to Alex’s illness and reduced mobility, no longer suited them. In this four-bedroom house, arranged over two floors, they found all the character and convenience they could wish for, plus the added delight of a Georgian walled garden, complete with 18th-century Gothic folly.
‘It’s a spectacular house,’ says David, ‘I’m lucky to live here, and everybody who comes in says it has a nice ambience. Plus, it’s got all the character: the beams; the fireplaces; the mullioned windows – everything you would want in a period cottage, but on a bigger scale.’ The scale provides plenty of space for their huge collection of antiques, furniture, rugs and art – the accumulated possessions of two dedicated collectors, who spent 40 years together seeking out and acquiring things that they loved.
Making it their own
There was a lot to do when they arrived, but this didn’t faze the seasoned renovators. The house was rewired, and also had new bathrooms and new central heating. Bookcases were built, and the chipboard floors upstairs were replaced with wide pine boards, made to look old by an antiques restorer from their dealing days. ‘We got all the floorboards from B&Q, and stained them, waxed them and distressed them, and now they look original. It’s called being in the trade!’ says David.
Their insider knowledge influenced their decorating decisions, and they painted all the rooms in Farrow & Ball’s Dutch Pink. ‘We used it in our last two houses, because it’s a good backdrop for art and antiques,’ David explains. Antique Persian rugs were spread over the floors, providing not only the desired look, but also a practical option for a couple who loved to host big drinks parties – something David still does. ‘You can spill glasses of red wine on these rugs and the stains won’t ever show,’ he says.
Rooms with grandeur
A unique characteristic of this house is the two 40-foot-long rooms that form the back of the house, abutting the garden. This space was once a great hall, but in the 17th century it was floored across to create an upstairs and downstairs, still of startling proportions. These rooms – the long gallery downstairs and the large sitting room upstairs – are where some of the couple’s most interesting and cherished pieces are displayed, against a backdrop of faded grandeur.
‘The style I like is shabby chic,’ says David. ‘The furniture is a mix of Georgian, country, French, Chinese – what we call in the trade ‘eclectic’. There’s a bit of everything. I like mixing and matching and, more recently, I’ve bought contemporary stuff too, like some Barcelona chairs. I don’t collect one particular thing; I collect across the board, we both did, and for a long time, hence there’s so much stuff.’
A shared passion
David says no particular thought or planning has gone into their buying or how things are displayed or grouped together, but rather it has all been done on instinct. ‘We just bought things we liked, and the look evolved,’ he says. It was through this process, and a shared love of the hunt, that the couple built their collections together, starting when they set up their antiques shop in Bath in 1987, and through the ensuing decades on weekend jaunts and on holidays. (They had been known to discard clothes to make room for their finds in their suitcases.)
‘We used to go out every week buying stuff for the shop – from auction houses, antiques fairs and dealers. The good thing about having the shop is that it was an excuse to buy stuff for yourself too. And it was good fun!’ says David.
Since Alex died in 2020, living surrounded by the collections they built together has been a source of comfort for David. ‘It’s lovely, because I can see Alex in a lot of the stuff we bought,’ he says. ‘When you buy together, it’s far more exciting really than buying on your own. And we always sang from the same hymn sheet. It was like a telepathic thing – we could walk into a shop, look around and, without even speaking, both go for the same thing.’
