A Designer Couple’s Country Cottage… in South-East London

“We had this dream,” said Peter Pritchard when we visited him at home with his wife, Eleanor, “of having a place in the country and a place in the city.” What they landed upon when they moved, however, was something they soon realised somehow offered, quite miraculously, the best of both. Built into the upper reaches of one of south-east London’s treacherously steep hills, the couple’s low-lying brick house is fronted with a gloriously tousled mini meadow of wildflowers and girdled by handsome hazel hurdling that screens it from the surrounding townhouses. It is, with your blinkers on, remarkably rural.

Eleanor admits that they had originally been looking for a 20th-century house in which to live (their last home, a former flour store they converted themselves, was strikingly modernist, with its palette of steel, asphalt, plain oak and reeded glass). This place, however – all dusty pink walls, warm painted timber and pottery-stuffed shelves – is somehow infinitely softer around the edges.

But while the couple say they think they’ve settled here, having created a home that “will fit our lives for many years to come”, one gets the sense it’s not the end of the story. For, as Peter says, “a house is never a finished deal.”

Film: James Coyle
Stills photography: Ellen Hancock
Interview: Grace McCloud
Production: Harry Cave

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