Inside Radbourne Hall, one of the last remaining John Fowler interiors

Lady Chichester has fond memories of sitting on John Fowler’s knee as a child. This is perhaps a rather different sort of memory to those who worked for or along-side this extraordinarily talented and influential, yet notoriously irascible and demanding decorator. In 1957, her parents, Major and Mrs John Chandos-Pole, commissioned Fowler to work on the interiors at 18th-century Radbourne Hall, her family house in Derbyshire, and today they are a rare surviving example of an almost complete John Fowler scheme. Annie’s mother Jill lived in the house until she died, aged 102, going to great lengths to preserve Fowler’s interiors. Shutters were kept closed and plastic covers made for upholstery and curtains.

Although Annie admits she found her mother’s fastidiousness very boring to live with as a child, she is now the grateful beneficiary of an extraordinary legacy. When she and her husband, Sir James Chichester, took over the house in 2014, the ceiling of the central hall was sagging alarmingly and the roof required attention, as did the plumbing and wiring. The house also needed to be updated in order to work better for 21st-century living with the addition of a family kitchen and more bathrooms. Despite this, Annie was absolutely committed to restoring Fowler’s work.

Years before, she had lined up Fiona Shelburne, an old school friend, now Marchioness of Lansdowne, to help her with the redecoration when the time came. Fiona had the perfect credentials, having worked for a decade or so for Imogen Taylor at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, who, in turn, had worked with Fowler on this house in the 1950s. Not only do Imogen’s drawings for the curtains for Radbourne still exist, but Fiona’s curtain maker – Andrew Christie – worked for John Mason, whose father had in fact worked for Fowler. Andrew has the original measuring books, which were an invaluable resource, as nearly all the curtains for the rooms survived but were in need of cleaning and relining.

Peregrine Bryant was the architect overseeing what was to be an award-winning restoration project (recognised by Historic Houses, The Georgian Group and Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust), ensuring that the biomass heating system and associated pipes – and also the rewiring – were as unobtrusive as possible. Asbestos removal alone took 16 weeks. Peregrine worked with structural engineers Hockley & Dawson to devise a remarkable new steel-beam system to support the ceiling in the hall without damaging the plasterwork. Amazingly, the ceiling did not require repainting and still bears the original Fowler colours. Peregrine also designed the new flight of steps at the rear of the house, which enable the Chichesters to walk out of the saloon onto a terrace, providing a new connection to the garden below and a place to eat outdoors. Planning permission was granted on the condition that the new stone steps could not touch the building, so the structure is cantilevered, with just a tiny gap between the terrace and the building itself.

Visitors enter via a grand hall on the piano nobile, which, with its coffered ceiling and Ionic screen, creates an impressive entrance. It is a room that, as Martin Wood writes in his book John Fowler: Prince of Decorators (Frances Lincoln, 2007), ‘shows John’s decoration at its very best – restrained and elegant’. His, and his client’s, aim – much like Annie’s – had been to have a house that ‘reflected the charm of the 18th century, but with the amenities of the 20th century’. In this room, Fowler had taken a coin from his pocket and scraped away at the paint to find the duck-egg blue several layers below. It is this that Annie and Fiona have in turn recreated today, the perfect foil to Fowler’s dark red mohair velvet curtains with their rope-trimmed bell and swag pelmets. The George II sofas were re-covered by Fowler in red gaufrage velvet and Fiona had these restored by Ridge Interiors from the underside, so as not to damage the fabric. Plastic covers banished, this room is now used regularly.

Either side of the hall are two rooms that the Chichesters use every day. To the right was what Annie describes as a ‘perfectly 1950s’ kitchen. This was one of the only rooms where Annie was not having to work to a scheme devised by Fowler. She and Fiona have turned this into a comfortable space for the family to eat and gather in. To the left of the hall is the library, their everyday sitting room. Here a frieze and chimneypiece, of a slightly later date than the house, provided the cue for Fowler’s colour scheme. The wonderful stripe-on-stripe green flock wallpaper from Cole & Son and wool curtains have thankfully survived, despite the ceiling having to be replaced after a flood.