When Nick Hamilton and Sheron McDougall returned to Britain after spells
working in New York and Hong Kong, they saw no reason to live in expensive
London. No reason why they should live in a house, either. A country barn?
Too clichéd. A church conversion? Too awkward. What about an old factory?
That was 1997, and already developers had moved into places such as Leicester,
Nottingham and Northampton, and pushed up prices. The couple, who work in
advertising and marketing, then discovered Kettering, Rushden and
Wellingborough, an unexploited triangle of Northamptonshire towns easily
reached from London. They narrowed their search, but estate agents couldn’t
help: what they wanted was too unusual.
“When we saw a factory we liked the look of, we’d put a note through the door,
asking if they’d consider selling,” says McDougall, 47, whose parents were
from nearby Oakham, Rutland. “In the end, it came down to 10 places, and we
had replies from seven of them.”
They settled for a robust, if rather neglected, three-storey brick and iron
Victorian affair on the edge of Wellingborough. It belonged to a clothing
manufacturer who wanted to sell up, and asked just £71,000 for it. “Mind
you,” says Hamilton, 37, “back then, you could buy a terraced house round
here for £30,000, and now they’re over £100,000.”
The two began a conversion that they thought would cost about £150,000. But
after they struggled with recalcitrant builders, tried to start their own
business and generally became very pernickety about the whole thing, the
project turned into more of an obsession, and lasted seven years. No expense
was spared: everything was bespoke. Unsur-prisingly, that bumped up the
cost: it ended up at £521,000, including the purchase price. Still, the
property has just been valued at £850,000.
“We were building a dream — well, at least mine. The wife came along
reluctantly,” says Hamilton. To which McDougall replies, thoughtfully: “You
never told me exactly how much it cost.”
Without being rude toWelling-borough, this isn’t the sort of money or time
people usually spend on a house in this postindustrial market town. Equally,
it is plain that the couple had no idea how all-consuming the project would
become. “I know we could have increased the profit on the building if we had
treated it as a development to sell — but this was never a commercial
project to make money,” Hamilton says. “It was about building the perfect
life: live, work, play, all in one place.”
Has it been worth all that effort? The name of the street, Mill Road, confirms
you are in what was — and, in part, still is — an industrial quarter. But
these are not the huge mills of Man-chester or Bradford, still less the
sprawling assembly plants of Birmingham. These are almost polite little
factories, well proportioned and craftsmanlike. One of them is still
functioning as the heart of the Gandolfi dancewear business.
Just 50 minutes away from London by train, Wellingborough is now considered to
be within easy reach of the capital. “It wasn’t considered a commuter place
back then,” says Hamilton. “Developers weren’t on the scene because they
couldn’t get the returns they wanted. Our bank valuer said we were crazy.
But in the past five years, the place has rocketed in value. You’re getting
a lot of overspill from Bedford, Northampton and Milton Keynes.”
The project is still not absolutely finished — the couple think it would be
nice to spend £25,000 or so upgrading the kitchen — but it is jaw-droppingly
splendid. It also does not seem very Northamptonshire. No, this is a London
creative-industries aesthetic crossed with the idea of one of the original
New York lofts, then given a touch of Asian flair. By rights, something this
flamboyantly single-minded should be in Hoxton, but it is all the more
impressive for being away from the capital. You get more for your money —
like, the entire building, rather than just a floor of it.
A huge spiral staircase of folded and welded steel plate, suspended in a
filigree of fine steel cables, unites the three levels of what is now one
enormous house with views from end to end. Working with Quentin “Q”
Reidford, a Leicester architect, the couple had the original brick, wood and
ironwork sandblasted, took out all the floors to renovate them and reclaimed
materials such as bricks and radiators from other factories. Then they put
it all back together, adding contemporary details: balustrades of
freestanding glass; metal posts; a curving wall of quilted, silver Lycra;
hand basins of sculpted timber; a huge mirror that turns out to be a
doorway; a bespoke bed that is 7ft square — and so on.
The end result is a 6,372 sq ft house on three-and-a-half levels — basement,
ground floor, first floor and a mezzanine study eyrie for McDougall. There
is also a one-bed, self-contained duplex flat off to one side at the ground-
and first-floor levels, which adds another 500 sq ft.
The basement is set out as an office. Then, on the ground floor, comes the
kitchen and living/ dining area, with an “overnight room” for guests (themed
on the orange livery of Veuve Clicquot champagne) placed at one end behind a
screen of rotating wooden slats. The first floor is one huge bedroom suite,
with that oversized bed, which has masses of built-in storage and will be
sold with the house.
In these spaces, everything has to be big. “If you buy an ordinary lamp, say,
and put it in here, it just looks undersized,” says Hamilton. There are some
simply enormous metal candlesticks they found that work, probably because
they were designed for church-sized spaces. After all, the room is 30ft x
75ft long, with high ceilings supported on cast-iron columns.
Unlike many large houses, it doesn’t have much of a garden, since factories
don’t have gardens. Nevertheless, the yard at the back has been cunningly
turned into a sequence of terraces on several levels. One is for the
exclusive use of the self-contained flat. There is parking for up to six
cars where delivery trucks used to pull in.
Conversions of other factory buildings in Wellingborough and similar
Northamptonshire towns have generally created flats. To have a whole
building is extremely rare. So why, after all that effort, are they selling
up? Well, it’s that old thing of wanting a new project. Besides, Hamilton
had conceived it as a place in which to live and work, but now finds himself
commuting to an agency in London for half the week. So, it’s time to cash in
this enhanced property chip.
“We’ve bought this hilltop in Spain,” says McDougall. “It’s inland from
Alicante. The idea is that we develop it. We’re not quite sure that Spain’s
the right place, but . . .”
I wouldn’t worry. If this couple can make Wellingborough modish, Alicante
should be a doddle. Meanwhile, one of the most remarkable houses I’ve seen
for quite a while, just where you wouldn’t expect to find it, is up for
sale, privately. And for once, it is not a country cottage, but rather a
vast, urban retreat.
- For sale privately: 01933 279441; architect Quentin Reidford: 0116 267
1993
