People renovate houses in the wilds of the countryside for many reasons. For
some, it’s the desire to create a sanctuary far from the pressures of the
world. Others are driven by the sheer challenge of restoration. However,
when Dame Josephine Barstow, one of the world’s leading sopranos, bought
Heyswood House, a run-down, early-Victorian property in Devon, in 2001, its
renovation was her way of coping with grief.
“This was my very own Lost Gardens of Heligan,” she explains. “I knew I needed
to make a fresh start and I needed a project. This, I knew, would give me
something else to think about.”
When she bought the two-storey home, which sits on 65 acres leading down to
the River Taw, she was still mourning the death of her husband, Ande
Anderson, the former director of productions at Covent Garden, who died in
1996.
Considered by critics to be one of the world’s finest singing actresses
(skills that do not always go hand in hand), Barstow, 66, made her debut in
the 1960s and rose to fame from 1970, when she sang the role of Denise in
the world premiere of The Knot Garden, by Michael Tippett. She has played
the world’s leading opera houses, sharing the stage with Pavarotti in 1988,
when she sang the title role in Tosca under Herbert von Karajan in Salzburg.
She has now cut down on appearances, but singing still takes up between 12
and 15 weeks a year.
Her marriage to Anderson was the rock that gave her hectic life stability, she
says. The couple were living on a 50-acre farm in Sussex when he died, and
afterwards, she needed a fresh start. “He was a huge loss, and it took me a
long time to learn how to exist on my own,” she says. “I simply had to move
from Sussex, because as long as I stayed there, I knew I’d be seeing Ande
coming through the garden gate.”
Devon ticked several boxes for Barstow: it is not too densely populated, and
its acidic soil means the camellias she cultivates thrive. Crucially, too,
there was space – albeit on a farm 11 miles away – for her 30 Arab horses.
She and Anderson didn’t have a family, and she says she almost regards the
herd as her children.
Heyswood House nestles in the village of Eggesford, in the Taw valley – Tarka
the Otter country – about 20 miles from Barnstaple.
Property prices in the area reflect its popularity with incomers from the
southeast. A substantial home – a five-bedroom farmhouse, on 10 acres, for
example – starts at £750,000. There’s good salmon and sea-trout fishing, as
well as surfing on Devon’s north coast, and Dartmoor and Exmoor are nearby.
When Barstow first saw Heyswood House, she knew that it offered the seclusion
she needed. The approach to the Grade II-listed property starts at a gate at
the bottom of a shallow slope, and continues along a curving drive almost a
mile long. Designed by Thomas Lee, a renowned architect from Barnstaple, in
an Elizabethan gothic-revival style, the house was originally part of the
Eggesford estate, once owned by the earls of Portsmouth, and is, strictly
speaking, a “cottage ornée”. Such homes were once
popular on large estates, usually occupied by aristocratic downsizers tired
of life in the stately pile. Heyswood House, it is thought, was built in the
1830s by the fourth earl for his son, who was installed there with a male
companion.
“I’d guess he was probably gay, and the family were trying to hide him from
public view,” Barstow says.
When she bought the house, it was in a bad state: shaded by enormous conifers
in its overgrown garden, it was oppressively dark inside, and damp. Jackdaws
sometimes fluttered down the chimney, the configuration of rooms was
illogical and there were two staircases, one of which, rather disruptively,
led directly into the drawing room. Yet Barstow believed the property was
“mendable”.
Her first step was to enlist the services of Edward Howell, an architect who
lives in nearby Eggesford House, once the estate’s main residence, in
rejigging the layout of her home. Renovations began in September 2001, with
a new roof and the repointing of the seven chimneys. Barstow, meanwhile, set
about cleaning up the garden.
“The builders thought I was quite mad,” she says. “I’d be working from dawn
until dusk, sometimes eight or nine hours a day, even in winter. But I loved
it – it was all part of my therapy.”
Barstow has renovated every property she has owned since buying her first, a
three-bedroom cottage in Sussex, in 1965 for £2,300. Although she won’t say
how much she paid for Heyswood House, she admits that it was “well above the
odds” and estimates she has since spent £450,000. It shows: the house is
impressive.
Originally, visitors walked straight into a utility room, the kitchen and
another storage room. These and the original staircases have been
demolished, replaced by a polished sandstone hall and a new staircase of
British Columbian pine. Off the hall, to the right, is a bespoke kitchen. It
is light, almost semicircular, and modern, although gothic-influenced glass
insets on the units nod to the architecture. The south-facing wall has been
knocked down and a conservatory added, leading out to a terrace.
The main reception rooms also lead off the hall: there’s the dining room, with
17th-century oak panelling installed by a previous owner; the remodelled
drawing room; and, off that, a cosy sitting room. A glance at its fireplace
reveals that Barstow isn’t afraid to mix and match periods.
“It’s art nouveau, I think,” she says. “I found it in a Harrogate antiques
shop and I just knew it would work.” The top floor has four bedrooms,
including the master suite (with dressing room and ensuite bathroom in
travertine marble), and a small guest wing, with a sitting room that leads
to a roof terrace. “The sky here is fantastic at night,” Barstow says. “When
I first moved in, I got a call at about one in the morning to say that there
was a horse foaling. There’s no light pollution here at all, and I could see
every star in the sky, while the full moon made the whole garden silver. I
called the new foal Maarni Moon to mark the occasion.”
The 30 big conifers that shaded the house so badly have been cut down, and
Barstow has created a lawn and raised flower beds of shrubs and perennials
in blue and white, one of her favourite colour combinations. She is an
enthusiastic gardener and does most of the work herself, employing help just
one day a week.
The large acreage is surprisingly manageable. There are about five acres of
grounds, 30 acres of parkland – which sheep maintain efficiently – and 30
acres of woodland and arboretum sloping down to the riverbanks that require
little work. Standing on the lawn, on a sunny spring day, the property,
which includes a separate three-bed stone cottage, seems idyllic. So why is
Barstow selling up, after so much effort?
It’s because of her beloved horses. She simply isn’t happy about having to
keep them at a separate property, and they can’t be installed in the
parkland, as they would cause too much damage. She is looking for another
“beautiful house”, with fields for the horses, but she hasn’t yet decided
exactly where it will be. “I’d consider California, maybe the south of
France, but quite likely England again,” she says.
Has the renovation of Heyswood House proved as healing as she hoped it would?
“You never get over the loss of someone as close as that,” she says. “But I’m
more grounded now. I know how to live on my own now. That’s thanks to the
peace and tranquillity of being here. This has been a warm and comforting
place.”
- Heyswood House is on sale for £2m through Jackson-Stops and Staff,
01392 214222, www.jackson-stops.co.uk
