COME IN FROM THE COLD

Design studio Dunning & Everard helped two poets turn their home on the windswept Yorkshire moors into something quite magical

- JULIET BENNING

KITCHEN

The all-over rich moss green is like a warm embrace. The blind fabric is bespoke and features curlews, one of owners Lydia and Nick’s favourite birds. Blind fabric, Isabel Kimbell Design. Bespoke cabinets, The English Joinery Company; painted in Messel by Mylands

KITCHEN

The zingy lime colour of the zellige-tile splashback adds a punchy variation to the uniform green. Zellige tiles, Habibi Interiors. Bobbin chairs, Julian Chichester. Glass pendant lights, Pooky

Given their inclination to write poetry inspired by the natural world, Lydia Macpherson and Nick MacKinnon’s move to the windswept Yorkshire moors seemed an obvious transition. When Nick retired from his job as a teacher at Winchester College, the couple, who are both poets, found themselves free to return to the landscape that Lydia’s family had inhabited for generations.

The property Lydia and Nick bought sits at the end of a track that climbs the hill towards Top Withens, the abandoned farm whose remote location before the stark and glorious moors beckon is said to have inspired Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. ‘It was pretty much an impulse buy,’ Lydia admits. ‘We were staying with my family and walking to Top Withens one day when we noticed the house was for sale. We bought it intending to use it as a holiday home, but as Nick was retiring we decided we would live here full time. It was once owned by my four-times great-uncle in the 1800s and my family all live within a few miles, so we’re extremely well rooted.’