There was a time when Stamford Brook in west London was a remote hamlet consisting of a patchwork of market gardens, fields and stretches of heath. But as the centuries marched by and the city grew, the village, just like hundreds of others, gradually turned from farmland to thoroughfare. However, there is one particular garden in this pocket of Hammersmith that harks back to that more bucolic era.
Butter Wakefield’s garden is filled with an abundance of geums, foxgloves, nepeta, roses and geraniums; a wildflower meadow sweeps across the centre of the lawn, which is handsomely framed by clipped box pyramids. Disguised behind a trellis is her workstation – apple crates overflow with knapweed, daisies and wild carrot and there are planters of orange, salvia and cow parsley.
It should come as no surprise that Butter is a garden designer. She grew up on a small farm outside Baltimore in Maryland, surrounded by dogs and ponies. ‘My upbringing is entirely responsible for my job,’ she says. ‘My mother and aunt were mad about their gardens and my grandfather was a great plantsman who instilled such magic in his surroundings.’
Having worked at Christie’s in New York, Butter moved to London in 1988, where she was an interior-design assistant at Colefax and Fowler. ‘It was there that I gained a true understanding of design, form, scale, texture and colour,’ she says. It is a knowledge that has proved invaluable to her work and has also been put to good use in her house. She moved from interiors to exteriors in 1992, in order to spend more time with her two children.
Butter and her now ex-husband bought the Victorian villa ‘for a song’ in 1991. ‘The kitchen was so poky, you could barely open the oven. But we saw it in spring when the light was pouring in across the west-facing garden and we just fell in love,’ she recalls. The kitchen is far from poky now, helped partly by the addition of an elegant conservatory 10 years ago. ‘It is essential to have the garden as much inside as possible,’ says Butter, hence the large sash window and the stable door.
Black and white flooring in oversize checks unites the two spaces. ‘I blame the floor,’ she says laughing. ‘That’s where it all started.’ She is referring to the palette of green, black and white that runs throughout much of the house, but comes to the fore in the kitchen and conservatory, where there is a cornucopia of lettuceware plates and monochromatic fabrics. A smart green window seat is luxuriously heated by the radiator below and is the perfect spot from which to contemplate the garden.
‘We couldn’t afford to hang cupboards in the kitchen, so we covered the walls in black-framed prints and paintings. They are pieces that I’ve collected over the years – some are very good but others are virtually postcards,’ she says. It is a clever trick that, teamed with the tongue-and-groove panelling, gives the space a cottage feel.
A pattern of oversize palm leaves by Cole & Son clambers through the hall and up the stairs; the section below the dado rail is painted in ‘Pea Green’ from Edward Bulmer Natural Paint and a black and white runner from Crucial Trading continues Butter’s favoured colour theme. The two-part sitting room is painted a restrained shade of grey, but a zingy apple-green blind and fabrics in shades of blue lift the palette, as does Butter’s collection of pink lustreware and the endless vases filled with flowers. ‘One of my greatest pleasures is having fresh flowers in the house,’ she says. ‘There is really nothing nicer.’ Not a room in this house escapes without a botanical print or a floral pattern. The walls in the sitting rooms are decked out with landscapes by Annabel Fairfax and Kirsty Wither. ‘When I finish a job, if there’s a little extra cash left and a wall space winking at me, I won’t buy jewels, I’ll buy a painting,’ says Butter.
Upstairs there are five bedrooms; Butter’s own room is a pared-back affair with a pretty green blind from her days at Colefax and Fowler and an exceptionally comfortable looking bed. Butter’s house and garden is a place of bounty and comfort: the furniture is positively plump; there are layers upon layers of fabric; anything that can be filled with flowers is filled with flowers; and the garden sings with colour and scent. The city may heave and swarm beyond the front door, but this is a place in which to escape; a small slice of the countryside both inside and out.
Butter Wakefield is a member of The List by House & Garden, our essential directory of design professionals. See her profile here: thelist.houseandgarden.com/profile/butter-wakefield-garden-design
Butter Wakefield: butterwakefield.co.uk.
- Simon Brown1/27Dining Area
- Simon Brown2/27‘We couldn’t afford to hang cupboards in the kitchen, so we covered the walls in black-framed prints and paintings. They are pieces that I’ve collected over the years – some are very good but others are virtually postcards,’ she says. It is a clever trick that, teamed with the tongue-and-groove panelling, gives the space a cottage feel.
- Simon Brown3/27A pattern of oversize palm leaves by Cole & Son clambers through the hall and up the stairs; the section below the dado rail is painted in ‘Pea Green’ from Edward Bulmer Natural Paint and a black and white runner from Crucial Trading continues Butter’s favoured colour theme.
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- Simon Brown9/27The walls in the sitting rooms are decked out with landscapes by Annabel Fairfax and Kirsty Wither. ‘When I finish a job, if there’s a little extra cash left and a wall space winking at me, I won’t buy jewels, I’ll buy a painting,’ says Butter.
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