The Tempus – Northumberland
The Tempus Boutique Hotel (Charlton Hall Estate, North Northumberland) has this year won a pocketful of interior design awards, including a prestigious award from the British Institute of Interior Design (BIID).
The interiors, in some parts of the hotel, are quite insane, a mix of clashing colours, materials and patterns.
This is a design that really shouldn’t work and yet it does.
Credit for this must go to designers Jo Aynsley and Carley Kyle. Jo, Design Director of Edinburgh-based studio Jeffreys Interiors, has enjoyed ‘playing with the rules’ to create a dazzling riot of spaces and effects to stimulate the senses, and guests love it!
Jeffreys Interiors were involved with the Charlton Hall Estate ever since it was purchased by local entrepreneur, Richard Shell, in 2016.
Shell was keen to create a wedding venue that would ‘break to mould’ in Northumberland.
The county is weighted by a large number of wedding venues so it was important to provide a point of difference; a USP.
The idea of an ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ theme, where guests would walk through defined colourful areas on a journey, was born.
Here, Jo Aynsley talks about the project.
When we approached the beginning of The Tempus project, there was much discussion as to whether we push this ‘Alice’ theme further or pull it back.
I would say we landed in a happy medium.
Appealing not only to your grandparents who want to enjoy a Sunday lunch in the orangery or a morning coffee with friends, but also to entice younger couples out of Newcastle or down from Edinburgh for a weekend away.
We zoned the areas with creative lighting and a moody lighter décor to appeal to different groups at different times of the day.
You enter through the heritage gin gang, which is a former wheelhouse or horse-engine house.
The space is light and airy with its original stone wall repointed, a limestone-effect tiled floor and impressive neon name art installation.
You creep through the lounge, darker smaller areas in which the benches are laid out suggestive of the maze in Wonderland.
As light begins to trickle in through the roof lanterns, it bounces off the disco balls hung in the bar.
Uplighters create shadows on the branches which arch into private booths before you step through our antique Indian arches and into a bright orangery, where the walls feature a painterly forest wallpaper.
We hope this all excites the senses, the idea is that you notice new features every time you walk through.
The building was taken over as the farm buildings for the estate, with the gin gang at one end and the forge at the other.
The original building was not fit for purpose or laid out in a workable way so the central section was flattened, leaving the gin gang and forge as anchor points to the building.
Using the original stone, the building was rebuilt in a relative similar layout to what had been there, with the orangery added.
I think it is really important to keep the authenticity of the building and its story intact and I do love the stonework.
Breathing life back into the gin gang, we wanted to create a real wow factor when you walked through the doors.
With its pitched cylindrical ceiling, we came up with the concept of a Van Gogh-inspired installation, suggestive of The ‘Starry, starry night’ sky.
The LED Tree then becomes the stars.
It’s a good talking point.
This project was beset with potential for delays, including Covid and Brexit, it couldn’t have been a worse time to be starting a project!
To have still achieved this in the timeframe I think is a huge testament to everyone involved.
Of course, we’re delighted with all the accolades and it has been received really well locally too.
Although it wouldn’t look so out of place in a big city centre, it is pushing all boundaries for rural Northumberland.
Photography: ZAC and ZAC