Interior Design in Corbridge and the Tyne Valley

A Village Built in Stone

Drawn from the conservation area appraisal the council holds for Corbridge, and from Historic England’s list entry for the Vicar’s Pele.

Corbridge Conservation Area was designated in March 1974 and revised in March 1996. The appraisal describes a core of eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century buildings, interspersed with earlier properties from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, wrapped around a medieval street pattern that rises up the side of the valley from the bridge. The bridge itself dates from 1674 and was the only one on the Tyne to withstand the floods of 1771.

Stone and slate dominate. In the appraisal’s words, pitched roofs, chimney stacks and pots create “simple and robust architecture and an attractive silhouette”, and the tower of St Andrew’s peering over the river terraces is the defining view of the village.

The Vicar’s Pele

East of the church stands the Vicar’s Pele, listed at Grade I and described by Historic England as the best preserved vicar’s pele in the county: a tower house of about 1400, built of large squared stones, mostly re-used Roman material, under a stone slate roof, and the vicarage until the early seventeenth century. What we like most in the list entry is a domestic detail. The first floor has window seats on its north and south sides. Six hundred years on, the instinct to sit in the window is unchanged.

What the houses are made of

• Walls. A local cream sandstone that tints grey with age, used rough, rock-faced and tooled, with ashlar surrounds to windows and doors and at the quoins. Brick on later buildings is often buff or pale yellow to mimic the tone of stone.
• Roofs. Predominantly Welsh slate, with some of the oldest properties still under split stone flags, and clay pantiles elsewhere. Chimney pots come in shapes from Bishops and Captains to Beehives, and the appraisal counts them as vital to the village’s character.
• Joinery. Windows, shutters and doors are timber and invariably painted, and original joinery generally survives.
• Reveals. The appraisal notes that replacement windows set flush with the wall, rather than back into a reveal, lose the building its depth and shadow. It is a point about the outside, but it matters inside too.

Sources: Corbridge Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Tynedale Council, 2009, held by Northumberland County Council, PDF); Vicars Pele, list entry 1044750 (Historic England).

What a Stone House Asks of Its Rooms

Plain observations from working in the valley. Not rules, and every house is different.

Thick walls give deep window reveals, and that reveal is where the decision about curtains or blinds begins. A Roman blind fitted inside it keeps the stone sill and the depth of the wall on show. Full-length curtains hung outside it make the window read taller and the room softer. Often the answer is both, with the cloth chosen alongside everything else in the room so the scheme reads as one idea.

Stone floors and high ceilings carry sound and hold cold, so textiles do more work than in a newer house. At The Northumberland Project the piano lounge kept its stone floors and high ceilings and was left calm enough for a grand piano to breathe. Lighting in an old house is noticed twice, once when the room is lit and again when you see that the fitting belongs to the architecture. In Corbridge a clear pendant, faceted like cut stone, was specified as permanent decoration. Not a feature, a foundation.

If the house is listed

Historic England is clear that listing covers the entire building, so works that might affect its character need listed building consent, and that can include replacing windows and internal alterations. As we read it, redecorating and furnishing are not the kind of change the consent is aimed at, and that is where most of our work sits. On a listed house we would always check with the conservation officer before anyone touched joinery, fireplaces or plasterwork, and we work alongside architects and builders so the question is asked early. Conservation area status, for its part, concerns the character and appearance of the area as a whole, and the appraisal is a good first read for anyone planning changes.

Sources: What Are Listed Buildings? (Historic England); Corbridge Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Tynedale Council, 2009, held by Northumberland County Council, PDF); the Northumberland Project page on this site.