What my home means to me TV presenter/science journalist Judith Hann
Science journalist and TV presenter Judith, 74, left London 23 years ago for an idyllic life growing herbs in the Cotswolds near Burford, where she lives with her husband John, 76
WHERE I LIVE
One morning a brochure for a pretty Cotswolds farmhouse came through the letterbox of our London home. We’d been house hunting in the area, but weren’t registered with this estate agent, so to this day it remains a mystery how our dream home came to literally land on our doorstep!
It was 1990 and our sons, Jake and Daniel, who are now in their forties, were at university. Everything was so fast and busy in London and we wanted a change of pace. At the time I was a presenter on Tomorrow’s
World, but dreamed of planting my own herb garden.
We went to view the farm and found it needed a frightening amount of work. There was no garden, just a pig yard, but it had a beautiful listed barn and six acres of land. The hallway was huge with a fireplace, and above the front door was a little carved sheep, because the building had originally been a wool store.
As I walked around the back, I started to plan where my herb garden would go. Although we bought the house in 1990, we didn’t move in until the building work was completed four years later. At the back there were a number of small rooms that we knocked together to create a big space that I call my Monet kitchen. It faces north so I painted the walls yellow and filled it with old blue and white china. It always feels so cheerful. The hallway is in Farrow & Ball’s Porphyry Pink, which continues up the landing. Our main room is cream, with fern-themed botanical prints on the wall.
We have fireplaces in the dining room, drawing room and study-come-snug, which houses our books and TV. Just before guests arrive I throw dried rosemary or lavender on to the flames, which produces a beautiful smell as they walk into the room.
MY INFLUENCES
Memories are so important and ours are reflected by our pictures. My father, the former Derby County footballer Ralph Hann, came from the North East, so we have an evocative Edwardian oil painting showing miners coming out of a pit. A famous black and white bull once lived on the farm, so there are antique pictures of the same breed on display in our hallway.
I’ve themed the other rooms. In the dining room our pictures are fruit-based, and the curtain finials are shaped as bunches of grapes. The study-come-snug has a sporting theme, including a set of vintage cricket caricatures that I bought John for his 40th birthday, while the kitchen has six original framed prints of Mrs Beaton’s dishes.
My mother’s precious copper jugs sit in a pretty 1930sthemed bedroom. I researched the fabrics of the time, and ordered a peach and gold bedcover. My granddaughters, Saoirse, nine and Rosa, seven, love sleeping in there because they know it’s special.
My main influence is my love of herbs. I grow more than 150 different types, including nine varieties of sage, and they give such a beautiful scent in the walled garden on a sunny day. We also have herbs drying over the Aga, so the house is filled with their fragrance. FAMILY LIFE
Our sons visit a lot and our granddaughters often stay. The kitchen is the centrepoint for the whole family. I place a wax cloth on our 10ft-long kitchen table and the girls set out their art materials and spend ages painting and sticking while I cook. They also loving helping me pick the herbs, sewing the seeds and watching them grow. As well as running cookery courses I sell cuttings to raise money for leukaemia research, because Daniel had the disease as a teenager. It’s lovely to see people come and fall in love with herbs. Some have filled their small gardens with them, others send me photographs and one lady who runs a café even named a cupcake after me! HB
l Herbs: Delicious Recipes and Growing Tips to Transform Your Food by Judith Hann (£20, Nourish Books) is on sale now