Jewellery & Nordrach House

Nordrach House with a charcoal sketch behind of Nordrach. Model wearing my Jewellery.. [And of course drinking my wine!]

I have written extensively about Nordrach House, Somerset & it has appeared in a number of magazine articles, but to give you a brief outline. Here is one of the articles from Somerset Life in 2008… https://www.somerset-life.co.uk/homes-gardens/interiors/rural-retreat-restored-1-1632713

We purchased Nordrach House in 2005 as a refurbishment project, it was built as an exclusive TB hospital in the 1800, there are a number of Nordrach hospitals, mostly based in Germany where physicians pioneered a new treatment to try and cure TB by finding a location with the most pure air and building a purpose build hospital in that location, ‘our’ Nordrach in Somerset is built on the very top of the Mendip Hills and the patients would be housed in pavilions within the extensive grounds, with windows open all year around so that patients could take in the air at all times. The had a pavilion for the patients to eat in that was in the main building, a cricket pitch on one of the front fields, both of which existed when we purchased the property. Also they had a doctors surgery on the grounds which was converted into another private house at a later stage.

Nordrach House when it was a sanatorium

Nordrach House in 2010

Thankfully TB was effectively eradicated in the main and so the property was then used as a refuge for the Polish for a few years. Subsequently it was purchased by the Stokes family, purveyors of fruit and vegetables, who went about turning this purpose built hospital into a family home, with the use of a great deal of Laura Ashley wallpaper. The basic building remained in the same format with its two long hallways running along from the front of the house to the back on the two floors splitting the house into two parts.

Front door at Nordrach House

When we purchased the property, it was my idea of fun to completely refurbish the property which by now needed a complete overhaul, it was less my husbands idea of fun! But he kindly went along with it! The property was by this point in a desperate need for an update/overhaul and full refurbishment.

Nordrach House sitting room

The starting point for the 'refurb’ was to remove the oil tanks that were banked down the side of the property, every time one failed they just put another one in and left the old one in place, this meant that we had to get a crane in to remove the three old defunct tanks and have them taken away.

Another big issue was the jackdaws, the property was besieged with them; jackdaws are protected spices at certain times of the year. Part of the birds habit is to come back to the same property/place where they were born, they then rebuild another nest on top of the existing nest creating a sort of nest mountain. The nest were falling out of the rafters and out of the roof into the guttering as they had never been removed, it was quite disgusting. We took advise and were told that it would be in the interest of the birds if we thinned out the nests, we had no intention of getting rid of the birds but just to improve their environment as well as ours. So when the time was right and the birds were not nesting we set about cleaning up!

Nest debris is very toxic and required specialist removal company. It took two men two weeks in specialist suits and face masks and breathing apparatus to remove all the old nests!

And so the refurbishment went on, litres of paint, new kitchen cooker and hobs were installed, the property already had a double aga, which we had refurbished. New bathrooms and shower rooms were installed. The house looked magnificent.

In the gardens there had once been a ‘dingly dell’, for the patients to enjoy, effectively this was a grotto dug deep into the rocks, sadly this had been used over the years as a dump, with the proverbial, old fridge and sofa deposited in it ‘too boot’, all this had to be skipped away and the woods had to be tidied up, it was successful and in April the smell of wild garlic in the woods was superb and so pretty it reminded me of being a child and running through the woods near my grandmothers home.

Nordrach House .. This was the old driveway that had long since stopped being used.. Fabulous line of Beech Trees..

The gates at the front of the driveway had been found in a field with matted vegetation securing them to the ground, near our old home in Henley-on-Thames, we approached the owner and he did not want them so my husband, Ben, had them rebuilt at a local forge and for the fun he had an ‘N’ and ‘B’ set into the top of the gates, yes a bit ‘naff’ but funny anyway! So it was interesting that when we moved to Nordrach and had the gates installed on the front of the drive, we had complaints about them from the locals, saying they were to ‘posh’ for the area! People funny?? !! I told one of the mothers from the local school were our children attended about the issue with the gate, and she came up with the brilliant comment, “If they want to complain .. If I were you I would get your husband to put another ‘B’ on them, and then tell the locals that it is now Nordrach B & B, that will teach them!”… Brilliant we.. We never did it by the way!

So moving on from finishing Nordrach, I have always had an interest in fashion. Over and above of my work in Interior Design I had undertaken a number of commissions making jewellery and some of the items I made had featured in magazines, it seemed a no ‘brainer’ to use Nordrach for a bit of photography for promotion of my jewellery, it was a fun day …

Leather, wire mesh & feather necklace … Pictured in the Pavilion ..

The day was full of food and wine .. The girls all dressed in my cloths and shoes and it was a great way to document the jewellery…

Antique Chinese beads

These Chinese beads were bought from a local antique shop some were cracked and others smashed, so I took them apart and wired them back together to make a new necklace selection of necklaces…

Leather hand stitched bangles

I ordered on line a box of leather off-cuts, which incidentally came from a company that made sex toys! Most of the pieces were big enough to turn into these beautiful bangles, I used a local saddle maker, who cut them into the shapes and stitched them on a old machine ..

Porcupine & silver earrings - Top hat with feathers also made by me!

I was working on a modern interior design job in a private home and I was using the porcupine needles as a styling implement, they make an striking display put into a vase on a shelf, I had some left over so I decided to turn them into earrings, it was not as easy as I first thought, as the needles need to be pinned into position not glued as I had originally thought might be possible. But that pinning as you can see from the picture added to the architectural structure of the earrings.

The hat I saw in a Bristol shop in Park Street, so I bought it and purchased some feathers on line to make the look…

Leather belt with tassels ..

Leather scarf…

In the local market in Wells, there is a man who sells shoe laces and he had a box of leather off cuts, with them I made a leather belt and fabulous long belt, cutting great long tassels to hang down to the ground …

Coral, Amethyst necklace with silver and leather loops

I have not made much jewellery recently.. But watch this space as I will post some new items on this site … Please do contact me if you wish to have a bespoke piece made for you …

Necklaces bangles & coolness …