By Francesca Peacock
It’s a bookworm’s dream to own a library. For the future owners of Stanbridge Mill, Dorset, that fantasy will be realised. The Grade II-listed former mill house — which sits astride the River Allen — has a purpose-designed library in its grounds, converted from a former cattle shed.
The library — which won a RIBA South West & Wessex Regional Small Project of the Year award in 2022 — is set in the house’s 52 acres of grounds. The desire for a dedicated space for books and reading came naturally to the current owners. “They’re lovers of knowledge,” says their daughter Arabella Phillimore. The library was built to be a place of “real reflection . . . a place that one could study in, a place that one could write in”. It is a fitting home, too, for their extensive collection of rare books, including a first edition of Diderot’s Encyclopaedia, alongside a collection of books related to Palladian architecture and Venice.
The library itself is classic in design: a nave separates two aisles of books and shelves, and curved arches run down the centre. The design is one of a “basilica” library — a design borrowed from ancient principles of Church architecture, and echoed in college and university libraries across Britain and further afield.
Despite its grandeur, the space doesn’t feel out of sync with its rural surroundings. Crawshaw Architects — the company that designed the barn — was “determined not to overengineer it” and so leaned towards “simple materials”, in keeping with both the building’s history and the surrounding area. The shape is elevated, Phillimore says, but the materials are grounded. Given the library is detached from the main house, the owners didn’t want the rain or cold to discourage anyone from using it: the final project had to be beautiful enough to make it “irresistible to not go to it”.
Aside from the library, the outdoors are perhaps the main draw at this three-bedroom house, currently on the market for £5.95mn. The River Allen, which runs below the main building — and on which the mill wheel still turns — is a chalk stream. The house has more than 1,000 yards of private double-bank fishing, as well as formal gardens by the award-winning designer Arabella Lennox-Boyd. Within the grounds is a swimming pool and three ancillary cottages.
It is rare to see contemporary libraries being added to properties, but there are other houses on the market with enough shelves to make a booklover’s wishes come true. This house for sale on Chelsea’s Cheyne Walk was the former home of the artist JMW Turner, who painted views of the Thames from the roof. Up in the eaves of the house is a cosy library. Also in London, this Georgian house in Islington has a beautiful blue-toned library, complete with a ladder to reach books on the highest shelves.
Further afield, there is The Great House in Burford, Oxfordshire. The Grade II*-listed house lives up to its name with its impressive honey-stone facade and Baroque proportions. Inside — amid the 17th-century paintings set into the wood panelling, grand windows, and the “Long Gallery” — is a private library, full of natural light and period details.
Libraries may be increasingly rare additions to houses, as developers and renovators prefer using the extra space for media rooms, gyms, or countless other purposes, but there is something special about preserving space for reading, studying, and the physical presence of books.
Photography: Knight Frank, Savills
