In 2005, Bowood House in Wiltshire was the setting for the Homes & Gardens Spring Fair. Here, Fiona, Marchioness of Lansdowne, describes how she has breathed new life into this beautiful country estate

At the same time that Fiona Merrit married the Marquis of Lansdowne, an Amazonian stone figure appeared in the famous Italianate terraced gardens of Bowood. As his bride measured a cool six foot, rumour had it that the Marquis commissioned the provocative stone sculpture in homage to the new woman in his life. “Of course it's complete rubbish,” says Fiona, “but it did get people talking. I wasn't a big fan of the figure at first, but she looks better now I have covered her with yogurt for years and moulded her in a bit.”

Fiona could not be more matter of fact about living and working at Bowood, the spectacular 18th-century stately home designed by Robert Adam and set in a breathtaking Capability Brown landscape. Walking through the house's seemingly endless passageways, with Molly the spaniel at her heels, Fiona explains that the current house was originally designed as service quarters for a far larger house that was pulled down in 1955. “It gets called the grandest stable conversion in the country, but thank heavens they did it,” she laughs. “The old house would have been quite impossible to live in, let alone decorate.” Part of the house and its gardens were opened to the public in 1975, and Bowood welcomes around 140,000 visitors every season. Meanwhile, the private quarters remain a haven for family life and the Marchioness's busy interior design business. “It is a lot of work running both the house and the business, but hard work is in my nature and I can't imagine doing anything else.”

Before meeting her husband Charles, the 9th Marquis of Lansdowne, and moving to Bowood, Fiona Shelburne (the name the Marchioness now uses for her interior design business) had worked for fabric company Colefax and Fowler for over 15 years. When she realised commuting to London didn't make sense, particularly when most of her clients were in the country, she moved her office to Bowood. She now works from a picturesque room, originally used by the head gardener, within the house's impressive walled gardens. “I suppose my style is pretty traditional,” she says, “though I think I am getting more modern.” Needless to say, decorating large country houses is her forte, and Bowood, with its 16 private bedrooms, is a wonderful canvas to work on. “I am working my way through the house and have been for the last 16 years,” she says, “Naturally I use a lot of Colefax fabrics.”

The house also has its own Colefax connections. A chintz that was found by the decorator John Fowler at Bowood in the 1950s and subsequently produced by Colefax and Fowler has become one of the company's best-known fabrics. It now hangs in two of the bedrooms, and along an entire upstairs passageway. Fiona has also decorated the club house at Bowood's golf course, and all of the estate houses, including Queenswood Lodge, a pretty 18th-century house, which is rented out for golfing weekends.

While she works in the office five days a week, Fiona is quick to acknowledge that life is not all hard work at Bowood. “This is a magical place to live. My husband, Charlie, has seven grandchildren living on the estate who appear at all times of day on their bicycles.” Living in the largest privately owned estate in the south of England without a public road running through it could mean never needing to bother with the outside world, but Fiona relishes throwing her doors open to the public. “We open from April to the end of October, and I still get a buzz at the start of every season.”

FEATURE DAISY BRIDGEWATER
PHOTOGRAPHS SIMON BROWN
APRIL 2005