The magnificent Grade-2 listed Georgian Cuckney House on the Welbeck Estate, one of the UK’s largest and historically important country estates, has been given a complete interior makeover by Rachel McLane Ltd.
The three-and-a-half-year project converted the vacant Cuckney House into luxury 15-bedroom holiday and event accommodation.
The 15,000-acre Welbeck Estate on the Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire border near Sherwood Forest has a history that can be traced back nearly 900 years and is run by The Welbeck Estates Company.
As the most prominent House on the Estate, it has been thoroughly but sensitively transformed during the £5m redevelopment project to provide a single high-spec property for extended holiday and event-related stays.
Its 15 bedrooms include family suites and a bridal suite, allowing the House to sleep more than 30 people, and it has three reception rooms, including a 28-seat dining room and a 40-seat function room. There is a large, well-appointed kitchen, games room, snug butler’s pantry, and outside, there is a large terrace with two BBQs and a wood-fired pizza oven, a walled kitchen garden and a tennis court.
The transformation of Cuckney House is part of the long-term Welbeck Project to re-purpose and breathe new life into the Estate’s collection of historic buildings.
The entire project was managed by the Welbeck Estate, which made it run like clockwork as the Estate has incredibly skilled teams across different departments, including stone masons and builders, some of whom lived on-site to see the project completed.
Working closely alongside the Estate team, we managed through internal and external structural design changes that included a reconfiguration of the walls on the first and second floors, complete re-roofing, insulation throughout, refurbishment of all flooring, including reinstated parquet flooring, and the raising of the ceiling height in the top floor rooms, as well as electrical drawings, lighting designs, colour scheme and fabrics.
We could respect Cuckney House’s listed status while giving each room its identity and personality, reflecting the original use of the building as a Manor House.
The design intent was to make Cuckney House feel like it had evolved rather than an overly designed modern interior. The overall look is eclectic and traditional, with a contemporary twist suited to today’s living expectations.
The interior design also features a new art collection that the Rachel McLane team procured to make it look like the collection had evolved. We worked with the Estate’s collections team on scans of artwork from the collections and also with a commercial art gallery, mixing traditional and contemporary artwork on the walls and around the rooms.
An added feel of the area’s landscape also comes from the work of a ceramic artist who rents a studio from the Welbeck Estate and whose work is on display in the House.
The restoration of Cuckney House has also been emphatically sustainable with the provision of electric car charging points, renewable energy heat sources, and solar panels. In place of energy-consuming kettles in each room, each floor was designed with a communal coffee and tea pod.
Nigel Porter, Property & Rural Estates Director, said, “For me, the interior design and the quality of the craftsmanship stand out.”
About Rachel McLane Limited
Rachel McLane Ltd offers a full design service that interprets a client’s brief and delivers their project on time, on budget, and as envisaged. Every client and every project is different, so how we get there is entirely up to the client. Not every project requires internal spaces reconfiguring; not every client has an architect or project manager. However, as a general rule, their project process offers: Feasibility Study – narrowing down your options; Concept Design – sketched visuals of how your space might look; Design Detailing – producing drawings & plans for trades; Purchasing – new, bespoke or repurposed; Fit-Out.
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A Brasserie-Style restaurant converted from the 19th-century Grade II-listed former Minster School, the design respects and enhances the old Music school building, doing justice to its historical importance. Simple colours, furniture, and pared-back materials allow the building to stand in its own integrity.
Rachel McLane Ltd wanted to retain the school's tradition of being a “coming together space.” We kept the integrity of the school lunch/music hall, once the main assembly area, as one big dining space.
Within the limitations of a Grade II listed building, adaptations were made to meet building control and fire regulations, such as installing a lift, new WCs, and air conditioning. Provisions for accessibility were also made by dropping the floor, removing the steps at the entrance, and installing sandstone ramps. All this required a balancing act involving all parties, including the Minster itself.
Our commitment to sustainability is evident in our approach to materials. Wherever possible, we reused existing materials, lifting and relaying stone flags. Stone lintels and mullions were restored, and timber trusses were sandblasted to remove layers of old paint. This preserves the building's original character and reduces our environmental footprint, a testament to our commitment to sustainability.
All materials used were sympathetic and in tune with the Minster, including wood that is medium to dark oak, antique brushed brass, and furniture that marries a style that is relaxed and eclectically functional.
The simple colour palette allows the building to have its own voice. Muted tones on walls are broken by panelling – some existing and some new. Some of the old scholarship boards are re-hung in situ as a nod to the building’s past.
We created bespoke chandelier lighting from printed manuscripts from the Mister Chorister archives. We printed these onto cotton parchment to make shades and as details on the fixed seating screens. We littered the walls with an eclectic mix of musical instruments. We created a gantry that hung over the central detain section with props from typical school subjects such as globes, rugby boots, chemistry apparatus and so on. We also designed a bespoke piece of back lit wall art made up of the iconic yellow and black HB pencils.
The WCs are individually designed and quirky with a school-related vibe - reflecting, perhaps, the habits of pupil’s past, escaping to the WC instead to avoid maths!
An old pulpit was repurposed as a meet-and-greet station/reception, setting a monastic, scholarly feel for arriving guests.
A dropped ceiling detail conceals mechanical/electrical services and air conditioning. The double-height front windows are single-glazed – counteracted with mechanical heating rather than double-glazing the windows.
As regulations require, fire doors are compartmentalised as sympathetically as possible throughout the interior and made to look like they had always been there.
We acquired old-school subject artefacts that are displayed in the gantry above the banquette seating, a nod to the building's school heritage. We also used copies from original manuscripts associated with the Minster and its choristers, which we printed onto canvas and parchment and incorporated into bespoke chandeliers and screens.
York Minster Refectory is the first listed building in York to have solar. The installation of solar slates on the roof is forecast to produce 11,000 kWh of power annually on average. The energy accumulated from the solar slates feeds into the invertors, which subsequently feed the hot water supplies to the washroom facilities.
An ASHP (Air source heat pump) on the plant deck serves power to the building and underfloor heating system to the entrance lobby.
The front entrance of the York Minster Refectory was designed with a simple, flexible, and easy-to-use takeaway kiosk. The Refectory offers takeaway drinks, cakes, and snacks during the day and is also used for finer evening dining.
The upper floor, which was the school's old science labs, IT suite & geography room, was reconfigured to accommodate accessible WCs with lift and a more open plan, lounge-type hub and meeting area, with mixed seating and tables and spaces for private dining and smaller functions, such as weddings.
York Minster Refectory was opened by King Charles III and Queen Camilla in April, which was kept secret until just before the restaurant opened.
We didn't know until late in the development cycle that there would be a Royal opening, and it meant we had to bring forward and adapt a lot of the project schedules across all aspects of the design work, including signing off concepts, procurement and sub-contracted items.
The magnificent Grade II listed Georgian Cuckney House on the Welbeck Estate, one of the UK's largest and historically important country estates, has been given a complete interior makeover by Rachel McLane Ltd as part of a substantial renovation project.
Yorkshire-based Rachel McLane Ltd, one of the country's leading interior designers, formed part of the team that has just completed the two-year project to convert the vacant Cuckney House into luxury 15-bedroom holiday and event accommodation.
The early Georgian Cuckney House was purchased by the 4th Duke of Portland in 1844 and was once home to the 6th Duke and Duchess of Portland while repairs were carried out to Welbeck Abbey in 1901 and was used as a set for the feature film Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain's coming-of-age story during World War I.
As a prominent historical House on the Estate, it has been thoroughly but sensitively transformed during the substantial renovation project to provide a single high-spec property for extended holiday and event-related stays.
Its 15 bedrooms include family suites and a bridal suite, allowing the House to sleep more than 30 people, and it has three reception rooms, including a 28-seat dining room and a 40-seat function room. There is a large, well-appointed kitchen, games room, snug, butler's pantry, and outside there is a large terrace with two BBQs and a wood-fired pizza oven, a walled kitchen garden and a tennis court.
The transformation of Cuckney House is part of the long-term Welbeck Project to re-purpose and breathe new life into the Estate's collection of historic buildings.
"Welbeck Estate already owns eight self-catered holiday cottages but wanted to develop Cuckney House to accommodate guests of the Hazel Gap Wedding venue, which is based on the estate, and for longer extended family stays, including big birthday celebrations, small wedding receptions, self-catering holidays and corporate events," said Rachel, who started work there in the pre-Covid winter of 2019 with initial meetings.
"The entire project was managed by the Welbeck Estate, which made it run like clockwork as the Estate has incredibly skilled teams across different departments. The Estates team clearly care very much about their work, and it was a real privilege to work with them on this project which went from concept stage through to building completion."
Working closely alongside the Estate team, Rachel McLane Ltd was part of the design team that helped see through internal and external structural design changes that included a reconfiguration of the walls on the first and second floors, complete re-roofing, insulation throughout, refurbishment of all flooring, including reinstated parquet flooring, and the raising of the ceiling height in the top floor rooms, as well as electrical drawings, lighting designs, colour scheme and fabrics.
"We were able to respect Cuckney House's listed status while giving each room its own identity and personality, reflecting the original use of the building as a Manor House. The design intent was to make Cuckney House feel like it had evolved rather than an overly designed modern interior. The overall look is eclectic and traditional, with a contemporary twist suited to today's living expectations," added Rachel, who headed up her own team of specialists, all of whom have worked on Cuckney House at some point in the project, including three procurers, five designers and finance manager.
The interior design also features a new art collection that the Rachel McLane team procured to make it look like the collection had evolved.
"We worked with the Estate's collections team on scans of artwork from the collections and also with a commercial art gallery, mixing traditional and contemporary artwork on the walls and around the rooms."
An added feel of the area's landscape also comes from the work of Kyra Cane, a ceramic artist who rents a studio from the Welbeck Estate and whose work is on display in the House.
Nigel Porter, Property & Rural Estates Director, said, "For me, the interior design and the quality of the craftsmanship stand out. But of course, it is the backdrop of the Welbeck Estate and all that it offers here on the Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire border that adds that magical quality and sets it apart."
Rachel McLane Ltd has won and been a finalist in numerous awards, including the Northern Design Awards Best Hotel Interior Design 2020, for their interior design work on the Bike & Boot Hotel in Scarborough.
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