First-Step Stories with Lady Deirdre Dyson: “We raised the roof of the pig sheds and turned them into offices”

Carpet designer Lady Deirdre Dyson’s first home was an old farmhouse, complete with pig sheds and in need of renovation, in a pretty Cotswolds village.

It was her first move to the country, having grown up in bombed-out Bell Green, in southeast London, studied at both the Byam Shaw School of Art in north London and Wimbledon School of Art, in south London, and later lived in Bath.

As an art student she had met engineer and inventor James Dyson – who famously later made his fortune as the creator of the bagless vacuum cleaner he shares a name with– and the pair married in 1967 and continued to rent in London and later Bath together.

But as she juggled motherhood with teaching life drawing classes and selling paintings, they realised they needed more space and when they had the opportunity to borrow the money to buy a farmhouse they jumped at it–despite the inevitable work involved.

Her journey to becoming a carpet designer is documented in her book, Walking on Art, and today Deirdre creates at least one themed, handcrafted carpet collection a year. 

She showcases her carpets in London and Paris. The Dysons have three children, Jake, Emily and Sam, and run a charitable foundation supporting art, design and technology education. Deirdre is also a trained soprano.

Deirdre and two of her children at the rundown Gloucestershire farmhouse she and her husband, James, bought in 1971.

In 1971 we bought an old farmhouse in the village of Acton Turville, in the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire.

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We paid £13,500 for it.

It was a simple farmhouse built of stone and set back from the road with disused piggery sheds in the driveway. Inside, it had three bedrooms, a huge fireplace you could sit in and a solid fuel cooker. It was badly in need of renovation. The next-door cottages were still using an outdoor loo!

The house bought by Deirdre Dyson in the village of Acton Turville, Gloucestershire.

We had lived in several rented flats, including a basement flat in Wimbledon, when James and I were first married students, and others in Bath. We wanted our first proper family home to be in the countryside, where we could go for long walks with our dog. The farmhouse had no planning restrictions with it, which meant it had plenty of potential for change, although as we had a young child, we were already pretty busy. But we wanted to make it our own and have fun while doing it. 

Acton Turville was surrounded by flat fields, and there was a pub, a church and a primary school. It was very appealing in that it was a straightforward drive to Bath, where James had his first job at engineering firm Rotork. 

We kept an open mind and hoped we would find something that felt just right. We wanted something with character and that was big enough for more children, and room to keep a car, too. We only looked at a couple of other houses, but I do remember a particular estate agent’s response when James asked the price of one we had spotted in the window. “Too expensive for you, son!” he said. We never went back to that estate agent.

James’s very kind brother-in-law lent us the deposit.

We really appreciated having the privacy of our own home. To not be disturbed by the noise of other people’s footsteps and music was wonderful.

The farmhouse was in a reasonable state structurally, and clean. Cosmetically, however, it was not to our taste, so it was wonderful to be able to dream and plan improvements, starting with the pig sheds. We raised their roofs, and converted them into decent office space. We also added French windows to the kitchen, opening onto the garden, and redecorated the whole house. We painted everything white, it was the 1970s after all! I bagged one bedroom as my painting studio, keeping one wall for the children to paint on. 

Deirdre painting in her studio.

We brought all the necessities from our previous flats with us, as well as some lovely period furniture that James had inherited. We spent quite a while scouring antique shops for wardrobes and chests of drawers as the house had no fitted storage space at all. James also made his own pieces of furniture, and my own paintings hung on the walls, as well as some drawings by James. I made all the soft furnishings and curtains. 

Changing the colour of a room and making everything work with it. In our first flat we painted the walls dark brown, which we never did again. Today, my favourite choice of wall colour would be a smoky mid-blue, and I have often used variations on this shade.  

I would always look for something that offers the potential for change and development. It’s a lot of fun to always have a project on the go, and to keep things alive and up-to-date. 

Home means privacy and calm. 

James Dyson with his children at Acton Turville.

We moved to a classic Georgian house where we knocked through two rooms and also broke through to an outside lean-to to create a larger kitchen and dining room. Then we saw that grade I listed Dodington Park, also in South Gloucestershire, was on the market. We had looked around it when it was open to the public in the 1980s and recognised that it needed help. We felt very sad about the neglect of both the house and ground, which were designed by Capability Brown, and in 2002 we decided to buy it. We knew it would be a project for life – in fact, our teenage daughter asked, “Have you gone stark staring mad?”

The work on the house continues today, although we have been here for so many years. This is our finest project, and the most daunting. We are so proud of saving it and restoring all of the wonderful architectural features, as well as the grounds. At the same time, we have had to make it work for the 21st century, mixing up modern lighting and furniture with period pieces. The challenge has been to make it work, not necessarily match. 

Deirdre's carpet designs

This pretty South Gloucestershire parish, within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, lies 13.5 miles from the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bath and 17 miles from Bristol, with the M4 on its doorstep. The Badminton House estate – home to the world-famous Badminton Horse Trials as well as the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort – is within walking distance. Acton Turville has a thriving community scene, with popular pub The Fox & Hounds, a post office and village stores, as well as the Trinity Church of England primary school, rated Good by Ofsted, and the 12th century, grade II* listed Parish Church of St Mary's. Public transport is limited, with the local bus service offering links to locations such as Bath, Bathwick, Yate and Malmesbury. The nearest train stations are Yate and Chippenham, both about a 20-minute drive away. The timeless rural scenery and country roads make it a magnet for horse riders and cyclists.  

deirdredyson.com;jamesdysonfoundation.org

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