The Olde Bell Inn by Studioilse: Historic English Hospitality Reframed for Contemporary Life
Studioilse’s 2007 project for The Olde Bell Inn in Berkshire treated the English coaching inn as a place of shared daily rituals. The commission covered a 47-bedroom property, including a dining room, bar, malt house and meadow garden. Its scope joined interior design to furniture, local food and the life of the establishment, making hospitality the organising idea across several different kinds of space. [1]
The scale of an inhabited building
The inn stands in Hurley, close to the Thames. Its operator describes accommodation distributed across five buildings and identifies parts of the property as dating to 1135. That long history establishes a setting with accumulated differences in scale and character. For an interior project, such a place asks for attention to what is already present: the proportions of rooms, the position of openings and the particular qualities of moving between buildings. [2]
Lisa Cohen’s photographs of Studioilse’s work show an approach grounded in those conditions. A covered entrance retains dark exposed timbers and pale walls. Inside, a bar room brings together low beams, timber furniture and a woven rug. The furnishings occupy the architecture without concealing its changes in height and texture. Doorways and thresholds remain legible, allowing the building’s existing character to organise the experience of arrival and passage. [1]
The effect is especially clear at the dining table. A patterned banquette sits against panelled walls, with a white cloth and simple timber chairs in front. Plates on the wall bring the scale of domestic objects into the room. The composition gives an individual table a defined place, while the continuity of seating and panelling keeps it connected to the larger dining space. [1]
Comfort across different activities
The operator’s description names solid oak tables, vintage Ercol chairs and Welsh woollen blankets among the property’s furnishings. These are useful clues to the interior’s emphasis on touch and familiarity. A table must withstand repeated service; a blanket can be picked up and used; a chair needs to make sense both as an object in the room and as somewhere to remain for a while. [2]
In the bedroom photograph, a bed shares the room with a high-backed armchair, a rocking chair and a small table. The arrangement provides several ways to occupy the space beyond sleeping. Light walls and modest lamps keep attention on the furniture and the available floor area. The room’s character depends on a small number of understandable elements, each with a clear relationship to the guest. [1]
The garden extends the same concern with use beyond the building. Studioilse includes a meadow garden within its project description, while the operator connects the inn’s food to its kitchen garden and local sourcing. In the archival project photograph, planting occupies the foreground and parasols mark places to gather behind it. The outdoor setting becomes another part of the inn’s sequence of rooms and shared activities. [1] [2]
Viewed through this documented 2007 scheme, The Olde Bell demonstrates how a hospitality identity can be built through repeated acts of furnishing. The entrance, dining table, bedroom chair and garden each address a different moment in a stay. Their coherence comes from the attention given to those moments. History supplies the setting; the arrangement of useful, approachable objects gives that setting a continuing social purpose.
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