Couple turn Herefordshire barn into luxury holiday home

If an interior design is an expression of personality, Hiraeth, a barn conversion in a Herefordshire village, speaks volumes about its creators, Martha and Reuben Fosberry.

More particularly, it is an eloquent expression of Martha’s creativity and, just as significantly, Reuben’s skill at interpreting and executing it with her.

The couple, who met when Martha was working as a theatre designer in London and Reuben was running a music technology company in Kent, moved to Herefordshire when Martha fell pregnant with the first of their two daughters, Seren.

“We had a road to Damascus moment,” says Martha. “We wanted a life more wild, and the barn has been our biggest project … apart from raising the children.

“And it was really important that we did everything ourselves, though we didn’t mind getting builders in for the essential elements.”

The aim of the finished project was always clear: “We wanted guests to come in and be transported.”

Martha’s background has ensured that they’ll be more than transported – with her inventiveness and witty execution of her ideas evident in every room, they’ll be charmed, delighted and amused too.

“We realised we could build this from the combination of our skills,” says Martha.

Hiraeth sits beside their own home, and is set in five acres of land, “which is beautiful, and we have let the field go to meadow, so that guests can enjoy wandering around an original meadow.”

With their passion for the outdoor life, Martha and Reuben are keen to share their surroundings with guests in search of an escape into and reconnection with nature.

“At the same time we’ve provided a high-end luxurious home-from-home (complete with hot tub).

“There’s nowhere else like this in the world,” says Martha, acknowledging that the barn allowed her a freedom that she couldn’t allow herself in their family home, “and I really enjoyed sourcing items there were more unusual, and there was no point at which our dedication wavered, even down to the last piece of cutlery.

"I am an absolute stickler for attention to detail and that can set you apart.”

Like so many other hospitality businesses, lockdown created its own difficulties.

“At that point the builders had just done the last bit of plastering, so the bricks-and-mortar element of the build had been finished, and then everything stopped.

Suddenly we had the children at home full time but as soon as they allowed you to bubble my parents-in-law headed down the M4 and spent whole days in the garden with the children (Seren and her sister, Eira), while my father-in-law, who’s a retired architect worked tirelessly to help us finished everything.”

Materials, however, became more difficult to source, but “it was quite an enjoyable challenge and really made us think about how we wanted to finish something.”

It was literally an old storage barn, a glorified shed … with quite a lot of mice.

The exposed brick in the kitchen is what remains of how it was, and the floor was rubble.

The hot tub room (accessed beyond the kitchen door and boasting a ceiling painted by hand by Martha – her father-in-law had suggested she paint it white, which was clearly never an option!) didn’t exist at all.

Oh, and there was no upstairs!

“So the builders came in, the floors, stairs and insulation went in and the plastering done, and it was happily all completed just before lockdown,” leaving Martha and Reuben with a shell.

They began by cleaning the brickwork, “because we wanted to leave it exposed, as plastering over it would have been sad.

“We also had to woodworm treat everything as the longevity of the build was an important thing for us.

We did everything mindfully, with nothing slapped together. It’s built to last.

“It felt wonderful – this barn would not have been functional since the turn of the century when the house had been a cider house.

We have tried to uncover its history but that’s the only information we can find, and the last record if it as a pub was in 1893.

Despite its history, Martha and Reuben decided not to name the barn in recognition of its past. “We wanted to celebrate its history but bring a new identity to it.”

Hiraeth translates, imperfectly, as a deep longing for something, especially one’s home. “It feels contemporary and creative but with a bit of nostalgia,” says Martha.

When it came to decorating and furnishing the barn, Martha is the self-confessed “queen of the car boot sale.

“But because I use auctions, charity shops and car-boot sales to source interiors it was quite a challenge to be doing it during lockdown.

"It forced us to see every single interesting object I have collected in a new light.

"And because the project has been ongoing for a whole year I was very fortunate that I had stored a lot of stuff with the intention of using it."

Among these were the coaching lamps Martha had bought from Warehouse 701, and a typewriter she’d acquired “knowing that I wanted it to be a light fitting.”

She was able, she reports, to use a wealth of furniture and accessories that she already owned. “Our house was considerably decluttered!”

“I didn’t buy new at all, except for the essentials like mattresses.”

The kitchen is a symphony of upcycling, with the doors made from odd bits of timber, the sink unit installed in an old Victorian workbench, and the drawer handles created from old cutlery.

But the piece de resistance for Martha is the cooker hood hidden inside a wittily repurposed tin bath, which, as if by magic, proved a perfect fit to cover the electric hood.

"I sourced it second hand on eBay," Martha explains, "and Reuben and his father set about cutting it and hanging it from the ceiling with chains to position it perfectly over the electric hood.

"It broke my heart to see the off the peg one on the wall... so of course, a tin bath was all there was for it! We love it too. Now all I have to do is convince him to do it in our house too!"

In the absence of her usual hunting grounds, Martha had turned to eBay, where, among other things she also found the old papers that have become a piece of unique book art/lampshade on the stairs.

However, one charity shop find– a pair of old Great Western Railway lamps – baffled Reuben and prompted him to ask where Martha planned to use them.

Cue a truly unique bathroom, complete with gold grouting – all done by hand by Martha.

In the other bathroom, a sink unit sourced from Facebook Marketplace has been set into an old sit-up-and-beg bicycle, the basket of which provides the perfect storage for towels.

It’s a little touch of genius and guaranteed to raise a smile. “I just wanted people to have a really delightful experience.”

One of the two bedrooms is a tribute to Frida Kahlo “I wanted every room to tell a story,” says Martha.

Another is the Chinoiserie suite in which she taught herself to apply gold leaf to create a striking work of art on the wall, and where the Gingko leaf bedside lights are a rare online purchase from Olive and Sage – “I absolutely love their lamps,” says Martha.

Downstairs, the mounted stags heads were made by Martha as was the wall art, featuring a penny-farthing riding flamingo and a parrot astride a giraffe.

On the stairs a cloud of butterflies escapes an open suitcase on the wall … everywhere you look in Hiraeth there are clever touches, designed to charm but never at the expense of the comfort and luxury we all want when we’re away from home.”

“From start to finish it took a year,” says Martha. “And having done it from scratch I love the bones of this barn.”

For further information about Hiraeth or to book, visit Canopyandstars.co.uk