Inside the former Woolpack pub in Stroud that's now a home

Their home used to be an old pub – The Woolpack - ’and when I’m gardening the neighbours will often lean over the wall to tell me its history,’ says Alyson.

She and her husband Alistair bought their four bedroom home near Stroud in 2001 as a home for their three daughters. Since then they’ve acquired a lurcher called Caspar (rescued from Spain via SOS Animals) and many ex-battery farm chickens.

‘By the time we arrived The Woolpack had already been converted into a dwelling,’ says Alyson. ‘We could tell when it became a house from all the cavities we found just stuffed with newspapers dated 1975. Why they did this, we don’t know. The building dates from the early 1700s and actually began as three workers’ cottages so we aren’t sure when it became a pub.’

The couple painted the window frames in a RAL version of Hardwick White, a F&B colour. To the left remains a faint trace of the arch to the cellar through which the barrels were delivered (Image: Simon Maxwell)

However all the Victorian clay pipes and shards of Victorian pottery they keep finding in the garden does give them a bit of a clue.

The couple loved the place on sight. ‘We loved the quirkiness, all the nooks and crannies and so many little staircases!’ she says. ‘If you include the cellar the house is on five levels.’

It was very 1970s in décor, she recalls. ‘It needed a lot doing to it as there was peeling paint, damp patches, dark brown carpets – and even the fuse box had labels on it saying Bar, Kitchen, Ladies Toilets and so on from its days as a pub. Sadly this box had to go when we had the place rewired. But despite all this we could see the old pub would make a lovely family home.’

The sitting room. The area behind the yellow Fabiola sofa was once the pub’s main bar. Both sofas are from Wayfair (Image: Simon Maxwell)

Luckily the house wasn’t listed so over the years the couple have had a free hand to do a huge amount to it.

‘The first thing we did was to put in damp-proofing as part of the house is built against a hill. No wait! Actually the first thing we did was change the awful old boiler to a combi-boiler. Two days after we moved in we could smell gas and this old boiler was the culprit. Then in due course we changed all the radiators and the plumbing too.’

They also had the house completely repointed using lime mortar. ‘It had been done using the wrong mix before which added to the damp problem,’ says Alyson. ‘We also refurbished the main bathroom and reinforced the large Cotswold stone retaining wall beside the house.’

The iron bed is reproduction Victorian and the dilapidated cupboard was peeling and dimpled so has been sanded and repainted and given new cast iron handles (Image: Simon Maxwell)

However most of the improvements have happened over the past three years.

‘We replaced all the UPVC windows with ones of double-glazed timber,’ says Alyson. ‘Then we put in a new front door which you might think was straightforward enough. But that’s when the workmen found the first of the newspaper-stuffed cavities. They all needed filling and reinforcing.’

Perhaps the biggest project - after the windows - was their new kitchen.

‘Previously this was two small dark rooms so we took down the dividing wall and turned three small windows at one end of the room into one big picture window,’ she says. ‘It’s made such a difference regarding more light. And at the other end there was a half-glazed garden door with a small window next to it – and that got the treatment too. It’s now two fully glazed doors again letting in lots more light.’

The kitchen units were hand made by Woodchester Cabinet Makers and hand painted in a RAL version of Farrow & Ball’s Hardwick White. Three little windows were knocked together to make a picture window overlooking the valley (Image: Simon Maxwell)

As for the kitchen units, these in Shaker-style were handmade and hand painted by Woodchester Cabinet Makers who also fitted the Bruno Fantasia marble worktops.

‘We had to lay new engineered oak flooring in here too,’ she says.

More recently the couple created an en suite bathroom, borrowing some space from a large ‘nothing’ area on the landing. ’Once it had been the pub kitchen but it had no real function when we moved in,’ says Alyson. The remaining unused space became a study and it was then they found a beam inscribed with a date of 1726. They refurbished the other en suite too.

This used to be an unused space adjoining the landing. Half the space became an en suite bathroom to (Image: Simon Maxwell)

‘Simon Montgomery was our builder and he discovered a rotten lintel in this other en suite,’ says Alyson. ‘So soft it was like cotton wool. He traced a leak back to our chimney – so of course that needed repairing. It meant scaffolding up and rebuilding the stack although, as it seemed to have been added later (as it wasn’t of Cotswold stone,) we were allowed to use reconstituted stone for the repairs. It only took about five days to fix.’

Among cosmetic improvements are the replacement of several Artex ceilings, treating the black beams so they resemble their original old oak and stripping a living room wall back to its old Cotswold stone to match those of various other rooms.

‘The beams were treated by Back from Black who specialise in renovating old beams even if they’re painted or stained,’ says Alyson. ‘Sandblasting them would have created so much dust we wanted to avoid that.’

For the time being the couple think they need do no more to their fascinating old home. ‘We are so pleased that we bought this house all those years ago,’ says Alyson. ‘Looking after it has been a labour of love and hopefully it will last another 300 years.’

The garden where happy hens rescued via the British Hen Welfare Trust enjoy the sunshine (Image: Simon Maxwell)