A small, neglected Georgian house in Bermondsey smartly transformed by Henry Prideaux

From the outside, you would never know this small Georgian house was one of the more challenging projects that Henry Prideaux has taken on. Situated at the end of a neat terrace in Bermondsey, it is by no means the largest property the interior designer has worked on. Nor, at a first glance inside, does it appear that Henry was required to do much more than commission some bespoke furniture and pick out muted tones for the walls to create these elegant, pared-back spaces.

So it is something of a shock when Henry produces a series of images that show the house during an extensive, two-year renovation process, with the floors and the ceilings removed, and the basement a muddy pit. ‘At one point, you could see the sky from the ground floor,’ Henry recalls. ‘We discovered that a previous owner had taken out a lot of the original features. Almost everything here is new – but chosen with a view to it looking as if it has been here for a while.’

Before he launched his eponymous practice in 2014, Henry cut his teeth at several of the leading interior design firms, including five years with Nicky Haslam. There, he says, they would routinely refurbish whole houses, demanding an architectural approach to interior design that has become par for the course for Henry. ‘When I take on a new project, I always look at the structure first and then think about the layout,’ he says. ‘You can’t just walk into a house, chuck some furniture in and expect it to be designed. Interior design isn’t about that.’

As the house was stripped back to bare brick walls, this idea was taken to its extreme. Henry had been recommended to the owner by a friend of his partner Amy Paice, who manages the business. A City lawyer, he stipulated that the house should be simple and functional, a pied-à-terre filled with a few carefully chosen pieces. But he also became invested in the process of restoring the property to something of its original plan form.

‘The house needed a lot of love and the owner allowed that to happen,’ Henry says, explaining how it took six months of planning and discussions with conservation consultants Heritage Collective before they could even start work on site. As it is a Grade II-listed building, only material that was in poor condition or not original was allowed to be removed. However, in practice, very little could be saved – not even the floors and roof.

The house’s listed status also required Henry to restore certain period-appropriate features, such as the cornicing and panel moulding. He saw this as an opportunity to improve on the original design and introduce a discreet logic. Increasing the width of the wall between the front door and the window, for example, allowed the panelling on either side of the window to be symmetrical, as well as creating space for a coat cupboard (complete with a bench seat inside it for changing shoes). In the bedroom, where the chimneypiece had been off-centre, Henry extended the panelling on one side, with the extra space being used for hidden shelving.

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These might be small details, but without these subtle, creative interventions, the rooms would feel considerably less resolved. It is a sensibility that, as Henry says, balances a responsibility to the house with a duty to the client. ‘I want to respect the house and its history,’ he explains. ‘But, equally, I don’t want to create a home that is unsympathetic to modern life.’