Join award-winning architectural designer Ben Pentreath, and Country Life's Executive and Interiors Editor Giles Kime, for an engaging and visionary conversation about Ben’s life's work and his new book, An English Vision: Traditional Architecture and Decoration for Today.
For the past two decades, Ben has been at the forefront of his field. While his designs range from romantic country cottage to traditional grandeur, there are underlying themes that inform all of his work. Here at Thyme this October, Ben and Giles will explore how Ben embraces scale, detail and sustainability in his approach, and discuss the case studies in An English Vision - from his own private residences in Dorset, London, and Scotland to the homes that have brought him international success. A celebration of detail and colour, richness and simplicity, this event is requisite for all those with a passion for interiors and design.
Included in the ticket price is a welcome refreshment. Following the talk there will be time for an audience Q&A and a book signing with Ben Pentreath of An English Vision: Traditional Architecture and Decoration for Today.
10.00-10.30am - Guest Arrival
10.30-11.30am - Talk
11.30am-12pm - Audience Q&A and Book Signing
*Talk only ticket (£15) includes access to the talk and a welcome refreshment
*Talk and lunch ticket (£35) includes access to the talk, welcome refreshment and a two-course lunch in the Ox Barn
Ben Pentreath
Ben Pentreath is an award-winning architectural designer and decorator whose work embodies the highest principles of traditional and classical architecture, as well as urbanism in contemporary society. He studied Art History at the University of Edinburgh before attending the Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture. After working for five years in New York and then with the Prince’s Foundation, Ben started his own practice, Ben Pentreath Ltd, in 2004. Since then, the firm has grown to occupy two beautiful studios in Bloomsbury, London. Ben is also co-founder, with Bridie Hall, of Pentreath & Hall, one of London’s most distinctive interiors and decoration shops, located just around the corner from the Ben Pentreath Ltd studios. Ben is the author of English Decoration (2011) and English Houses (2016). In 2023, Ben Pentreath was awarded the prestigious Richard H. Driehaus Prize, given to a major contributor in the field of contemporary traditional and classical architecture; he is one of the youngest laureates of the award. Ben and his husband, Charlie McCormick, split their time between London, West Dorset, and Scotland.
Giles Kime
Giles Kime is Country Life's Executive and Interiors Editor, an expert in interior design with decades of experience since starting his career at The World of Interiors magazine. Giles joined Country Life in 2016, introducing new weekly interiors features, bridging the gap between our coverage of architecture and gardening. He previously launched a design section in The Telegraph and spent over a decade at Homes & Gardens magazine (launched by Country Life's founder Edward Hudson in 1919). A regular host of events at London Craft Week, Focus, Decorex and the V&A, he has interviewed leading design figures, including Kit Kemp, Tricia Guild, Mary Fox Linton, Chester Jones, Barbara Barry and Lord Snowdon. He has written a number of books on interior design, property and wine, the most recent of which is on the interior designer, Emma Sims-Hilditch. Having spent ten years restoring an Arts & Crafts house on the banks of the Itchen, he and his wife, Kate, are breathing life into a 16th-century cottage near Alresford that has remained untouched for almost half a century.
An English Vision: Traditional Architecture and Decoration for Today
An English Vision showcases two decades’ worth of Pentreath’s projects and explores his distinctive approach to architecture, design, and decoration. The book opens with a foreword by John, Earl of Moray, and an introduction from Pentreath, where he outlines his unique design philosophy, which prioritises, above all, a strong sense of happiness, history, character, place, colour, imperfection, a sense of the endeavour as a whole, and a sense of a project’s place in time. Succeeding chapters walk readers through a stunning variety of projects, across 352 pages of lush, full-colour photographs taken by Pentreath himself.