The Unexpected Décor Inside This 1,000-Year-Old Norman Castle

Tremerton within its castle walls is a myriad of different worlds within a world. It's hard to sort of spot a stain on an animal print. We don't really believe in rules. I'm Freda Gormley and this is Drake and this is how I live with style. I've been living at Tremerton for the past eight years with my husband Javi and with our two teenage children. We moved from Hackney where we had a little postage stamp backyard to becoming the guardians of this beautiful nine acre estate where nature is the protagonist. Eight years ago on one of our summer holidays we spent a lovely Saturday morning just wandering around the gardens and just thinking wow a few days later back in London got a call asking would we perhaps be up for taking on its lease. It didn't take long for us to say a big yes to the call of the adventure. Cornwall's said to have microclimates, I know Tremerton certainly does. Tropical plants thrive here. We commissioned Bellerby globe makers to create to create a globe of the place. People who come here and it's their first time they quite like to sort of almost give it a spin and close your eyes and see where your finger lands. Tremerton was built originally in 1068 Norman times. One of the past owners installed the Indian pool. I give thanks to those owners every single day because it's so special. You'd never feel like you're in Cornwall down there. I really love the natural palette of the blue water with the blue sky and just surrounded by both sort of ancient trees and newer palms. When you're sunbathing and you have this incredibly old view of a Norman keep which in William the Conqueror's time would have protected the neighboring villages is now home to our chickens who live in their own chicken castle. The garden here really is the protagonist. She's our muse and we have just tried to bring her into the house through the prints and palettes. This room is what would traditionally have been called the drawing room. I like to think of it as the living room because it feels so alive. You've got these incredible floor-to-ceiling Georgian windows which just leaves in the beautiful views from each side so the garden really feels like it's in the room. Nature is a great example of how to do maximal color, maximum print really well while keeping it quite calm. We decided to keep this room really about our favorite color which is green but within the room itself there's a huge spectrum. There's everything from neon zingy greens to limes to grass greens and sort of jadeite colors similar to what you'd see in a flower bed. All those different greens coexisting really beautifully side by side. The overall impact of actually focusing on one color palette even if there are lots of different prints is that it is quite calming. We had a lot of fun with the ceiling rose in this room. We commissioned some decorative painters to create these templates which allowed them to expand on the original flower. We created our own curtain pelmets to mimic the castle walls and I suppose speak to the fairy tale otherworldly mood of the estate. This turreted effect you'll see sort of as a recurring motif throughout the house. You'll see it in the sofa that my husband Javi designed in the library next door. It's the idea of like quite a mid-century modular sofa but using the castellations as the basis of the design. You'll see it in the beds and you'll see it in the kitchen as well. Here we are in the Tremerton kitchen. This here is my husband Javi. Living in this house we've been staring at this beautiful Isambard Brunel bridge which you can see out there the viaduct. We were looking at sort of creating designs for the house for the tables, the mirrors, the furniture, the side tables. Arches are really beautiful simple shape. There's no actually nails glue or anything it's just pegged together. It's beautiful old oak. Our brand is about regeneration and moving forward into new materials. This is an ancient way of making furniture sort of mirroring everything. This is the downstairs loo at Tremerton and it's actually one of my favourite rooms. I think you could have a lot of fun with a small space. On the walls you've got one of our new prints called Overstory. You sort of feel like you're in this Narnia-esque Tolkien woodland. This glass light I love because it resembles I think a glass snakeskin. I bought it quite recently on Vinteria which is probably my favourite shop apart from our own. The texture of the glass riffs off the hemp blind and the marble sink. I've always been quite a big antique shopper. I get that from my granny who knew the first name of every antique dealer in Dublin and she would visit them on her on her motorbike. The art that you see up here is paying homage to one of my favourite local artists called Pete Wood and what I love about Pete is that all his paint is made from the pigments of local lands. I think the prints work really well with the leopard print carpets. I'm a huge fan of the French interior designer Madeleine Caston who used to like swathe her homes in leopard carpets so it's been a real dream to install at Tremerton. Along with looking both chic and a little bit rock and roll it's also so practical. It's hard to sort of spot a stain on an animal print carpet or a piece of furniture which is why we've always had a trusty animal print sofa on the go since our kids were little. Let me show you my bedroom. This desk here is the very first piece that I ever bought at auction. It's a piece of furniture that has followed me around starting from my first high chair to all the different homes along the way and different stages of life I suppose. A lot has been written at this desk. I've actually just finished my first book in the company of nature. I would say the bedroom is a bit of a shrine to some of my favourite things. Lots of pictures of my family, of the kids growing up, of grandparents, ancestors, cute things that the kids have collected on beach walks etc. We've got David Bowie in the corner there keeping an eye on me and William Morris whose prints adorn so many rooms in this house but they're both in their own way huge inspirations to me. You know their art but also I suppose how sort of creatively disruptive they were. There are nine bedrooms in the house. We occupy three of them as a family and the rest are generally guest rooms. They actually get occupied quite a bit. We love people coming to stay. I've probably had the most fun decorating the guest rooms. I think a little bit like small spaces because you can be a bit more playful with them and they're a treat for a guest to stay in. Personally I love quite an earthy muted palette but done through print. Then you'll see a room like my daughter's. She's now just a couple of years into her teens and we toy with talking about changing it but I think she's also quite loathe to change it too. It's still such a cute room. Thanks so much for coming to visit us at Tremerton. I hope you've enjoyed the tour. Don't forget to subscribe to the Sunday Times Style on YouTube.