A Room of One’s Own: the storybook hideaway of Tess and Alfred Newall’s bow-top wagon

There is an Eric Ravilious watercolour of 1936 showing two caravans parked beside a wheel-driven track. They are so-called ‘fever wagons’, brought back from foreign wars, which the artist came across near his friend and fellow artist Peggy Angus’s Sussex house, Furlongs. Enamoured, he bought them and moved in, sleeping in one and working – possibly even making this painting – in the other.

When I mention the watercolour to Tess and Alfred Newall, they both smile in recognition. They know the picture; how could they not? Living and plying their trades – she a decorative artist, he a craftsman and furniture maker – with the surging swells of the Sussex Downs as their backdrop, they are part of a local legacy of making and doing what Ravilious was instrumental in founding. Besides, they’ve just finished restoring their own wagon, a tumbledown bow-top, only marginally older than that painting.

The reinstatement of the Newalls’ caravan has been an odyssey, figuratively and literally. Beginning in Sussex with the restoration of its rotten wheels, allowing it to trundle down the road to the family’s new digs, the caravan then travelled to Oxfordshire and the workshop of Rollo Dunford Wood, wagon restorer and woodworker; and on to Snowdonia, when Rollo moved house and took the caravan with him.

Now returned to its full glory, it sits happily in Tess and Alfred’s garden. Part studio, part outdoor room, part children’s hideaway, it’s a joyous showcase of the couple’s collaborative efforts and a powerful statement of their great belief in proper craftsmanship. It has even inspired a new furniture collection: Alfred’s ‘Caravan’ range, with its carved and stained curves borrowed from the bow-top’s silhouette-like chamfers, is a handsome homage to the extraordinary vehicle he and Tess have coaxed back to life.

But while the caravan’s restoration is finally finished, the couple firmly believe its story is not yet over. “We’re just custodians,” Tess says. “We’re just looking after it, really, until the next owners come along.”

Alfred: “The wagon used to belong to the grandmother of great friends of ours, who was our predecessor at Shepherd’s Cottage, which we rented while we were renovating our new home. It was in the garden, falling down, but our children loved it. We did too.”

Tess: “She had used it as an extension of the tiny house, in which she used to host wonderful bohemian parties. She showed us her scrapbooks, filled with photographs of her incredibly stylish friends camping in makeshift tents strung from washing lines attached to the wagon, which had patchwork quilts and exotic clothing pouring down its steps.

“Our three children turned it into the ultimate den, filling it with cushions. They adored it. And so the owner very kindly said we could have it. Really, I think she was asking us to be its guardians rather than its owners.”

Alfred: “The first thing we had to do was find a wheelwright so we could move it. I started researching and found Douglas Andrews, one of the very few people left in the country who can do that kind of work. I loved that stage. Learning from the artisans keeping these extraordinary crafts alive has been one of the great joys of this project for both me and Tess.

“Though the wheels were fixed, the rest of it was still in a rough state. The canvas was ripped and the wood was in poor condition. That was when we enlisted our friend Rollo Dunford Wood. He came and did an investigation, dating the caravan to the 1920s and discussing with us what we needed to do.

“In the end, he had to take it away to work on it over a few years. It took time, but it was worth it; as Rollo said to us, ‘You can’t rush true craftsmanship.’ He’s right. All the processes involved with fixing it – from the steaming of the ash planks, which are then gently bent to make the bowed top, to the chamfering, all carefully carved by hand – take time.”

Tess: “We wanted our restoration to be authentic but it needed to be true to us too. What we’ve done is a take on a historic wagon. The paintings we’ve done – I designed and completed them jointly with my studio artists Tiggie and Chris – aren’t entirely vernacular, because that would have meant being quite academic about things and that didn’t feel right. The decoration of wagons like this one would traditionally have been collaborative, with people painting what they knew and liked; they were expressions of themselves and their world.

“That said, we didn’t stray too far. There are lots of florals, underscored by Nicholas Herbert’s ‘Coromandel’ fabric and the Susan Deliss cushions we’ve used on the day bed, but rather than being directly inspired by wagon art, they’re rooted in the pieces of European folk furniture – a painted armoire from Dalarna, Sweden, that I fell in love with a few years ago, for instance – that I reference a lot in my work.

“The base colours of the wagon have hardly changed since we inherited it, but those of my decorative paintwork came largely from the Transylvanian plates now on display in there. The blue is a particular nod to the forget-me-nots that surround it in spring.

“Because we were both so emotionally invested in this project, Alfred had more oversight of my side of things than perhaps he normally would, which meant we did mock up the paintings quite carefully before we started. But when it came to executing them, we weren’t precious. It was crucial to me that the paintings we made had the immediacy of genuine wagon decorations, in which you can see the hand of the artist – the flick of a brush hair, or perhaps a small smudge. Those imperfections have made their way in.”

Alfred: “I am incredibly invested in the wagon. It’s been a labour of love. And it’s infiltrated my wider work too. When I first started talking to Rollo about the structure, I got particularly interested in the way the original makers used chamfering, both for practical reasons (removing unnecessary weight without compromising strength) and decorative ones, slicing facets to create silhouette-like shapes in the woodwork.

“I started adding chamfers everywhere – I love the way they provide contrast when they’re painted – and soon I found myself designing a chamfered oak side table and mirror to live in there. That’s now grown into a proper collection – ‘Caravan’ – with a dining table, sconces and lamps.”

Tess: “One of my mirrors hangs in the caravan too, ‘May’, which – like the rest of the space – is indicative of my love of a decorative border. And we’ve put one of our ‘Bloomsbury’ candlesticks in there too – a collaborative piece, like the wagon itself.

“I think that, like a house, when a wagon changes hands, its story gains a new chapter. I see it as an ever-evolving work in progress, so while it’s technically finished, I don’t think we’ll ever be done with it. The layers will gradually multiply too, with the kids’ graffiti scrawls and marks from playing. We try to embrace that while continuing to care for it.”

Alfred: “The next generation of owners – hopefully, our children – will take on that responsibility.”

Tess: “In the meantime, we’re all just enjoying it. Our house is a small medieval cottage, so – like our predecessor did at Shepherd’s Cottage – we’ve turned it into an outdoor room. I come here when I need some space to think. The kids come here to play. It’s an escape for all of us.”

Alfred: “I like reading in here, with the doors open so I can keep an ear out for the children playing in the garden. I’ve even slept in here."

Tess: “Funnily enough, I have too – long before we moved to Shepherd’s Cottage when a friend was renting it and I stayed one year for bonfire night. It didn’t click until we moved in that I had been inside the caravan before. Isn’t that just so lucky?”

Find out more about the work of Alfred and Tess.