80 The Times Magazineames Perkins is a self-confessed
eccentric, a wearer of many hats.
Fixer-upper of historic estates,
collector of antiquities, artist,
events host, founder of interiors
brand A Modern Grand Tour,
a list of job titles to which can
now be added custodian of grade I
listed Parnham House in Dorset.
He immediately recognised the
opportunity afforded by tragic circumstances- in 2017, a fire largely destroyed Parnham –
and committed vast sums of capital to a derelict
estate that no one else would touch. One of its
previous owners was the pioneering British
furniture designer John Makepeace, who
turned it into a school for “makers” in the
Eighties and Nineties.
Perkins’ intervention is consistent with
Parnham’s history of owners’ adaptations over
the centuries. The original Plantagenet manor
was built in the 1400s, rebuilt in 1552 and later
remodelled by John Nash in 1810. Over the
centuries it has evolved from a dwelling for
the aristocracy to a 20th-century country club
and postwar nursing home before Makepeace
took it over. At one stage, the Rolling Stones
were even considering it as a recording studio.
Parnham’s land borders the village of
Beaminster. The house is secluded from view
at first. An avenue of limes divides what was
an ancient deer park, eventually giving way
to a historic carriage court and revealing the
manor framed by tall stone piers – as it has
been for hundreds of years. Behind this façade,
thick vines emerge from Nash’s mullioned
fenestrations, climbing up to where the roof
once was.
After the fire four years ago, Parnham was
abandoned to the elements until March 2020,
when Perkins and his wife, Sophie, bought
it and began shoring up the grade I walls.
With £1.2 million of rented scaffolding now
wrapped around the north wing, there’s visible
progress. Perkins’ experience of restoration- most notably his last home, Aynhoe Park
in Oxfordshire – has helped him deal with
the planning bureaucracy and ongoing decay.
“Every day that is lost is another piece of the
building falling off,” he says.
An ambitious and detailed blueprint was
J
James Perkins with plans and models of the
Parnham restoration project, created in
conjunction with designer Thomas HeatherwickThe decay is ongoing.
‘Every day that is lost,’
explains James Perkins,
‘is another piece of the
building falling off ’