Inside the fading beauty of Crowland Manor

Ceramicist Sophie Wilson’s Christmas decorations at her Lincolnshire manor house are calmingly analogue. For her, there are no flashing lights, tawdry tinsel or store-bought baubles.  

‘I love to have bare trees around, and always have a huge one in the main kitchen, big enough so I can tilt my head back and gaze up at it,’ she says. ‘The tree in the playroom, though, will be on just the right side of horrible, festooned with two decades’ worth of my children’s art projects and the old fairy, with the rolling eye – all the things that flood me with memory.’ 

Over the years, says Wilson, a mother of five, and founder of 1690, through which she sells her delicate sgraffito-slipware ceramics, her decorations have become less and less energy-consuming, and more pared back. ‘We need a lot less than we think we do,’ she muses.