Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott (1865–1945) was the quintessential, if not the best known, Arts and Crafts architect. His training was perhaps unusual; he started at the Agricultural College in Cirencester before being apprenticed to an architect in Bath. His family had land in Australia and it was envisaged that he might oversee these interests. Instead, he honeymooned on the Isle of Man and stayed there, setting up his first practice. In 1892 he began building the family home, Red House, for which he adopted a semi-open plan, with movable panels: it was the first practical demonstration of his reaction against over-furnished Victorian interiors. Adaptability of space was to become a feature of much of his work. From 1895 he became a regular contributor to The Studio magazine, submitting articles, elevations and floor-plans, advocating his theories regarding the use of space and materials. Among the earliest of his contributions were the designs for the dining and drawing room in the Palace at Darmstadt for the Grand Duke of Hesse, which were published at the turn of the century.

Baillie Scott drew much of his inspiration from the open plan of medieval manors and other substantial dwellings of the period, which were built around a central hall, or ‘house-place’, as he preferred to call it. In those early days the deep-set hearth was the centre of family and social life, and this was to become Baillie Scott’s ideal; inglenooks and bay windows with inbuilt seating were also a feature of his designs, not just for the interior but with potential for extension into the garden.

The first Baillie Scott house I got to know was Blackwell, overlooking Lake Windermere; it is one of Baillie Scott’s largest houses and was built in the last years of the 19th century as a holiday home for a Manchester businessman. At the time of my visit it had recently