Meet the creative: Holly Wharton, Poplars Farm Barns

The lovely thing about this shoot was Holly’s attention to detail and enthusiasm for what we were creating. As a trained florist with an incredible eye for detail, she helped style our summer dining story and we even captured her (and the family cat!) in some of the shots. We caught up with Holly after the shoot to find out more about her creative career and the journey of renovating and opening Poplars Farm Barns.

Holly began her career in advertising, working for Condé Nast selling classified ad space in House & Garden magazine. As she says: “I loved the environment but sales was not my forté!” Holly then held marketing positions with Amazon and Audible before she stepped away from corporate life and she and and her partner Charlie moved to Chichester.

The pair relocated to Poplars Farm Barns in December 2019, having searched the South Coast for a property with outbuildings to run a potential business. Holly had begun to train as a florist at the London Flower School and was hoping to run workshops from their new property, although that vision had to be put on hold for some time in March 2020. “Our timing couldn’t have been better as although we didn’t know then, three months later we were about to head into a lockdown.  We had said goodbye to our London flat with a tiny balcony at just the right time!”

For the first couple of years at Poplars, Holly and Charlie focused purely on the farmhouse and grounds, breathing love back into the place with the help of their family. The property’s old dairy barn was a huge project requiring the expertise of builders and architects and work on this began in January 2022 – a careful renovation that needed to retain the building’s historic structure, in line with Poplars’ Grade II listing. The unloved thatched roof that had rotted underneath was replaced along with the roof structure and they restored a beautiful flint wall, exposing the detail in celebration of the area’s traditional flint masonry. The renovation was mostly completed inside the original structure of the property, with one striking addition. “We removed the old cattery that was to the rear of the barn and replaced it with a beautiful glass walkway that connects the bedrooms in the barn to the main living space. It adds a modern twist to the building but ultimately becomes a kind of gallery to view the stunning flint wall that is the listed structure.”

Holly and Charlie’s design inspiration came from the buildings and surrounding landscape, with every material, interior choice and detail chosen to allow the walls and beams to speak for themselves. Holly also saw how the Neptune store in Chichester managed to combine a kitchen, dining and living area in their end room – a space with a similar shape to the Poplars farmhouse. The finished property is an exquisite blend of old and new, with traditional elements including exposed beams and brick walls contrasting against the modern glass walkway. Reclaimed furniture and elegant interiors make for a warm, luxurious place to retreat and relax.

Our summer campaign started in the gardens of Poplars Farm Barns, we captured our bedroom collection in the accommodation and we finished the shoot in the threshing barn – an atmospheric location for all kinds of events. Holly said: “The most memorable event we’ve had has to be an engagement party we hosted in the threshing barn for a lovely couple who wanted an intimate celebration dinner for thirty guests. The whole event was so magical with a mass of candlelight running down the trestle tables whilst guests dined on haybales tucking into big sharing platters. The bride-to-be loved anemones, so I created an ethereal hanging installation above the tables with anemones suspended on clear fishing wire so that they appeared to be floating in mid air.”