In its March/April 2024 issue, Veranda stepped inside Whittingon Hall, the Jacobean-style castle of Lady Mia Reay, located in Lancashire. When Mia and her husband Aeneas inherited the property in 2013, they knew it needed refreshing, though they didn’t want to change the feel of the house. “I love the look and feel of hand-painted wallpapers,” she told the magazine, “but they are expensive and I couldn’t find anything I absolutely loved.”
The home was designed by George Webster in the early 19th century — the golden age of the English country house.
Last year, Mia took matters into her own hands with the launch of her own eponymous wallpaper line. “I had painted since childhood, so I decided to create my own. Friends loved them and I started producing them.” All UK-made and ethically sourced, her designs are all grounded in country-house tradition, coupling what Veranda describes as “timeless grandeur with a fresh perspective.” “On parchment-like paper panels, I use ‘broken colors,’ meaning each is a mixture of several shades,” she explained.
Image right: Lord and Lady Reay with children Alexander, Iona, and Harry.
Scroll below for pictures of several of Mia’s wallpapers at Whittington Hall, including Drottningham Tree, Bukhara, The Queen’s Necklace, Utopia, and Besler Iris.
Paired with a striped cotton drapery and marble-topped mahogany, Mia’s Drottningholm Tree wallpaper climbs the walls of the primary bathroom. In creating the pattern, Mia mixed dashes of umber, sienna, and black into a white base to achieve the right shade of brown for the stems. “These layers add softness, patina, and depth. No patterns match perfectly and this brings an old-fashioned charm,” she told Veranda.
Mia’s Bukhara — her take on Suzan needlework from Uzbekistan — brings a burst of salmon and turquoise to the kitchen hall.
The library’s collection of blanc de chine figurines and Colefax and Fowler curtains pair beautifully with Mia’s Utopia paper — a pink and emerald paradise inspired by antique Islamic ceramics.
Adapted from an 18th-century textile fragment believed to be made during Marie-Antoinette’s jewelry scandal, Mia’s Queen’s Necklace wallcovering is featured in the primary bedroom.
Inspired by a 17th-century botanical illustration, the tobacco-colored Besler Iris finds a home in the guest bedroom alongside a George III tester bed draped in antique chintz and Estonian linen.
Photography by Simon Upton.