Autobiography in architecture Boxes Farm, Northamptonshire The home of James and Mary Miller

THERE have been many recent renovations of old village houses, as well as residential conversions of redundant farm buildings, but few of them are of the architectural quality to be seen at Boxes or make the same original use of the possibilities offered. The reinvention of this ruinous place has created a home of distinctive, even idiosyncratic, character. When it was acquired by James and Mary Miller, Boxes (named after its front hedge of bumpy box bushes) was a scene of almost unimaginable dereliction, although still lived in by an old woman, who kept animals in the kitchen. The sky was visible from the ground floor through holes in the ceilings and roof slates. The courtyard at the back, surrounded by barns, stables and cart sheds, was even more tumbledown, with collapsing walls and remnants of roof poking through thickets of bramble, nettles and elderberry.

‘It was a scene of almost unimaginable dereliction, with the sky visible through holes in the ceilings’

The Millers bought the property at auction in 1991,