Collecting VINTAGE TOYS

Over plates of hop tart with Butty Bach beer and onion chutney, diners at Pensons can feast their eyes on some unusually playful wall art. A Michelin-starred restaurant with rooms on the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border, Pensons is known for the ‘locavore’ approach of its kitchen, but the same ethos is at play with its decor. Designed by the owner, Peta Darnley, to reflect the restaurant’s rural location, wood, brick, stone and willow form a natural backdrop to pops of inky blue, while treasures found on the estate hang on the walls, displayed in custom-designed box frames. Chief among the latter are lost children’s toys (or parts of them), from dolls’ legs to toy cows.

The box frames ‘give an insight into what life was like for women working on farms even relatively recently,’ says Peta. ‘They were doing back-breaking jobs like hand-picking potatoes and cider apples and, because they had