Impression Management: Mrs. Ashley's Gayfere House

Writing the foreword to Architecture Illustrated in August 1931, Mrs Wilfrid Ashley was clear to let the magazine’s readership know that: ‘We must realise just what we want from our surroundings, what settings our possessions should have’ [1]. Just how readers could imagine such surroundings was illustrated by Mrs Ashley with the interiors of her new Westminster residence, Gayfere House, London, which she designed in collaboration with the then highly fashionable architect Oliver Hill. Gayfere House and its photographed interiors would soon make regular appearances in a variety of magazines ranging from Vogue to the Architectural Review, and still lives on as one of Hill’s most well-known interior designs.