From a former seventeenth-century inn to a new home for antiques, interiors and beautifully useful things. We meet Adam Game, the man behind Town House in Berkhamsted, to discover how a long-held ambition became a reality.
Long before Town House opened its doors, Adam Game had already imagined what the former Five Bells on Berkhamsted High Street might become.
“When it was Bill’s, I would often sit inside, admiring its original features and imagining what a lovely shop it might make,” he recalls. “The individual rooms, the old fireplaces and the character of the building felt perfectly suited to our vision for Town House.”
It is an idea that has now taken shape behind a newly hand-painted and gilded fascia. The seventeenth-century former inn, once a gathering place for travellers and townspeople, has become a home for antiques, interiors, seasonal flowers and objects chosen for the pleasure they bring to everyday life.
Adam Game, founder of Town House
For Adam, the journey began some years earlier. After a decade working in television, the enforced change of pace during the pandemic offered an opportunity to reconsider what came next. Living just outside Berkhamsted, he found himself drawn to the idea of creating something closer to home.
“I’d always loved independent shops and the role they play in bringing a high street to life,” he explains. Cook & Butler grew from that ambition, bringing together his longstanding interests in interiors, antiques, gardening and the beautifully useful.
Town House is a natural extension of those ideas, but the building gives them a particular character. The former Five Bells has seen centuries of change, from its days as an inn frequented by canal and railway workers to its more recent life as a succession of restaurants. Its old beams, fireplaces and individual rooms provide an appropriately layered setting for Adam’s collections.
Even the hanging sign carries a reference to the past: a bluebell with five flowers, a quiet nod to the Five Bells and the building’s place in Berkhamsted’s history.
Five Ashridge bluebells – a playful nod to the building’s former life as the Five Bells
Collected over time
Inside, antiques sit alongside contemporary pieces, handmade ceramics, garden tools and objects for the table. The emphasis is on craftsmanship, usefulness and the qualities that develop through age and handling, rather than on creating a particular look.
“The soul of a home is made in layers, one chipped plate, one family recipe, one passing season at a time.”
Adam Game
It is a philosophy that allows room for the unexpected. An old wooden table might sit comfortably beside a contemporary lamp; a well-worn jug can be as appealing as a more precious object. These are things intended to be lived with, their imperfections often part of what makes them interesting.
Seasonal floristry brings a changing character to the rooms, from individual stems to loosely gathered bouquets. In the Orangery, attention turns to the garden, with terracotta pots, traditional tools, plants and practical workwear reflecting the same appreciation of things made to be used.
Town House is also beginning to bring people together through events and workshops, from a gathering with interiors illustrator and author SJ Axelby during its opening weekend to seasonal wreath-making.
Another chapter
The story is still unfolding. Plans for spring 2027 include a walled garden and cafe, with garden antiques, plants and somewhere to stop for coffee or lunch.
For Adam, bringing the old building back into use has been as important as filling it with beautiful things.
“Having the opportunity to bring the building back to life, and to restore and showcase so much of its original character, has been a real privilege,” he says.
There is something fitting about a former inn finding a new role on the High Street, particularly one rooted in Adam’s affection for independent shops and the life they bring to a town.
For a building with so many stories already to tell, Town House feels like a thoughtful beginning to another.
Visit Town House
Town House by Cook & Butler
163–165 High Street
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire HP4 3HB
01442 870999
Photography: Ethan Pearson Clark
JOURNAL · A HOUSE OF MANY STORIES