Wealden Times | WT162 | August 2015 | Wedding supplement inside

This page: A lovely original staircase hung with a bespoke string of paper lanterns leads to the top floor, part of which was probably the original family’schildren’s bedrooms and perhaps the nurseryMedicine. Three and a half years ago they decided to sell ahome in Camberwell, let out a second home in Canterburyand buy together. At first, Surrey wasn’t even on theirradar but wandering through properties online, a propertycaught their eye – an elegant apartment on two levelscalled East House, in a Victorian country house known asMynthurst Mansion near Leigh, originally the great houseof one of the largest estates in Surrey. They decided tohave a look. “It was a lot further out than we’d originallyplanned but we saw it and just fell for it,” says Dan. “Itwas a beautiful apartment and had so much potential.”This potential lay not in the options for knockingdown walls and remodelling rooms but in the sheervariety and flexibility of both the rooms as they stoodand the layout of the flat as a whole. The couple wentback to scratch, approaching the apartment as merelya range of spaces, and decided what would suit themand their lifestyle best. Rooms would have to changetheir function – the master bedroom, for instance,would become their drawing room – and there wouldbe selective redecoration from top to bottom.The result is truly inspiring – a place of beauty,originality and fascination from the vast stained glasswindow which graces the old main staircase which leadsup to the apartment door to the guest room at the topof the house that the couple now offer on airbnb. It iswww.wealdentimes.co.uk50