Wealden Times | WT162 | August 2015 | Wedding supplement inside

Above: Nick and Sonja were determined to keep the chapel windows as single entities. In order to do this, they divided the living room into three spaces,two soaring to the height of the windows at either end of the room and a centre section with a lower ceiling which provides for second floor accommodationIt does, however, require considerable imagination andcommitment to walk into an echoing, musty cavern of abuilding with leaking roof, rising damp and born-againdeathwatch beetle and say “Hey – this could be cosy.”This perhaps wasn’t quite the reaction Nick and Sonjahad when they walked into Goudhurst’s old disusedMethodist Chapel but it was perhaps something close.Nick is a consultant surveyor and former partner of aworldwide construction and development consultancycompany and Sonja has had in-depth experience of thedelivery side of the construction business and is also anaccountant, so between them they had no trouble seeingpast the chaos and cobwebs and recognising that theglorious 2,000 square feet of surprisingly unlisted spacebounded by solid Victorian brick and soaring Gothicwindows represented an extraordinary opportunity.“The church was selling the property with planningpermission to convert it to a single residential dwellinghaving failed to get consent to knock it down and buildflats,” says Nick. “But for us it was the chance to createwww.wealdentimes.co.uk74