Wealden Times | WT166 | December 2015 | Interiors supplement inside

Above: the huge and informal family kitchen was once the library, and some
of the shelves remain. Right: One of the many original fireplaces
sketches and watercolours of the house were kindly left
behind by previous owners who felt they should stay
with the house. In a kitchen drawer the Gunnings came
across an old picture of a former owner taken about a
hundred years ago, standing by one of the old oak trees
on the estate that is recorded in the Domesday Book.
A secret door in the wood panelling by the fireplace opens
from the hall into what was a small and dark extension
added to provide the Victorians with lavatories and sculleries.
This whole area has been opened up and covered in jolly
chicken wallpaper to create a wonderful bright and light
laundry and cloakroom. Two original Victorian side-by-side
loos (no one is quite sure why) each with its own cubicle
have been kept, complete with beautiful elm seats, and not
surprisingly the boys have each adopted one as their own.
An original dark and stained double sink turned out to
be a very rare John Balding ‘Trone’ (gasps here from anyone
who knows their antique sinks) and, following a complete
renovation, it now looks spectacular in an upstairs bathroom.
Another secret door, this time a trap door carefully set
in the wooden floor of the main hall, leads down to
cavernous cellars that spread out like tentacles in all
directions under the house. Old floor plans reveal the
extent of the below-stairs activity with rooms marked
as ‘Knives and Boots’, ‘Brushing Room’, ‘Gun Room’,
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