Surrey Homes | SH21 | July 2016 | Interiors supplement inside

Above: The kitchen table once belonged to Tara’s aunt Colleen and was about to be thrown out and put on the bonfire but Tara saved it. She decided to leave
the top as natural wood and white-distress the legs. The kitchen chairs are Lloyd Loom by Neptune and are stocked by John Lewis
Many of the pronouncements of the great American
architect Louis Khan could be, shall we say, a little
opaque but the one I rarely enter an impressive
space without remembering is simple enough. “A room,”
he once said, “is not a room without natural light.”
“Architects in planning rooms today have forgotten their
faith in natural light,” said Khan. “Depending on the touch
of a finger to a switch, they are satisfied with static light and
forget the endlessly changing qualities of natural light, in
which a room is a different room every second of the day.”
In the Weald, we are spoiled for choice when it
comes to outstanding examples of period architecture,
particularly Tudor and Jacobean; times when the wool
trade was at its height and both farmers and merchants
prospered. One-room medieval hall houses were
converted into comfortable multi-room, multi-floor
homes, elegant new purpose-built properties went up
and villages and towns expanded at an impressive rate.
So if you’re looking for a period property – and to many
escaping London for the good life, a period property is often
seen as an essential part of the country idyll – there are
few better starting points for your journey than the Weald.
My family was no exception and when we abandoned the
rus in urbe of leafy Clapham for the real thing, our first
home was a pretty 17th Century cottage on a vineyard.
“This place is driving me nuts,” said my wife, a week
into the idyll. “It’s like living in a tomb. I can’t see a thing.”
And it was hard not to appreciate her irritation. After the
light that used to pour in through Victorian sashes, the
dribble that the leaded lights grudging allowed through
probably meant that after a month we’d all be suffering
from myopia and a dash of vitamin D deficiency.
Low ceilings, heavy beams, small windows, ancient
glass – all conspired to ensure that there was hardly
Farrow & Ball’s Strong White shares the characteristic of so many
of their colours: depending on the time of day and the angle at which
light strikes it, there is a subtle difference in colour and shade
70 www.wealdentimes.co.uk