Wealden Times | WT182 | April 2017 | Gardens supplement inside

This page: The front reception room’s sunken fireplace was
apparently the only warm place to sit. “My theory is, that the
man who did all the work in the 1930s raised the floor – making
the fireplace appear sunken,” says Jane
much of the work that had been carried out in the 1930s
remained, as some of it does today: “It had been radically
altered; they built a lot of walls and dug out ponds and
did all sorts of things. But overall, they gave it a lot of
love.” It featured in Country Life during the 1930s, which
would suggest that the restoration and work on the garden
was of some note, though not all of the work was to Jane
and Peter’s taste, however: “He built on an awful kitchen
wing, which we have since knocked down,” says Jane.
In its place, they built an extension which is now home
to a living-room-cum-snug on the ground floor with a huge
spare bedroom overhead. As with the kitchen extension,
the living room and upstairs bedroom join seamlessly
with the older structure: “We got nice old bricks from
Symonds Salvage at Bethersden – and the floor over there
is made from the ceiling of a railway station,” says Jane,
pointing to their old dining area, next to the kitchen.
Despite being such an old house, and in some ways a typical
Wealden timber-framed building, it is surprisingly light
inside with large rooms and relatively high ceilings. “It’s quite
surprising, isn’t is?” says Jane. “Friends say it has a slightly
Tuscan feel about it.” I am eager to see more, and Jane has
promised to show us the oldest room in the house – the only
part of the house that survived the fire in the 17th century.
The room – next to the open-plan kitchen, dining
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