Wealden Times | WT182 | April 2017 | Gardens supplement inside

Above left: The walls of the downstairs loo are covered
with framed photographs, prints, cards and letters with
personal meaning Above right and below: The original
1842 building was built as two tiny houses with a shared
staircase. On the landing two small runs of stairs face each
other – one original and the other copied for the extension
with running bunnies, alongside at least four other china
services – and that’s just the tip of the porcelain iceberg.
Adrian opens one of the cupboards and takes out a plate
which he holds up to the light of the French window, revealing
the head of a geisha painted on the underside. “It’s Japanese,”
he says, “I got the whole set at Elm Tree boot fair…”
Under the kitchen’s central work table there’s a
glorious Fortnum & Mason crate, full of more china
treasures which are in everyday use – and the provenance
of both the crate and the table are keys to the very
interesting life Adrian and Sven have shared.
Sven is German and they spent six years living there,
in the city of Halle, twenty miles from Leipzig, while he
was finishing his studies. The kitchen table came from
there. “We found it on the street,” says Sven, laughing.
“In Germany we have this thing called Sperrmüll [NB
capped first letter is correct for nouns in Deutsch,
jawoll, bitte] where large waste objects can be left out
on the street one day a month and we found this.”
“It’s fantastic,” adds Adrian. “You can get a
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