Wealden Times | WT183 | May 2017 | Restoration & New Build supplement inside

HOUSE OF THE MONTH
1.
Fresh Start
Maggie Alderson steps into brand new homes
As a nation we are justly proud of our architectural history, still so gloriously
apparent throughout the land. Any British town and village will have buildings
from a sweep of centuries: five-hundred-year-old Tudor homes boasting beams
and leaded windows, elegant Georgian houses with their glorious symmetrical frontages
and wide floorboards and Victorian villas with splendid mouldings and capacious cellars.
It’s no wonder ‘period details’ and ‘original features’ are so joyously
proclaimed on estate agents’ details. But as anyone who has ever enjoyed
the privilege of living within gloriously weathered walls knows – they
do seem to puff dust and filth into the air out of their very walls.
It is very special to live somewhere you know has been a haven for multiple
generations before you – especially if it has some interesting history. But a fortnight’s
holiday in a freshly built villa or apartment, everything shiny and new and in the
right place can make coming home to your tatty old period home a bit of a shock.
Of course underfloor heating, elbow level light switches and electrical sockets with
integral USB ports can be inserted into older properties, but only with significant
upheaval and expense. Plus the release of vast volumes of the previously mentioned
historic dust. I know, because I’m trying to do it in a Victorian house at the moment…
How I envy my friends who have just moved into a divinely elegant
apartment, they bought off the plan. They were smitten by the sleek
contemporary design in the computer-generated images, but what convinced
them to leave behind their period features for a new build was that they were
then able to tweak the new home exactly to their personal preferences.
As I knock my 150 year old house about, the better to serve our contemporary
lifestyle with eat-in kitchens and en suite bathrooms where there were none – while
living like a Stone Age family during the earthworks – I can’t help thinking how
much easier it would have been to buy a house which had all that designed into it.
Here are some of the best new homes on the market now.
1. The Old Orchard
Where? The Old Orchard is a
development of just six new spec houses
in a mixture of Kent vernacular styles
in the High Weald village of Sutton
Valence, five miles south of Maidstone.
The convenience of a local farm shop,
post office and three pubs is combined
with good rail links to London (just
over an hour) and access to the M20.
What? The largest house of the six,
The Stanford has the ideal contemporary
layout with a kitchen/breakfast room
and living room both with doors
onto the garden. There’s also a dining
room and separate utility room on the
ground floor and the double garage
(with electric doors) has an entry into
the kitchen. The first floor has an en
suite master bedroom, three further
bedrooms and a family bathroom.
The second floor has a further en
suite bedroom and a generous study.
How much? This development
is listed with Sibley Pares at the
Maidstone office at £870,000. Call
them on 01622 692206 and view
more details at sibleypares.co.uk
wealdentimes.co.uk
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