Wealden Times | WT188 | October 2017 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

This page: Branching off the
landing on the top floor of
the house, the guest bedrooms
have been furnished with
enough bathrooms to satisfy
the 21st century guest,
without compromising the
integrity of the house
also possible to do, because the furniture is still readily
available. We focused on the 1880s and 90s period, but
it’s pretty eclectic, because lots of the world had been
discovered by then and more exotic styles adopted.
“And,” he adds, “this is a good town to do it in. Furniture
from that era is available, plus trinkets, bits and pieces.
We already had quite a lot, but we’ve had to look for
particular things for particular places, so it’s a combination
of things we like and things we needed to have.”
But shopping for bibelots and decorative trims
is just the garnish on top of the amount of serious
structural work Paul and Stephen have put into St.
Benedict since they took over the whole place.
On the kitchen floor they’ve reinstated the larder,
scullery and pantry, as shown on the original house
plans – which they obtained from the County Records
Office in Lewes, via Hastings Museum – complete with
the slate shelves, butler sinks and wooden plate-drying
racks which would have been there. It’s wonderfully
atmospheric, with the walls in this ‘service’ area painted in
traditional two shades of pale custard-coloured distemper,
with a gloss dark brown stripe at dado rail height.
One floor up, on the entry level, they moved the staircase
back to its original position, reinstalled the dumb waiter
61 wealdentimes.co.uk