Wealden Times | WT210 | August 2019 | Restoration & New Build supplement inside

Above: The working part of the kitchen is confined to one wall with cupboards painted a dusty pink, some with a geometric pattern
in copper. The worktop is poured concrete and the wall lights are from eBay
the ideas together and then Jake does the work.”
To see more of what Jake does, we head out of the
kitchen through a large glass door into the garden, where a
terrace runs along, with a lovely old stone arch to the right
and a splendid old wellhead in the centre of the lawn.
I didn’t know it while I was looking at this lovely artefact,
but it’s actually a key to the history of this whole group
of buildings – which I have since unearthed online.
The wellhead is from Venice, brought over by the
eminent Victorian travel writer Augustus Hare. It forms
a centrepiece in the garden of the mansion he built here,
extending from existing buildings dating back to the
16th and 18th centuries, with the money made from
his very successful series of illustrated travel guides.
He noted in his journal: ‘It is an early Venetian font
or wellhead, which came from one of the houses pulled
down when the new street was made from S. Moise
to S. Marco. It is not later than 12th century.’
So a pretty amazing thing to have in your garden –
and how fitting that it should now belong to someone
whose profession is making the most of outdoor
spaces, which Jake has done so cleverly here.
Solving the topographical problem of near vertical
slopes, which affects so many Hastings gardens,
as the town is built over a series of hills, Jake has
created a flat lawn which leads onto a large deck.
It’s immediately clear what a great entertaining space
this is, high up so it gets the sun and with lovely views
looking out over an adjacent tract of ancient woodland,
set off by a thicket of giant bamboo that was already there.
Crucially, Jake has treated the wood of the deck so it doesn’t
become a slippery death trap in damp British weather.
Next to it is a splendid border, designed by Juliet’s mother
and stocked as advised by eminent garden designer
49 wealdentimes.co.uk