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

This page: The lofty stairwell opens up to a gallery on the first floor, where more coloured cables from Dyke & Dean are strung across
the void. Two extra large frames, one containing an old film poster, the other a collage of Cuban posters from a book, hang on the walls
Tony Howard, of Harborough Nurseries, who Jake works
with on landscaping projects. The lovely magnolia tree
next to the wellhead was already perfectly in place.
The garden has a very special contemplative air – perhaps
enhanced by the nuns’ graveyard, which is still there in
another area, through the stone arch – and appreciating
its huge potential was one of the many things that attracted
Juliet and Jake to the property when they first came along
to view it.
“We weren’t going to look at the house when we first
saw the listing, because it was attached on both sides,
but when we did we couldn’t believe it. The garden was
in a state of rack and ruin, which apparently put other
potential buyers off, but for us it was an opportunity.”
After the garden tour, we head back into the house
via a French window, which is – although, once
again, I didn’t know it at the time – a clue to the next
stage of Holmhurst’s history, when in the early 20th
century the house became a convent and school.
With Augustus Hare long departed from this
world, it was by then a ruin, but that didn’t put
off the redoubtable Mother Mary Agnes, founder
of the Community of the Holy Family, at all.
An Italiophile, like Mr Hare, she loved the ruined
building because she appreciated the way he had attempted
to create a small part of Italy in Hastings. To her it
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