Wealden Times | WT217 | March 2020 | Good Living supplement inside

Above left: The gilded mirror over the fireplace with ferns,
candles in place, came from Norman Road in St Leonards
Above right: The bear cubs holding up a slice of a tree trunk are
from Graham & Green Left: The sitting room is painted in a
dark rich purple (Farrow & Ball’s Pelt)
Sally Gardner writes award-winning children’s books of
extraordinary imagination – and has the house to match.
Some houses are family homes, some are private havens,
others are works of art, displays of status, or expressions
of lifelong dreams. Cuckoo Cottage is a fairy tale.
The sense of something special begins in finding it,
tucked away in a central part of Hastings near the chainstore
shopping hub, in what feels like a secret little row of
Georgian cottages, that has somehow escaped 200 years of
wrecking balls and bulldozers, up some steps and along.
Tucked windward of the castle, it has the air of a pocket
of the town that you might stumble across by accident
one day – then never be able to find again. Which is just
the sort of thing that happens in one of Sally’s books.
Her most recent release, Invisible In A Bright Light, is
so intriguing and gripping, I was awake most of the
night finishing it – and it’s aimed at ages 10 and up.
It’s set in a theatre in a city resembling Copenhagen,
55 wealdentimes.co.uk