The same, but different

With her eclectic vintage style Susan Chester put her own mark on a Victorian terrace house – while allowing it to keep its own character

Island Escape

With a focus on sustainability and conservation, Georgina Fulton and her husband, Gareth, ensure that Elmley Nature Reserve and its working family farm preserves the natural habitat on the Isle Of Sheppey, sharing their portion of beautiful marsh landscape with...

Pretty in pink

Treasure hunter Cat Ridley knows what she likes – and if it’s pink, glittery, neon or gold, she’s in (preferably all of them) My first glimpse of the gloriously pink, glittery, neon, petal-strewn world of Cat Ridley was when I...

The Archivist

Jules Haines set up her online business, Haines Collection, to offer leftover stocks of beautiful high-end fabrics, preventing them from ending up in landfill and providing the chance to snap them up with substantial savings. Her environmental awareness naturally extends...

9-5 In Style

If you’ve made the decision to continue to work from home, why not invest in a beautiful outdoor space that will allow you to take control of your working life, maintain work/life balance and provide a gorgeous focal point in...

Welcome to real Tunbridge Wells

A house with soul and a community with heart are the perfect combo for a move out from town

The Haven

After buying buildings they had admired for years, a couple well-versed in renovating properties have created a uniquely peaceful and welcoming home they now open as a B&B sanctuary

Interior Vocation

With an eye for design that she has honed working on the complete renovation of her own period cottage, and following a career in events management, interiors lover Rebecca Middleton has hit the ground running with the start of her...

Cover Girl

Former Fashion Director turned upholsterer, Sadie Dorchester takes Antonia Methuen on a tour of the interior of her spacious Victorian terrace, the gorgeous result of a seven-year renovation project Like many people who move to Hastings, Sadie Dorchester and her...

House of Beulah

Using her own professional skills, Zoe Joannou has transformed a classic Tunbridge Wells villa into a glamorous space for modern living I started off interviewing interior designer Zoe Joannou about her own house – but I was soon asking questions...

Dressed to Impress

The transformation of a Grade II listed building, which once served as a public house before becoming an oriental restaurant, has been 20 years in the making for creative couple Jane and Rob – enlisting the help of many talented...

The Forever Home

When it came to renovating their dream house, Andy and Ran turned to their friend and interior designer Justine Hodgson-Barker to ensure they ended up with a home fit to start the next chapter of their life Andy Clark and...

The House of Magical Objects

Maggie Alderson takes a step through the looking glass into this Hastings writer’s home 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...

Hillside Haven

Maggie Alderson explores the ultimate fantasy home – an architect-designed eco self-build, complete with indoor pool Making my way along the impressive tree-lined drive to this house, I feel like Kevin McCloud when he goes back to revisit the owners...

A House to Truly Love

After documenting the transformation of her Victorian villa on social media, Olya Lammas decided to trade in her career in fashion to follow her passion for interiors  “I wasn’t planning on buying a home like this!” says interior designer Olya...

Treading Lightly

A rental property has become a stylish stop-gap for a family in search of their dream home in the country. Creating a beautiful, personal home doesn’t always involve a wrecking ball – simply decorating can transform a space. Every house...

Return to Splendour

Alex Jørgensen has worked a design miracle on this Tunbridge Wells property, transforming it from fluorescent strip-lit office space to contemporary home In the heart of one of Britain’s most classic towns a great change is afoot. In a Tunbridge...

A Classical Approach

With their lifelong love of design and architecture, Toby and Megan Osborne have restored a down-at-heel guest house to its stately elegance After enjoying an early morning coffee in the picturesque country town of Cranbrook, I can wholeheartedly understand why...

A box of delights

There is a particular joy in returning to visit a home you have seen only very much in the ‘before’ stage. In this case, the last time I saw Kimberley Watson’s flat in a Regency terrace on Hastings Old Town...

Village Person

A six-month sabbatical in the countryside turned into a whole new life for Kate Monckton, in an old village house lovingly brought to its full potential There is a special kind of satisfaction in visiting a beautiful house, when you...

A Family Affair

Inspired by travels across the world, interior designer Alexis Wylie has delivered her signature warm, vibrant, lived-in style with a redesign of a much-loved family home, combining old and new furnishings whilst retaining the house – and family’s – vivid...

All that Jaz

Jaz Rosten-Edwards had always wanted to have an art gallery – so she turned her house into one. Houses on a residential street can blend into one. Especially if there is a row of them built as a set at...

A Pebble’s Throw

Experienced house renovators Robey and Kelly Hilliard’s latest project – a three-storey wreck of a home cut into the Sandgate hillside – has been a labour of love for the couple, who wanted to preserve as much of the original...

Off the Scale

With soaring ceilings, contemporary décor and the most beautiful views across the Kentish countryside, Bayham Hall’s restoration has allowed the building’s original features to shine through whilst providing an enviably spacious family home for owners Jaime and Justin Cooke. 

Green and Pleasant

Childhood memories and favourite holiday haunts are the inspiration behind Karen and Rafe Easter’s charming family home. It’s difficult to believe just how much of England’s green and pleasant land lies a mere hour’s train journey from the capital, and...

Too Cool for School

The colourful history behind Juliet Maingay-Cooper and Jake Mintrim’s Hastings home, part of a mansion built by eminent Victorian travel writer Augustus Hare, saw it once serve as a convent and school before its current incarnation as a chic and...

Open House

Interior architect Susie Pfeiffer has breathed contemporary life into an old farm building, whilst celebrating its original features, in her incredible barn conversion. After many happy years in a barn they had converted into a family home, interior architect Susie...

Hidden beauty

Just a stone’s throw from the heart of Tunbridge Wells, a sensitively renovated  Georgian townhouse has become a downsizing couple’s secluded sanctuary. This elegant Georgian townhouse has to be approached on foot, because it is tucked down a narrow leafy...

The Outbuilding

Journalist Amy Maynard’s effortlessly chic converted outbuilding is the result of her ‘warehousey, not twee’ vision for a holiday rental that is a home away from home. The Danes call it hygge – meaning the feeling of contentment that comes...

Pattern Repeat

Just along the coast from Margate, with views out over Westgate-on-Sea’s sandy seafront, Hamilton Lodge was chosen by its current owners as the perfect foil to the bustle of London, making it the ideal weekend retreat. Everything you’ve ever read...

Make History

Part of the Leeds Castle estate, Battel Hall has been given a makeover by interior designer Francesca Rowan-Plowden in keeping with its 14th century origins – and its 1930s party heyday. Anyone with a penchant for the roaring Twenties is...

Light and Space

When a seaside house long-coveted by art director Clare Clarkson came onto the market, she jumped at the chance to rework its interior to create an open-plan home, perfect for her large extended family.

A cocktail of grandeur

Will and Nick live in a one-bedroom flat, decorated in glorious palatial style (and have great parties…)

Print perfect

Textile designer Molly Mahon and her husband Rollo have created a family home and thriving business in a cottage in the Ashdown Forest.

Holidays in Sussex

:: SPONSORED CONTENT :: Welcome to one of northern Europe’s best surviving Medieval landscapes.

Exciting year ahead as buyers recognise Church View’s unique charm

:: SPONSORED CONTENT :: This year looks set to be another fantastic one at Church View, Dandara’s beautiful development in the heart of Tenterden, Kent.

House and garden

With a skilled eye for uniting inside with out, interior designer Lisa Evans has made a High Weald cottage into a sophisticated home.

Material World

Mix a touch of medieval with a helping of Georgian – and throw in some thoroughly modern touches. The result? A unique family home perfect for 21st century living. Tucked away in a pretty Kentish village, The Den has been...

Elegant imperfection

A textile conservator and an antique dealer combined to create a home where patina is prized. There is cold – as in chilly – and then there is cool. The Tunbridge Wells home of textile conservator Charlotte Casadéjus is definitely...

Stairway to heaven

A gloomy 1930s chapel has been brilliantly converted into a light-drenched modern townhouse. Back in 2011, when Ian and Lisa decided to make the move from Tunbridge Wells to Hastings, they had an offer accepted on an old pub which...

Gothic glamour

Cinematic, dramatic, palatial… it’s hard to know where to start describing the bold interior style of this historic building and family home, inspired by the films of Jean Cocteau – and Hammer horrors. It was Valentine’s Day when fashion designer,...

Personal space

A converted malthouse, with soaring ceilings, provides ample growing room for Rachel Ford and her family. Destiny, chance, karma or plain old coincidence… it’s interesting how some things in life just happen to fall mysteriously into place at just the...

Bold and beautiful

With a background in set designing, event styling and painter-decorating, Annemarie St Vincent Farr has transformed a Victorian terrace into something extraordinary

Cool yule

Loma Beach House sits at the end of a sandy lane, its smart, but coastal, black-clad facade hinting, or rather, broadcasting, that something has fundamentally changed inside this 1950s house.

Home on the farm

A beautiful Grade II listed farmhouse has been expertly nurtured into a perfect balance of cosiness and sophistication

Picture perfect

A fantasy family home has been loved back to life

The mother of reinvention

Artist Sassy Luke lives among her art – and makes art out of her life