Interiors
A Miller’s Tale
Approached from its leafy drive, Hedera House looks like a perfect Regency villa: a confection of pale plasterwork and neo-classical mouldings
A Love of the Land
Moving out of the Georgian farmhouse that has been your family home since 1968 might seem a daunting prospect for most people, but Steven and Emily Hall saw it as just another stage in their lives together
A Rich Tapestry
Helen Grant welcomes us into her seaside home with hot coffee and irresistible, honeyed baklava.
Decorative Living
It’s odd, perhaps, but the expression ‘living over the shop’ somehow now seems to conjure 1950s images of a middle-aged, Fair Isle-sweatered tobacconist and his aproned wife settling back, Horlicks in hand, while on the black and white television Percy...
Through A Georgian Looking Glass
To step into the house we are visiting today is like time-travelling and I am fortunate to have a most amiable guide in the form of Bob, an engaging Australian who left his native land for England for good when...
Home From Home
After a lifetime of running a successful catering business, most of us would relish the thought of putting our feet up and taking it easy, which is exactly how Fanny Brogden felt after retiring from Fanny’s Kitchen in 1998.
Barn Free
Access to the barn isn’t by any means impossible but if you’re lucky enough to be invited to dinner, take the Humvee.
A Gardener’s World
Sometimes, no matter how hard you are looking, the right house for you just doesn’t seem to be available. Sophie Hall, chairman of Oak Park Landscapes, had been house-hunting for some time when a friend mentioned a converted barn that...
By George They’ve Got It!
It may not be advisable to move house with a newborn baby, but many of us do. But how many of us exchange a comfortable life in London for a run-down hotel with 24 bedrooms – and all the hard...
Art House
the enormous inglenook, like a spine, stretches through the house to the magnificent, vaulted master bedroom...
The Linen Shed B&B
The Linen Shed started out as a Great War army drill hall where, on still summer evenings, the deadly rumble of the Flanders guns across the Channel could clearly be heard...
A Pocket Full of Rye
At the summit of cobbled Mermaid Street, Rye’s most famous thoroughfare, stands Lamb House. A quintessential Georgian town house, it is quietly elegant, almost modest, but when one climbs the stone steps and prepares to knock, the enormous size of...
Portrait of a Lady
Do people find houses or do they find us? By any yardstick, the story of how artist Victoria Threlfall came about hers is fortuitous. Married and living in Brixton with four young children, the urge to give her girls the...
Calm and Collected
The first clue that I have arrived at the right house is the gleaming paint on the front door with its incredibly highly polished brass handle and spotless front step. Dee Martyn is a stylist and interiors expert, so I...
Former Editor Of Elle Magazine’s Colourful Home
Despite its quaint seaside charms, Hastings Old Town on a grey blustery day, is, well, just that, grey. But as I step over the threshold of Maggie Alderson’s handsome Georgian house, it’s rather like when Dorothy in The Wizard of...
A Butterfly Unfurled
When Sally Harrington opens the huge front door of her Kentish weatherboard home I assume that the 1950s bungalow that once stood here was demolished to make way for the new house. “No,” she says, “it’s still in here somewhere,...
Degrees Of Light
Although it’s formidable from the outside, Martyn, a specialist in Russian art, and his partner Käthe have created a calm, family home within. Käthe is an artist and the daughter of renowned artists, Eric Doitch and Mary Fitzpayne.
Taking A View
Making the decision to downsize can be daunting to consider, but Margaret and her husband David seem to have embraced the process.
We’ll Gather Lilacs
At first glance, Edenbridge House looks like something from the pages of a P.G. Wodehouse comedy or Agatha Christie mystery – the kind of rambling, well-appointed country house where well-to-do types gathered for “house-parties”.
Welcome Aboard
On a cold, rainy day, Eileen and Tony’s houseboat offers a ray of sunshine and a stark contrast to the greyness of the landscape of Kings North power station and a restless wintry sea. The boat was bought fourteen years...
Business As Usual
Arriving at John and Sandy Schofield’s house in the heart of the Weald, the welcome is a picturesque one. A flock of pure white doves take off from their dovecote and flutter above our heads before settling on the red...
All’s Fair
Summer and Christmas fairs are held in the house every May and November. The events began fairly modestly but have steadily grown both in size and reputation...
Full of Eastern Promise
In the heart of the Weald stands a medieval house, the home of Jemima, her husband and two daughters.
Up The Garden Path
Among the well-kept front gardens of a Wealden high street, the garden of one pretty Georgian villa stands out.