But when Sophie welcomes me, she quickly confirms her own love of the county. “I’m a born and bred Kentish girl,” she says. “When we were first married, Nicholas and I lived in Camberwell, which was slightly bohemian and rather exciting and we both had good careers in London, but when we had our first child, Connie, my feelings changed and when I found I was expecting again I realised I didn’t want to be bringing up my children in the city. Nicholas is a country boy at heart too, and the pull of this part of Kent was just too strong to resist. My parents still lives in Brenchley and my mother has a great eye, she knew what we’d want, so luckily, she scouted for us.
“This is an old coach house, so we’re really fortunate to have high ceilings and tall windows that let in so much light, but it’s not listed so we’ve changed it massively. We knocked down a 1950s extension and a rather shabby old carport and replaced them with a new two-storey construction that gave us another bedroom and a games room upstairs.”
We are talking in the vast new kitchen. It’s generously served by masses of maple cupboards, though I’ve noticed a slightly unusual addition to the upper row. I ask what it is, and Sophie laughs. “That’s our Belling warm cupboard, it was the number one thing on our wedding list. I couldn’t live without it.” It’s the kind of glass-fronted cabinet that you might see in a bakery, used for keeping the pies and pasties hot, but I’ve never seen one in a domestic setting before. “We do a lot of entertaining, so it’s really useful for that, but it also keeps things warm for our family meals,” Sophie adds. Despite its size, the kitchen feels cosy, perhaps because it is painted a marvellously warm orange called ‘pumpkin’, Sophie thinks, but with its pinkish-red tinge, it’s actually closer to the colour of coral. It’s really unusual, but it works well with the pale limestone floor and the dark granite worktops. At the windows there are Roman blinds made from a Brunschwig & Fils fabric with the same background shade, patterned with vividly coloured flowers and butterflies. On the walls, two paintings are particularly striking, one is of a goose and the other, a hen. Both are by local artist, Anna Pugh, and were bought at the Fairfax Gallery, in the Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells. Against another wall there is an Aga to which Sophie is clearly very attached: “That old girl remained there in state all through the demolition of the old kitchen and the construction of the new one. We just built everything around her. I think of it as a she, a doughty old lady who stands there serene, throughout any upheavals.”
Sophie then shows me more of the changes they made. The grand porch at the front of the house is, surprisingly, a new addition too. “It was a rather awkward entrance before,” explains Sophie. “What is now the drawing room was divided into two offices, and there was no access to them from the interior, so we got the architect Stephen Langer to draw up some plans. He came up with this scheme which lets plenty of light into the hallway and gives us lots of extra space too.” It is certainly very clever, with a door that is almost at a diagonal angle to the rest of the hall. A simple fanlight above and classic Georgian style windows either side of it bestow plenty of light and make the space seem bigger than it actually is. The rest of the hallway is stunning. A broad staircase has its original Regency banisters with a handrail that ends in an elegant curl. Sophie has painted them in Farrow & Ball’s ‘blue-green’ to match the rest of the wooden panelling, while the walls are smothered in the flowers and butterflies of an exuberant Nina Campbell wallpaper. “I always think that the hallway is one place where you can really go mad with wallpaper,” says Sophie, “because you’re walking through, and not sitting looking at it for very long, so you can afford to be bold.” Indian temple lanterns hang from the ceiling and on the walls, tinted engravings of fruits, flowers and insects, given to Sophie by her parents, echo the wallpaper’s fecund theme. A French Empire style gilt mirror hangs above a mahogany table, on which a glass vase of parrot tulips stand, though they’re actually convincing fakes – silk ones from Evernden Interiors in Cranbrook that have been ‘planted’ among pebbles and interspersed with corkscrew hazelnut twigs.
In the drawing room, Sophie can really show off her skills. The wallpaper is from Colefax & Fowler as is the fabric that is extravagantly draped about the twin French doors. “It’s called ‘Sissinghurst’ and it has a huge pattern repeat, so it requires a lot of fabric, but I absolutely love it.” Sophie says. “I had the carpet specially made and then sourced the rest of the fabrics for the chairs and sofas. I didn’t want things to be too ‘matchy-matchy’, and I wanted plenty of texture.” Sophie’s use of pattern is bold and assured. Has she ever considered a career as an interior designer? “Well, I’ve always been busy with the children, though now that they’re getting older, I’m perhaps ready for a new challenge. I worked as Press Officer for Colefax & Fowler and then Liberty, so I picked up a lot of ideas at both places and a real passion for pattern. I’d already done a bit of designing as I worked at a London estate agent’s in the 1980s. We had a lot of clients based in Hong Kong, who were buying properties to let, so I decorated and furnished them and loved doing it.” This room is furnished with family pieces, but also items found locally. “I bought lots of things from auctions, and from Phoenix Antiques in Southborough. The portrait above the fireplace is from there. They get some lovely French pieces, so it’s always worth having a look.” A mahogany tallboy has some handsome Chinese blue jars on top of it. “They’re classic Liberty,” says Sophie. “Let me show you what else I got from my time there.”
In the dining room a pair of enormous metal lanterns hang on the wall either side of an elaborately carved mirror. “I used to go on the most amazing buying trips at Liberty. These lanterns are from Morocco, and the mirror from India. Liberty has always been so good at snuffling out the more unusual things.” The walls are covered in a textured bamboo wallpaper and the windows swagged with Jab silk, striped with purple, sapphire blue, black and gold. It’s a dramatic space and the long table often has fourteen or more seated around it. “People worry about making dining rooms dark, but actually, you use them most often at night, so you might as well really go for it. With all the candles lit it has quite a magical feel.” There are two more paintings here from the Fairfax Gallery, by English artist David Atkins, while on another wall, a large James Hawkins acrylic of birch trees beside a turbulent river is full of vibrant colour. “That’s what dictated the scheme in this room,” says Sophie, “I just loved the incredible blues and greens that he’s used.”
Upstairs, the bedrooms have been treated to more Colefax & Fowler designs. The main one has been papered with ‘Bowood’, and with its pale grey ‘cabbage’ roses and fresh green leaves, it feels a serene place in which to sleep. On the wall above the bed there are photographs of the family by local photographer, Emma Freeman. They’re shot in black and white, which lends them an air of nostalgia, and despite the obvious technical competence, their intimacy makes them look almost as if they were taken by one of the family. A fortunate family, I think, to live in such a house in such a county.
