House
The House of Dreams
February 2012 It is said that to be creative one must have an inner life, a kind of storehouse of impressions, ideas and feelings to draw upon and reinterpret...
Heritage at Home
February 2012 For some people demolishing any period cottage is heresy, a loss of irreplaceable national heritage, and, certainly, serious questions must always be asked before swinging the wrecker's ball...
Artist's Impression
January 2012 In Victorian times, Britain was a manufacturing colossus, the workshop of the world. A new architecture was born, the architecture of the machine...
A Snapshot of Family Life
January 2012 It's a slightly odd feeling to be writing about a house that belongs to someone who is normally occupied with photographing other people's...
Photo Perfect
December 2011 One would never for a moment describe Fuller House in Staplehurst as a mad house but it is certainly a touch on the eccentric side...
Sugar and Spice
November 2011 For some, the idea of a tea party conjures images of a rather staid affair, with matronly ladies sipping Earl Grey while enjoying a slice of Victoria sponge...
Life on Mars
November 2011 "I was on Britain's Best Dish!" says Alastair Fairley with a grin, as he shows me into his kitchen...
Best Kept Secret
October 2011 There is, tucked away just behind the smart shops of one of the Weald's most attractive towns, an extraordinary little secret street...
Home Comforts
October 2011 Arriving at Lucinda Hamilton's oasthouse, it seems that she can best be found by following the aroma of baking that wafts from the open French windows at the rear...
Photo Finish
September 2011 There are few more iconic structures in Kent than the oasthouse and fewer more popular farm buildings for conversion to private homes...
Softly, softly
September 2011 Joanna Osborne and Orlando Gough's Brighton home is a classic late Regency gem...
Vintage Calm
August 2011 Few find what they want in life right under their noses and some of us have to travel a lifetime and many miles to find what we are looking for...
Air and Space
August 2011 Widowhood prompted the move here," says Ro, without much preamble. "I was rattling around in the house I had shared with my husband..."
Artistic Licence
July 2011 "There is no better air than here for work." Is how John Maynard Keynes described the atmosphere at Tilton House in East Sussex, the country residence that he shared with his wife Lydia for many years...
Real Life Therapy
July 2011 Ann Edwards opens the door of her East Grinstead late Victorian villa with something of a flourish. As she asks about my journey here, her face is animated and kindly enquiring and I get the distinct feeling that she is gently making an initial 'diagnosis' as she greets me...
Sleeping Beauty
June 2011 Gabby Eagar's house could be viewed as the stuff of dreams or nightmares, depending upon one's enthusiasm for a 'project'. It's dreamy, because it is a classically proportioned Georgian grange that looks as if it has sprung to life from the pages of a Jane Austen novel...
Restored With Love
June 2011 When a grand house falls into decay, there is rarely any shortage of worthy bodies and individuals to rush to its rescue, lavishing cash and compliments and ensuring it's saved from the bulldozers...
The Homemade Home
May 2011 Mandy and Phil Shaw have lived in their East Sussex home for 26 years and in that time, they have transformed it from a fairly anonymous late Victorian semi-detached villa...
Natural History
May 2011 Claudine and Robin Cecil's brick and timber cottage is situated on a twisting East Sussex lane. It sits almost in the centre of an unspoilt valley...
Making History
April 2011 Lullingstone Castle and its owners the Hart Dyke family have been the subject of several television documentaries and a great deal of press attention in the past decade...
Continental Chic
April 2011 If Sevenoaks seems a typical English commuter town, not all its residents are quite so predictable...
A Grand Design For Living
March 2011 Most people who build their own country houses take one of two approaches: either opting for high design and commissioning an architect to create a ‘statement' house...
The Old Curiosity Shop
March 2011 On a rainy winter's day, a journey across Romney Marshes easily evokes images of Magwitch emerging from the mists to frighten poor Pip in Dickens' Great Expectations...
Let there be light
February 2011 Having spent twenty years living in a huge, draughty and quite dark Tudor pile, Bill and Ingrid knew that their next home would be full of light, warm and cosy...
A Towering Achievement
February 2011 "Our friends thought we were mad when we moved here," says Sally Russell as she and her husband Brad show us around their home...
East/West Home's Best
January 2011 When Phil Russell's job brought him back to London after 18 years of living and working in Tokyo and Hong Kong, he had only a short time to find his family a new home in England...
A Towering Achievement
January 2011 Anyone who knows Tenterden will know The Tower House. One of the Georgian lovelies that line the east end of the High Street...
Return of the Native
December 2010 There are some period houses that seem, over the centuries, to have drawn the short straw. Time and again, caring, loving, well-meaning owners have extended and modernised...
Designed for Living
December 2010 There are some period houses that seem, over the centuries, to have drawn the short straw. Time and again, caring, loving, well-meaning owners have extended and modernised...
Making History
November 2010 Today's junk is tomorrow's history, or so they say. Unfortunately we live in an increasingly mobile and throwaway age...
At Home with Style
November 2010 Glamour is not a word usually associated with the country cottage, but Andrew Fionda's home is rather different...
Natural Gallery
October 2010 Generally, the mention of an old mill house conjures up idyllic pastoral images of ancient millstones grinding corn...
Room with a View
October 2010 Finding the right house has never been easy. Typically, it means kissing swampfuls of frogs before one finally...
Grand Dutchy
September 2010 Having rung the bell at Sarnia's cottage, seemingly without result, I am beginning to wonder whether I have made a mistake about our appointment.
Micro chic, eco style
September 2010 It's hard to believe that Claire Potter's grade II listed cottage in Portslade, on the outskirts of Brighton, is just a slice off the house next door...
Photogenic
August 2010 Photographer Mel Smith and his wife Lizzie have created the perfect work life balance in the idyllic Kent countryside.
Food For Thought
August 2010 Food has always been important to my family," laughs Mary Gwynn. So it's not surprising that...
Ship Shape
July 2010 Sophie and Jason both confess to having led nomadic lives until they met.
An Elegant Touch
July 2010 Grand period buildings can not only be a joy to their owners but also, on far too many occasions, a tyranny...
The Thai Way
June 2010 A quintessential 19th century English country estate majestically surveys the gently rolling scenery that surrounds it.
Rustic Charm
June 2010 As an Australian, Michael Ristic had been making trips to the UK for a few years. "I absolutely loved it here, Michael explains. "So, in 1972, I decided to move to London for good.
Staycation House
May 2010 Tim and Sue Ball's house seems to hug the hill that it is not so much built upon, but into.
On Location
May 2010 One might expect a house belonging to both a film and television set designer and a professional gardener to be well-presented, and Derek and Tony's Regency town house in Hastings does not disappoint.
Contemporary Twist
April 2010 Behind the red brick façade of an early 20th century building, is a contemporary piece of architecture that is home to Anna Deacon and John Taylor
Vintage Values
April 2010 Hospitable though home-owners are when the Wealden Times team visits, not many could match the welcome afforded by Flora, the wire fox terrier puppy who greets me in Stella Wilson's garden.
A Miller's Tale
March 2010 Approached from its leafy drive, Hedera House looks like a perfect Regency villa.
A Love of the Land
March 2010 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.
Family Matters
Feb 2010 Hurst Farm is not a huge, rambling traditional farmhouse, nor is it the grand, elegant home...
A New Wave
Feb 2010 Psychologists sometimes say that children strive to give their family's life-story a happy ending and interior designer Diana Harvey has...
A Rich Tapestry
January 2010 Helen Grant welcomes us into her seaside home with hot coffee and irresistible, honeyed baklava.
A Passion for Pattern
January 2010 Tucked away, at the end of a leafy driveway, is a typically Kentish house.
Decorative Living
December 2009 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...
Home from home
October 2009 Originally, the house was a terrace of three Queen Anne labourer's cottages. Then a couple of centuries later, a Victorian front was put on...
Barn Free
October 2009 Extraordinarily, despite the fact that this is not a big barn and now houses countless lovely pieces, never anywhere does it feel the slightest cluttered in fact, exactly the reverse. Everywhere there seems space and light...
By George They've Got It
September 2009 Alex and Katie saw many houses on the Kent and East Sussex borders before they found the right one: a Georgian farmhouse with six bedrooms. "We loved the huge windows, the flagstone and tiled floors, and the feel of it,"
A Gardeners World
September 2009 The barn, which dates back over 400 years, was only converted in 1997 and had been lived in by a couple who remain in the village. "It was in excellent condition," says Sophie.
House of Linen
August 2009 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...
Art House
August 2009 The enormous inglenook, like a spine, stretches through the house to the magnificent, vaulted master bedroom...
Pocket full of Rye
July 2009 Built in 1723 by James Lamb from a powerful local family, it even played host to royalty when King George I was swept ashore at Camber Sands on his return from Hanover.
Potrait Of A Lady
July 2009 Do people find houses or do they find us?
Calm and collected
June 2009 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
Over the Rainbow
June 2009 There's far more to this house than a lot of souvenirs of a glitzy life. Rather than a slavish following of the latest trends, there's an obvious love of the unusual and unique...
Designed for Living
May 2009 Flexibility was always part of the design, the idea being that the house could be adapted to the family's changing needs...
The Doll's House
May 2009 There's far more to this house than a lot of souvenirs of a glitzy life. Rather than a slavish following of the latest trends, there's an obvious love of the unusual and unique...
A Butterfly Unfurled
April 2009 this remodelled chalet bungalow has emerged from its chrysalis as an elegant family home with views to die for...
Degrees of Light
April 2009 a creative family's home in Hastings
We'll gather up the lilacs
March 2009 At first glance, Edenbridge House looks like something from the pages of a P.G. Wodehouse comedy or Agatha Christie mystery
Taking a View
March 2009 Making the decision to downsize can be daunting to consider, but Margaret and her husband David seem to have embraced the process.
Business as usual
February 2009 A house in the heart of the Weald, the welcome is a picturesque one...
Welcome Aboard...
February 2009 Anita C is a 128ft German coastal barge that used to run ballast from Wandsworth to Brightlingsea...
A Rural Retreat
January 2009 This beautiful three-bay hall house dates back to 1490 with Georgian...
Alls Fair...
January 2009 The Georgian facade belies the fact that this lovely Wealden farmhouse was once a medieval hall house but, step inside, and the centuries roll back...
Full of Eastern Promise
December 2008 This fascinating home - filled with bright corridors and large windows that light up the rooms - is the perfect setting for a family Christmas.
Up the Garden Path
December 2008 Garden designer, Kate Ball, lives and works in her delightful delightful Georgian villa
Architectural Treasures
November 2008 From the quiet cul-de-sac outside, this stunning 3-story contemporary home outside it looks like a fairly typical modern house but step inside and enter a different world...
Loitering With Intent
November 2008 Hannah and Roger live in a collection of interconnecting yurts in North Kent. They combine yoga teaching with working as gardeners and are expecting their first baby...
