Private House

East Sussex

Our client’s brief was to carry out a complete restoration of this important Grade II* listed manor house and to carry out sympathetic improvements. The building had become somewhat dilapidated over the years.

The initial survey work established that the roof covering would need to be renewed, rising damp checked, and the house modernised and refurbished.

At ground floor level, each paving brick of the dining room floor was carefully numbered, lifted and re-laid on a new, blown glass insulated, limecrete floor to prevent rising damp. The kitchen floor in the Victorian extension was re-laid in a similar way with new limestone flooring. The 15th century dais beam at the south end of the dining room was carefully exposed by removing the modern wall panel and providing new oak posts.

At first floor level, bathrooms and en suite facilities were discreetly added, including a new dressing room with en suite facilities and a new east facing window in the Victorian south wing.

On the second floor, the ceiling linings were removed to expose the 16th century rafters and roof structure. The roof coverings had to be completely renewed and this was carried out on a like-for-like basis employing new Aldershaw handmade clay tiling and re-laying of the Horsham stone roofing. Sympathetic stonework repairs were carried out externally and internally.

Improvements to the building to make it a comfortable home included remodelling the south wall of the kitchen by raising the existing window head and providing new French doors onto a new sunny terrace.

In place of the steep and dangerous staircase, which ran from the first floor inner-hall up to the second floor attic rooms, a simple new staircase was designed and installed to be subservient to the late 17th century staircase in the main hall. As part of this work, the ceiling of the inner-hall was removed to give a double height space and to expose the early 18th century roof structure above.