The Cottage

The Stone Cottage was built in approx. 1810 and has been many things since, but walking through the door today, it feels like it was always meant to be exactly this.

Spread across four floors of original sandstone, the cottage is full of the kind of details you notice slowly: wood beams, a wood-burning fireplace, a glass ceiling that floods the space with light, copper Moroccan taps, oak kitchen worktops made for cooks, scaffold board shelves lined with glass jars, and a ladder suspended under the glass ceiling, hung with trailing plants and warm copper lights. There is art on every wall and something curious in every corner.

The open plan ground floor is the heart of the house with kitchen, dining, living room and, when the occasion calls for it, cinema. The projector screen drops silently from the ceiling, the surround sound comes to life, and the room transforms. Then it disappears again, and you'd never know it was there.

Upstairs, the main bedroom is a calm retreat; 'blue blood' walls, warm wood floors, and a modern en-suite.

The second bedroom doubles as something else entirely in ordinary life, but guests might not work out what unless they look too closely at the bookshelves.

Outside, the sandstone patio under the fig tree is made for long evenings or coffee mornings, al fresco dinners, a glass of something cold, or an afternoon in the hammock going absolutely nowhere.

Groombridge is one of those villages that feels like it has been quietly getting on with things since before anyone was paying attention. A village green, a medieval pub, a Saxon church, and the kind of stillness that reminds you what the countryside is actually for.

Come as you are. Leave your shoes at the door.