This Sussex cottage B&B has just two rooms, a ramshackle air, and a less than manicured garden – all of which makes it simply delightful
Autumn. John Keats's season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. I could fancy a trip to the Sussex Weald so – ping, ping – I answer an email from Woolbeding Cottage.
As I pass Goodwood, there's a big sign saying Sheepdog Trials but I'm a week too early. A few miles on a rural idyll heaves into view. A Sussex cottage, roses rambling across its red brick and a clear view of the wooded South Downs.
Clare Devereux appears from the side of the house. The front door looks as though it was last used in about 1700, there's a wonky Welcome sign stuck in the ground and a slightly ramshackle air … but I think these are good omens.
We enter through a conservatory and cross to a sitting room with bookshelves, a big fireplace, fat white sofas, family photos and a coffee table piled with books. Then into a light-filled hallway and – ah – I can see the back garden.
Would I like some tea or coffee? Yes please, and preferably out there in the late afternoon sun, I say. Someone's only mown half the lawn (stopping just past an apple tree whose dark boughs support a bright hammock) and weeds are making merry among the penstemon. So, no manicured predictability here – I kind of like it.
Neither is my room formulaic. It opens on to the terrace (though access from the driveway isn't level so I couldn't wholeheartedly recommend it to the less mobile).
"I think it was a little dairy," says Clare, who inherited the house from her father, and lets one more bedroom (which I peep at) upstairs.
My room is quietly special. No look-at-me feature wallpaper, but bric-a-brac finds, vintage linen and a simple Moroccan throw. Old stripped doors save a built-in wardrobe from being non-descript, a pale table and slatted chair in one corner bear stoppered water bottles and fresh flowers, and bleached timber partitions the clever bathroom. Walk-in shower, large mirror, plenty of lights, French matches to light a candle, cotton wool balls and buds, and a galvanized metal stool (so I can place a magazine precisely in reach of the bath). However, I'm really not keen on big bottles of shower gel which have already been started (and anyway, the REN minis are more than adequate).
Clare serves cold suppers (£18pp) by the fireside – meats, cheeses, tiny salads and a glass of wine – and a terrific breakfast next morning on vintage china in the sunny conservatory. After early tea in bed spying on a fat robin outside, I choose fruit salad and yoghurt to the soft strains of French accordion music, then polish off smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on sourdough with a delicious roasted tomato. This isn't a career B&B – Clare has a day job – but it is a reminder that simple can be good. At any time of year.
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