The Library
A vaulted room lined with over a thousand books, a writing desk facing the garden, and instruments waiting to be played.
A vaulted room lined with over a thousand books, a writing desk facing the garden, and instruments waiting to be played.
Push open the plank door and the room rises away from you: a high, vaulted ceiling crossed by dark old beams, and walls given over almost entirely to books. There are well over a thousand of them here, on every subject you could hope for.
Shelves of Trollope and the Victorian novelists, histories and biographies, gardening and natural history, art, poetry, and a deep run of paperbacks for an afternoon that asks nothing of you. Pull one down, take the armchair by the window, and lose a few hours.
A whole shelf of Trollope in gilt-lettered cloth — Barchester Towers, Phineas Finn, The Warden — the kind of long Victorian novel you settle into for a week of evenings.
A row of old iron hay forks lines the high shelf above the doorway, each a slightly different shape, throwing long shadows up the pale wall in the afternoon light.
Three bronze heads sit in graded sizes on a dark chest, faces worn smooth and softly lit — one of the small curiosities that reward a slow look around the room.
Under the window sits a fine old writing desk, set up as a proper workspace and looking straight out over the walled garden; easily the best spot in the cottage to answer a few emails or write something longer, with fast Wi-Fi reaching every corner and a lamp for when the light goes.
We've found guests drift in here to work in the morning and stay long after they meant to leave. The desk's worn oak top catches the low sun, and the soft cream armchair beside it is just as good for reading as for thinking.
Along the desk's worn oak top the morning light runs to the window, where the lamp and the glass terrarium catch it at the far end — a clear, uncluttered place to set down a laptop or a notebook.
The cream armchair with its blue cushion sits beside the desk under the beams, framed estate maps of Ledwell on the wall behind — equally good for reading as for thinking.
It is a musical room, too. A little Morley chamber organ (Johannes Morley Londini Fecit lettered in gold across the keys) stands among the books with sheet music for a Song Without Words left propped ready for anyone who plays.
Instruments are dotted about the shelves: an old keyed flute, a few odds and ends to pick up and try. Children gravitate to the organ; grown-ups linger over the music left open on the stand.
The maker's name runs in gold along the keyboard above the worn wooden keys, a pine chair drawn up close — ready for whoever sits down to try a few notes.
An antique wooden flute rests on a stand against the warm timber, its silver keys catching the light — one of the odd instruments left about for the curious to pick up.
The arm of an old country chair, honey-coloured and worn smooth by years of hands, over a soft checked cushion — the kind of seat that has clearly been sat in.
On the windowsill a great corked jar holds a small world of its own: moss, ferns and a sprawl of spider plant, breathing against the misted glass with the real garden just beyond.
It is the kind of thing you find yourself watching while the kettle boils: condensation on the inside, hedge and lawn on the outside, and the morning light moving slowly across both.
Lit from behind by the garden, the ferns and spider plant glow a bright green inside the jar, the misted glass scattering the sunlight that pours through the window.
The corked jar stands on the pale painted sill, mirrored faintly in the paintwork, the cottage window and a blur of hedge behind it — quiet company for the writing desk alongside.
Throw the door open and the room runs straight out to the garden, with the lawn and the old stone barns framed in the doorway. Framed prints of Ledwell line the picture shelf, and a country chair waits in the corner for the overflow of a busy house.
It is the room people retreat to: close enough to the kitchen to hear the house, far enough off the hall to read in peace, with a chair for every mood and a thousand books between.
Four bedrooms, sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse. Check dates and book on Airbnb.