Painters Paradise

Reportage 13595302 | © living4media / Narratives / Sanderson, Robert | 29 images

When Rupert and Anna Jackson sold a property in the South of France in the hills above St Tropez, they were free to look for an English substitute - a bolthole in the country for holidays and weekend breaks. Determined to find something within one and a half hours drive of London and having three grown up boys, who still come home for some weekends, they needed at least five bedrooms and one or two good sized rooms for parties, a study for Rupert and a studio for Anna. They submitted their wish list to a property finder in West Sussex who came up with the manor house. 'We were not planning to buy anything quite so grand.' Rupert admits, 'but the house he suggested, offered everything we really liked, ' Originally built in the mid sixteenth century as a farmhouse with ground floor space for animals, a rich merchant had added a William and Mary French Chateau style front - specifically angled to enjoy unspoilt views of the wild and beautiful Sussex Downs.