Inspiration of the Week: a top-flight Tudor fantasy in West Sussex

The year 1540 was quite a bad one for Anne of Cleves, depending which way you look at it. She was just 24 when, in the January she married a 48-year-old Henry VIII. By July, the pair were divorced. (Which of these events was worse for poor Anne, we’ll leave to you to decide.)

As part of her generous settlement, however, the young queen was given – among a stipend and much else besides – a bit of property in an attempt to appease her. And Wings Place, in the Sussex village of Ditchling – now for sale – may well have formed part of the bargain.

The house is a picture of Tudor perfection: a jumble of timber frames and bricks, overlapping roofs and teetering chimneystacks. There are bargeboards and inglenooks, lead windows and oak staircases so handsome Nikolaus Pevsner described the house as “eminently picturesque in a watercolourist’s way”.

One imagines Anne may have been rather pleased with the place – if, indeed, she ever saw it. Such are the mists of time that we’re not entirely sure this is the very house, though either way it’s had a rich history. It certainly belonged to Queen Elizabeth at some point down the line and in the years since has not just been a grand home for landed gentry, but a 17^th-century public library too – hence the set of Escher-like external steps that appear to lead nowhere, though once formed part of the street-facing entrance.

In more recent years, the present day has been given a proper look-in, with the house having been gently modernised by considerate owners. We’re particularly taken with the contemporary vaulted kitchen, its glazed wall a referential nod to its ancient windows – though we also can’t help but swoon at the sheer number of original features extant around the house, from ancient flagstones and gnarled boards underfoot to blackened beams.

Yet for all its magnificent heritage, Wings is no mere flight of fancy, instead a rare and wondrous opportunity. Don’t miss it.