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board up outside. We had a look
round and thought, ‘Someone’s got
a job on their hands,’ ” says Amanda
“There was gloss paint hanging off
the ceiling like stalagtites and black
mould all over the plasterwork. The
roof was full of holes, the walls in the 
upstairs rooms were dripping wet,
there were starlings nesting inside,
bees’ nests in the chimneys, and the
gardens were choked with head-high
ragwort.” _
After a second viewing, whether
out of madness, inspiration or both,
they decided to put in an offer based
on what they could raise from selling Z
their own houses.
“At the time, we had horses and
needed somewhere with some land -- E
Higham has 25 acres,” says Patricia ‘ 
who is “amicably separated” from
her husband and was looking forward 
to a quiet retirement in her brand-
new, no-maintenance, four-bedroom
house. .
. Aslihings tL1I‘I1€'d out, however, the
-horses stand idly in the paddocks
and have not been ridden since the
doughty ladies moved into their new
4 Befin/e I moved in to
Higham Park the most
gardening I /mid done
she had to shimmy down a narrow
18th-century chimney breast. “The
opening was too narrow for either ‘
Patricia or Barry so they held on to
my hands and dropped me down the
10ft hole. They then fed the cables
down to me. I emerged later rather
dusty and cobwebby but otherwise
none the worse for wear.”
The only frightening experience
they have had was during a gale,
shortly after they bought the house.
The front doors blew open, starting a E
chain reaction that set all the other
windows banging and olattering.
Amanda was in the music-room,
wrestling with the heavy, mahogany
window casement when a strong gust E
blasted the window open, taking her
out with it and leaving her suspended 
10ft above a mass of brambles,
battered by the wind. Patricia had to
lean out and wrestle her friend back
in again.
igham Park has been the site
is of a grand home since 1520.
 A,  The p,r,e_sent building datesw
from 10768, with a later front addition
built in about 1805. The ground-floor
rooms have 15ft ceilings and are

a
mansion in October 1995. Instead, Z enormous; the music-room is 55ft
the two of them have spent their time E long, the dining-room 35ft. The two
stripping and painting walls and Z cheery women bounce around.,
ceilings, rewiring,7mending windows, E chattering about finding priest holes
laying dry-stone walls and even E and secret rooms and priceless dark
patching up holes in the 200-year-old Z green scagliola marble columns,
roof. “We’re just normal people on a E worth several thousand pounds each, 
budget so we have had to do a lot of ' under sickl ellow loss aint in the E

the restoration work ourselves,” says E entrance hall.
Patricia. “We watch DIY and E “We were in shock when we first
gardening programmes on television E moved in,” says Patricia. “We were
and then copy the techniques we’ve E living in the old coach house while we 
seen. , E were working on making the ground
They have engaged a stonemason . Z floor habitable. It had been home to
to help them restore the creamy E dozens of feral cats and stank to high 
Portland stone in the entrance hall E heaven. Our first winter’s heating bill 
and up the staircase, and a specialist : came to £8,000 and during that time
plasterer to advise them on the more E five radiators burst on us. '
intricate mouldings in the music and ' “When we got new ke s made for
,dining-rooms. » E the walk-in silver safe, each one of a .
In general, however, they have E set of four cost us £124, and when we- 5
tried much of the work themselves. E first lit the fire in the dining-room,
In part, this has been to  we b¢@S’~11s$t. and. fer the 5
~— they estimate that, to date, they 5 next four hours, burnt honey came 
have saved almost £500,000 111 labour : exploding down the chimney.”
costs. E There are two cottages on the
Mostly, though, they enjoy rolling - E estate which are being rented out to
up their sleeves and getting their Z tenants to help pay for the upkeep of
hands dirty. Amanda is particularly " E the house, as Patricia and Amanda
proud of her efforts rewiring the '0 Z have spentevery spare penny on
mansion’s ground floor, which meant  doing the place up. “We have been
very lucky in getting help -- local
farmers have lent us tractors and
machinery and lots of people drop off
plants for the garden,” says Amanda.
“The estate onceemployed people
from all the local villages and then,
after the war, it was a maternity
hospital, so many local people were
born here or else worked as nurses.
There is a great deal of affection for
the place.”
Count Louis Zborowski had been
a particularly generous lord of the
manor and, in 1920, gave the nearby
village of Bridge a fire engine that
did 65mph, an astonishing speed for
the time. When he died, four years
later, in the Italian Grand Prix he left
the princely sum of £2,000 to each of
his nine gardeners. , 1
Today, there is only Amanda and
Patricia and a part-time gardener to
look after the grounds. “Before I
moved in here the most gardening
I had done was to buy arose bush ‘ it
from Woolworths,” says Amanda. r
As with the house, however, their
»e;rpertise grew organically, bringing
more rewards. Underneath the scrub,
self-seeded trees and weeds, they
discovered an exquisite Italianate
water garden, designed by the
Edwardian landscape artist Harold
Peto, which they have now restored.
“Sometimes it’s like Christmas
coming every day,” says Amanda.
“You can strip off two inches of
concrete and find a floor in Portland ,
stone underneath, or hack back a
1950s fireplace surround to find an
original Adam fireplace. It’s what
everybody dreams of doing.
“Sornetirneswe do still get daunted
by what we have taken on- Under
normal circumstances, I should A I
probably be thinking about retiring
to a bungalow in the next few years,
but having such a lovely big place to
live in has really spoilt me.”
They have all but finished
restoring the ground floor. The two
upper floors, however, with 40 
bedrooms and bathrooms, have yet to
be touched. Here, the rooms are still
painted revolting hospital greens and
yellows; the plaster is crumbling
and wallpaper hangs in sheets from
the walls. V
“We are waiting on a grant from
Canterbury city council to help us
restore the roof. Despite our patching
work it needs to be completely
redone and we can’t afford to ‘do it .
ourselves,” says Patricia. “There’s
no point in tackling the upstairs
rooms‘ while the roof is still leaky.”
Fortunately, the house was built to
the highest possible specifications
and, despite the damp andneglect,
the floorboards are sound, the
mahogany window frames solid and
- the plaster mouldings intact, which
makes Patriciaand Amanda’s job
only difficult, not impossible.
As Patricia says: “It’s a lot more
fee than slipping into -gentle ‘
retirement.”
O H igham Park; and its gardens are
open through summer, Sunday to
Thursday, to help pay for further
restoration work. Telephone 01227
830850 for more information.
E.