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Designing a Kitchen for Your Home Across the Weald and Sussex Coast
Drive twenty minutes in any direction from our Hawkhurst showroom and the housing changes completely. Toward Cranbrook, Goudhurst and Benenden, its weatherboarded cottages, converted oast houses and brick-and-tile Wealden farmhouses. Toward Tenterden and Rye, it's Georgian townhouses on cobbled streets. Down at the coast, Battle, Hastings, St Leonards, Bexhill, its Regency terraces and solid Victorian seaside villas. Three very different design briefs, all within the same catchment.
Here's how we think about it, property by property.
Oast houses and Wealden cottages: round rooms, low ceilings, real character
Converted oast houses are one of the most distinctive property types we design for, and also one of the trickiest. Round or part-round kitchens, curved walls, cowls and roundels that can’t move, and ceiling heights that vary wildly from one side of the room to the other. Standard straight-run cabinetry fights every one of those constraints.
What tends to work instead:
- Bespoke-cut end panels and curved corner units or breakfast bars, made to the actual radius of the room rather than a generic curve
- Lower, wider handles or handleless fronts where ceiling height drops toward the walls, so nothing catches at head height
- Warm, natural finishes: timber or stone look kitchen fronts that sits comfortably against original brick and exposed beams rather than fighting them
Weatherboarded cottages around Goudhurst, Benenden and Sissinghurst bring a related challenge: thick walls, small windows, and kitchens that are often single-aspect.
As with any period cottage, precision cabinetry earns its keep here. A German-built carcass with adjustable feet and hinges copes far better with a floor that’s moved over 200 years than off-the-shelf units designed for a perfectly square modern build.
Georgian townhouses in Tenterden and Rye: proportion is everything
Tenterden’s wide high street and Rye’s cobbled lanes are both full of tall, narrow Georgian townhouses – generous ceiling heights, elegant window proportions, and kitchens usually in a lower-ground or rear extension. The design challenge here isn’t space so much as making sure a new kitchen doesn’t undercut the formality of the rest of the house.
We’d usually look at:
- Fluted or shaker-style fronts that echo the joinery already in the house, in a German-made cabinet that keeps its lines sharp for decades rather than a traditional frame that will move with the building (Take a look at our hugely popular nolteneo fronts, or shaker-style ranges such as Chester, Lugano Lack and Torino Lack)
- Taller wall and larder units, sized against ceiling height rather than a standard height that leaves dead space above
- A quieter colour palette – muted greens, stone or soft blues that read as considered rather than a bold statement competing with cornicing and sash windows
Coastal terraces in Bexhill, Hastings and St Leonards: light, salt air and practical finishes
The Regency and Victorian terraces along the coast – Bexhill’s seafront squares, St Leonards’ stucco-fronted crescents, the steep streets of Hastings Old Town – bring a different set of considerations. Light is usually abundant, which is an asset, but proximity to the sea means finishes need to earn their keep against salt air and humidity as well as look right.
For these properties:
- Handleless or slim-profile fronts from our handleless kitchen range suit the cleaner Regency lines many of these houses already have
- Durable worktops and moisture-resistant cabinet carcasses matter more here than inland (Take a look at our durable anti-fingerprint finishes)
- Light, airy palettes make the most of the sea light many of these kitchens get, without tipping into stark
The one thing that doesn't change
Whatever the property – oast house, Georgian townhouse or coastal terrace – the starting point in our Hawkhurst showroom is the same: how the room actually gets used, day to day, before a single finish is chosen. Round oast kitchens, tall Georgian ones and bright coastal ones each solve that question differently, which is exactly why we start with a proper site survey rather than a standard layout.
If you’re planning a kitchen anywhere from Cranbrook to the Sussex coast, our designers at the Hawkhurst showroom would love to help you get it right.
Book a design appointment and bring whatever you’ve got: measurements, photos, half-formed ideas and we’ll take it from there.
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