History behind closed doors

Unpicking the past of a big old house

The eagled eyed of you will have noticed that name change - La Cruche means jug, and it was changed in the early part of the 20th century when “la cruche” became a rather rude way of referring to your wife! It’s now called Château de la Ruche - which means beehive. Our driveway is still called La Cruche on maps.

I always dreamt of a big house, I would gaze at them longingly from car windows as a child, stand in dusky London streets trying not to peer into windows as the lights came on in grand terraces, and search longingly through house listings wishing I had the money for a rambling country home.

It never occurred to me to ask myself why I wanted a big house, but I can’t remember a time I didn’t dream of a house in the countryside with gardens that stretched on all sides and old trees all around. I couldn’t explain why I dreamt of it, but every book I read seemed to be full of people who lived in big houses with libraries and dining rooms, who hosted grand parties and wore beautiful clothes. Perhaps there was some subconscious idea that a big house meant importance or achievement? But whatever the reason, I never thought about what I might do with all the rooms.

We tried to stretch into the house at first, spreading ourselves, thinly, through the endless rooms and corridors. After our four bedroom town house it felt vast, one room leading to another, door after door, hallways snaking from end-to-end. There were passageways through cupboards and two sets of stairs, which meant that you could be going up just as the person you were looking for was coming down.

There were 12 bedrooms scattered across three floors and three bathrooms that took it in turns to work, a tiny galley kitchen at one end of a large dining room, a tv room that looked like it might once have been a kitchen, a cavernous salon, a study next to a laundry room on completely the wrong side of the house, and attics that just kept going.