Bay Hall, Hall Lane, Benington, Boston, Lincolnshire. £450k

This is my favourite of all the houses currently on the market.  I wish I was in a position to move there.  Bay Hall is listed grade ii* and is another rare property, like the one in Bridlington, with Vermeer type windows.  It is possibly the most cubic house you will ever come across.  The only drawback is that it is surrounded by tiny weeny, modernish bungaloids, like a swarm of ants surrounding an elephant.  But that isn’t much of a draw back, really.  Where else in the country could you find such rarity, such beauty, such strength of character and so much accommodation, 9 bedrooms, for so little money.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-67395823.html

I have drooled over the good taste in furniture and interior decorating of several houses I have looked at below, but this one gets full marks, so you won’t be surprised to learn that it belongs to an antique dealer, or two.

This is a very good house to study if you want to know how to decorate and furnish a period property with good taste. With the exception of the blue in the kitchen, see below, which is slightly too bright, the colour schemes are right for the light pouring in through the 17th century fenestration, not too cold, not gloomy. 

The mixture of simple, practical country furniture in the room with the range is just right, unpretentious. The logs stacked around the fire and the collection of copper pans make interesting 

decorations.  I do hope they don’t light the range when the logs are drying though.   We used to 

sometimes dry piles of wood beside the wood burner when it was lit, in the huge walk in fireplace in the Elizabethan hall, where I lived.  This was necessary because the house was beside a reservoir so 

needless to say it rained a great deal and the wood from the woods was often very wet.  Of course the 

story ends in a fire, which, fortunately, happened when we were all at home and able to put it out. 

All the reception rooms are beautifully furnished.  I hardly know which items to draw your attention to.  The rugs which are mellow and faded add subtlety to the interior scenes.  Fitted carpet can never work in the same way, to pull things together, fitted carpet makes old furniture look like pieces of 

Christmas pudding floating in a sea of cream or custard. Fitted carpets create disharmony by turning items of furniture that should relate too one another as a group, into self centred, isolated  individuals.  Having said all that, the room with the two Chesterfield chairs could do with a rosewood centre table

, or an old gate leg wake table in the middle with some flowers on it, in a 17th pottery jug. 

I can’t tell you what it is about the shade of blue in the kitchen that isn’t quite right and the shade of blue in the bathroom which makes it quite perfect.  The colour of the kitchen is a 1960s shade and because I have a memory of it in my grandmothers bungalow, though I don’t know where,  I can imagine exactly the smell of old fashioned varnish that goes with it. I don’t think I’d bother changing it, though.  The bathroom is wonderful.  I feel the need to paint something this colour in my house.  I like the idea of fielded the paneling behind the loo. 

The faded rose colour is beautiful in the room with the four poster bed.  This room combines the best of feminine and masculine strength and prettiness.  Wouldn’t you love to wake up in that room and look out through the curtains at the old rose walls, and view 

the mist rolling in from The Wash, knowing your ancient, masculine house had withstood all the weather that had been thrown at it over the centuries and would keep you safe? 

The land looks very light and sandy, you could grow carrots, instead of flowers and pretend you prefer them, like Uncle Monty. Otherwise you will have to go in for a good deal of compost making.